Brainwaves

The small room that serves as a dining area for the rescue mission was over-flowing this past Wednesday. The men know the drill. Every evening after dinner all but three tables are broken down, the floor gets mopped, and folding chairs are then once again introduced, about eight to a row, maybe ten rows deep, with an aisle created down the middle should anyone need to exit. Young men. Old men. Caucasian. Afro-American. Hispanic. The weather is warm enough now and most wear jeans and a t-shirt, maybe with a ball cap; but all are clean other than facial hair on half, ranging from full beard to just-haven’t-used-a-razor-lately. I like that administration is quite strict about them possessing a no-alcohol, drug-free mental awareness while there, but that’s not to say I think the majority is so addicted. In truth, on almost any occasion we are privileged to visit with them, these fellows don’t just sit there out of payment for items received. They worship with us…..

That doesn’t mean, though, that I find them resembling an “ordinary” congregation. Filling the pews most any Sunday morning elsewhere is a church full of like-minded, denominationally indoctrinated individuals who do not always see eye-to-eye on how to run their affairs, but who, for an hour or so, are willing to put differences aside for the sake of fellowship. In this arena, it’s much the same other than we have a melting pot. Whether currently active in an assembly or not, these guys aren’t strangers to the Gospel. Some are, no doubt, atheists. The possibility of there being a Muslim or two in our midst is quite likely. Most have a religious history that fits into their thinking; and, on any given night, right here, get fed who knows what theology. Nobody gave me a “King James only, no tongue-talking” instruction sheet when we signed up for this ministry; and I assume, if they took us, they’ll take anybody. Methodist, Baptist, Church of Christ-it all comes together in the altar call, I suppose.....

This time out, however, as I sat there listening to Bob share with them, from behind me, in low guttural tones, a voice kept repeating the filthiest profanity, as if the mind issuing the flow was trapped within the flow. Demon-possessed? Schizophrenic? I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you both scenarios came to me. He wasn’t disturbing anyone and there didn’t appear to be any need to jump up and confront the situation. Indeed, my options seemed clear: silent prayer simply putting the matter into God’s hands. I am aware that most no longer view the first diagnosis in terms of having reasonable validation; but, having encountered it at least once in my walk, I believe. That is not to say I go around looking for it, only to note that I’ve learned my lesson. No matter which, or what, was happening here, my reaction was to trust the Holy Ghost in me and to realize my Father was in control. With all my concerns transferred on high, I returned to my friend’s heart coming forth and we had “church”…..

“They meet as well as diverge, our stories and Christ’s, and even when they diverge, it is His that they diverge from, so that by His absence as well as by His presence in our lives, we know who He is and who we are and who we are not”…F. Buechner

Wednesday evening Bob and I once again shared with the men at the rescue mission. I hate speaking of the event in terms of our having ministered “to” these fellows. We sing a couple of hymns “with” them, share our testimonies with-”out” trying to force-feed them Scripture, and “join” them in prayer afterwards. Still, in walking away, I’m always questioning if such event isn’t conducted more out my own vanity than it is out of a concern for those with-“in” the congregation. Is it wrong that I enjoy our visit? Wouldn’t we accomplish much more if we were involved in meeting their physical needs? I find myself continually being taken in this mental examination, though, back to the truth that this is the door that was opened unto me, this is the place where God would have me; and, in that, I find rest……

Thursday morning I finally figured out the technology and was able to listen, via the internet, to a bit of a friend’s testimony recently shared over a local radio station. By that, I mean local to her. She lives in Canada, in an area that I would consider not only remote, but also as being subject to extreme weather conditions. She grew up there, though, subject to things worse than the weather. Her parents suffered with alcoholism and her childhood suffered, then, with what such addiction can bring to those years. Even worse-enough emotional baggage went with her into her own marriage that it took a surrender unto Christ to finally find peace. Everything did not simply turn overnight into Eden, of course. It has been a journey, requiring determination and honesty of all; but, as a family, they’re making it……

The above lady, a few weeks ago, led me to the blog of an Episcopalian minister who has been feeding my soul ever since with stories of his life serving at a church/soup-kitchen/outreach, all of which is known to me only as “Under the Overpass”. His identity remains a mystery and the location, I assume, is somewhere in the Mid-West (due to his mention of enjoying the sound of wind blowing through the wheat fields). After reading a couple of his descriptions about life as it within such calling, however, I suggested to him that his anonymity doesn’t stem from “self” wishing no one to know him, as a man of the cloth, to be so prone to human nature, but from a Christ-owned spirit that sought no glory in what he did. He replied that his wife would be glad to enlighten me as to how human he was. I remain convinced of my own judgment……

It is not some manufactured “Christ-like” appearance that speaks to me, but someone who, in the attempt to reach such goal, remains aware of just how short they come……

The last couple of days have had me tied up in one way or another. One of Beth’s sister-in-laws was rushed to the hospital Sunday night suffering with pneumonia and we were already scheduled to transport an ex-sister-in-law battling Lupus back and forth Monday to her two doctor’s appointments. Between checking on the first to make sure her needs were met and assisting the second in her emergency, it was like a game of checkers up until late afternoon. Tuesday, then, we found ourselves at war with a bunch of uninvited intruders that hitched a ride into our home via the mutt. We knew he had fleas, but figured the Frontline application would address the problem. The groomer, however, having bathed and shaven him down to the nub, handed him back to us yesterday with advice to bomb the house. Neither of us had yet noticed any infestation of the little critters, but we took her at her word and immediately began purging the premises. It’s the smartest dog I’ve had since the one I knew as a kid; so, hopefully, we have the situation under control…..

Ron’s latest report on his Mustard Seed adventures had me recalling my own attachment to an inner city work in Cincinnati. We resembled “church” as most might think of it, however, and I get the opinion that this Canadian outreach is more of a soup kitchen/coffee house with a worship team that doesn’t just sing “Amazing Grace”. Either way: people are people and it is never as much about format as it is about His presence meeting us where we are. It matters not whether you’re teaching Sunday school, singing a solo inside a glass cathedral, or simply trying to minister to the homeless, it is His reality that breathes life into the effort; and, until that happens, what you’ve got is just works. One man’s sacrifice is received; another man’s is not. I’m prone to think it had little to do with what each offered. God knows the heart….

Buechner said “The Kingdom comes by looking for it” and, by that, means there must be a desire on our part, a thirst to know Him as He is. Buechner also says, though, that it comes by “not looking for it too hard”. I have been among those who think it possible to force the issue and only end up with a counterfeit copy they, themselves, have created. So when the author completes his theological point with the third idea “Sometimes the Kingdom comes by it looking for you”, the only part I might change is the first word, since it has been my experience that “most”-times such is the case. Our walk with Christ is promised a confirmation of the Gospel’s claim of a “living” Savior, a manifestation of His reality, but I've found that, often as not, it occurs while you're in the middle of reaching out to others or trying hard to get the bugs out of your own house….

Our Sunday school lesson yesterday was an initial step into the Book of Revelation, a study that the teacher promises will not be some grand excursion into eschatology, but nonetheless one that has already brought reference to some literature written by David Wilkerson. With his roots in old-time holiness, this author has long deemed our nation on the brink of judgment, an opinion I’m familiar with, since there’s a small paperback copy of his “Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth” that has occupied space on my book shelf for many years. Written in 1985, it foretells of America not surviving sudden calamity. Banks closing. Financial institutes crumbling. The economy completely out of control. Panic among all oil producers, shippers ,and all nations dependant upon that source of fuel. He equates the country, with its “corrupt society and whorish church system”, to Biblical Babylon; and one of the verses he utilizes in his cry of “woe unto thee” reads: “these two things shall come to thee in a moment, in one day: the loss of children, and widowhood”. Current events certainly give me pause as to whether or not his warning might not have been divinely inspired; but, even if so, I find it “breathed” through an earthen vessel and therefore subject to more examination before being swallowed…..

While some may pronounce me backslidden or guilty of heresy, that last statement is, nonetheless, my view concerning the Holy Word. Do I believe it to be God-given and spoken unto whomsoever? I do; but I also accept it as having been channeled through humanity and therefore tainted by the same element on this end of the transfer. It has nothing to do with disbelief in its potential to provide me with the mind of Christ, but has everything to do with my own ability to insert my ego into the interpretation. I do not trust me. I do not trust the guy in the pulpit no matter how many degrees he holds, no matter how much he speaks in tongues. Scripture gives me foundation, but life and an attempt to follow what appears to be His tug on my heart have so far been my best teachers. My faith is in those things He has proven unto me, not someone else’s slant on Scripture. I listen, but find the proof is always in the pudding. It is the Holy Ghost, in me, in you, within the pages, connecting heaven and earth, the assurance of all that the Gospel gives promise of. The fullness of what is yet to be can remain a mystery to yet be grasped as it unfolds itself unto us; but I want Him in my next step, His hand in my hand as I journey through the veil…..

While Beth and the youngest daughter shopped Sam’s Thursday evening, out of boredom I picked up a book off their rack and began to investigate its content. Whatever else the author had in mind when he titled his work “Lord, Save Us from Your Followers”, a financial profit had to be in there in there somewhere, but a skimming of the first chapter only prompted me to visit You-Tube a little later. Dan Merchant claims to be “just looking for a bit of dialogue in a society divided by culture wars”. To accomplish his mission, he dresses in a white paint suit covered with a multitude of bumper-stickers and fish insignia, walks the streets of cities all across this nation letting the suit speak for itself, and then, without thumping the Gospel or arguing theology, asks a few questions of those who take the bait, records their answers, and moves on to the next encounter…..

His background appears to be Lutheran, but his view of the Church in general has it evolved, for the most part, into individual dogmatic denominational units of “us versus them”. Our theology is no more than a tunnel-vision version of the Book cemented into our brains and we are unable to hold a conversation concerning our faith without becoming aggressive. It’s called witnessing and equates to “God’s army on an assigned mission”. I’m familiar, of course, with the image that might present, but sidewalk preachers and door-to-door evangelists aren’t his only focus. Taking it a step farther, he feels it is no less “in your face” when the average pew warmer, in avoiding confrontation, shares their opinionated faith by plastering it either across their chest or the rear end of their car, “sticking it” to whomever with a “like it or lump it” attitude, and then going their own way with no encounter whatsoever…..

One might well debate his own approach, of course, except there is no attempt to proselytize anyone, no outreach other than that already stated. He claims it’s all about establishing some vocabulary between the religious right, the religious left, and anybody else who wishes to sit down at the table. To me, it’s just another gimmick using Christianity as a meal ticket; but it is interesting, I admit, to hear how people from all walks describe us from their perspective., so I’m ending this post as follows: Here are two of his queries. Answer each, honestly, with the first thing that comes to mind, completing the first before looking at the second; and the second without changing either when you insert them into the comments. There is no wrong response. Okay?.....

Numero uno:
What is one thing that Jesus is known for?

Numero dos:
What is one thing that christians are known for?

We were watching a Hallmark presentation Tuesday evening. Beth was on the sofa and I was stretched out in the recliner when a small, black spider ran down the living room wall right behind her head. My initial reaction to its intrusion was to merely ask “What was that?” Her feminine sense of mental telepathy immediately brought her to her feet, however, seeking escape and demanding of me to exterminate whatEVER it was. Obedient husband that I am, I pulled the couch away from the wall, located the little feller, and accomplished that very deed; but, while back there on the expedition, I also discovered a couple of items on the floor that one of the younger grandkids had somehow managed to lose. Bending over to get them was no problem; but, in coming back up, I caught only blurred vision of that shelf that’s been there forever, recoiled to avoid it, and, instead, butted my head into the corner of it. Ouch! It was only a scratch, yet painful and a lesson I’ve never quite learned. The object is right there in front of you, you know it’s there, but when you react to the realization of it coming into focus, you go forward rather than backwards, unconsciously using your skull like a ball-peen hammer....

There ARE other ways, however, that our brain and our eyesight miscue. My first time on the golf course, on about the fourth hole, someone shouted “Fore!”, I turned and just stood there mesmerized, watching that incoming ball until it exploded into my upper arm. On another occasion, I threw my hot, blue Mustang into reverse, ignorantly burned rubber across the parking lot, and slammed my bumper into a flag pole I was looking right at but staring right through. Granted: most people probably don’t possess my degree of stupidity; but I think that “blindness” is common to most of us, and in more ways than one.....

Last night was the initial lesson of our mid-week Bible study of the Gospel of Mark. We watched a short video, listened as our shepherd “filled in the blanks” of questions asked in the book, and then finally utilized the last thirty minutes or so for discussion. When pastor noted that, even though we’re all reading the same Bible, our individual journeys give us different perspectives, I agreed, but was, as always, dissatisfied with how we, as a body, seem content to leave the view the story in historical terms. If the reality of His resurrection is not confirmed unto us today, in a way that all doubt can be tossed aside concerning the promise, then all we do actually have is a bound copy of chapter and verse. I’ll concede that there’s a lot of nonsense out there, counterfeit imitations of the real deal, but that’s all part of learning as we go. Give me His rod and His staff, and an occasional thump in my cognitive reasoning…..

I discovered the following this morning while enjoying that quiet space before the rest of the house comes out of hibernation. It is the December 22nd entry in a Frederick Buechner devotional entitled "Listening to Your Life". It seemed a good addendum to my last couple of posts.

"I do not believe that such groups as these which I found my way to not long after returning from Wheaton, or Alcoholic Anonymous, which is the group they all grew out of, are perfect any more than anything human is perfect, but I believe that the Church has an enormous amount to learn from them. I also believe that what goes on in them is far closer to what Christ meant His Church to be, and what it originally was, than much of what goes on in most churches I know. These groups have no buildings or official leadership or money. They have no rummage sales, no altar guilds, no every-member canvases. They have no preachers, no choirs, no liturgy, no real estate. They have no creeds. They have no program. They make you wonder if the best thing that could happen to many a church might not be to have its building burn down and to lose all its money. Then all that the people would have left would be God and each other.

The church often bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the dysfunctional family. There is the authoritarian presence of the minister-the professional who knows all of the answers and calls most of the shots-whom few ever challenge, either because they don't dare to or because they feel it would do no good if they did. There is the outward camaraderie and inward lonliness of the congregation. There are the unspoken rules and hidden agendas, the doubts and disagreements that, for propriety's sake, are kept more or less under cover. There are people with all sorts of enthusiasms and creativities which are not often enough made use of or even recognized because the tendency is not to rock the boat, but to keep on doing things the way they have always been done."

After reading my last post, Wayne asked if I was “more comfortable” in the pew these days. If so, it has nothing to do with my view of the present-day status of the Church in general. A couple of years ago, I saw a fellow at the mall wearing a ball cap announcing himself to be a Viet Nam veteran. Nothing so strange about that. I wear one, myself, that so labels me with the Navy. Beneath those three words on his, though, was also stitched: “When I left, we were winning!” Whether he meant that to be a political statement or not is beyond me; but should my earthly departure be anytime soon, I’m not so sure I could say the same regarding Christianity as an ecclesiastical institution purposed to reach the world. We may be walking converts through the front door; but, in arming them merely with our doctrinal version of the Book rather than the reality of what Jesus brings to us via the Cross, what we don’t lose out the back door is “community” more than it is an “army”.....

I’m not saying we can’t know the Spirit in such gathering, or demanding we all need to be out thumping our Bible on some street corner; but I do sometimes wonder how much we resemble what Jesus had in mind when He uttered “Upon this rock”. Indeed, I have a hard time believing the Church, as it exists, constitutes a foe against which “the gates of hell shall not prevail”. The following is something I wrote more than two years ago, just recently re-discovered tucked between the pages of an old read; and, while it was meant to express my view of a personal commitment to the faith, it applies as well to the Body as a whole:

“Conversion, if it does anything, ought to confirm itself in my life. If Jesus indeed lives in me via a Holy Ghost indwelling, then such fact ought to manifest itself and reveal the Gospel. What I have received via this covenant established with God ought to be evident, not only unto me, but also unto others as the journey continues. Faith isn’t a matter of me creating something from nothing. It is the Almighty in me, proving Himself as I go. Who and what I am in Christ is not determined by my will, but His. He is my father; He is not my fancy; and this far into our relationship, it yet remains a work of grace.”

Whether corporately or independently, we stumble and we have our struggles. Humanity remains humanity. In either scenario, victory is in a surrender unto Him, not in another program, another seminar, another promise…..

i

“Either we climb down into the abyss willingly, with our eyes open, or we risk falling into it with our eyes closed - a point on which religion and psychiatry seem to agree.”.....Frederick Buechner, “Confusion of Face”

Wednesday evening, just as I was ready to walk out our front door and drive to our midweek service, the local emergency broadcast system suddenly gave warning that the weather outside was more than merely the minor amount of rainfall we knew but a few moments ago. Looking through the window, I found trees hysterically dancing in the wind, huge displays of lightening strikes skipping across the sky, thunder claps exploding as if someone was bombing the neighborhood, and a small torrential river of water flowing down the slope of our street toward the creek. For more than thirty minutes, I watched while the weatherman showed us Doplar representation of many whirling masses whose intensity increased as they went; but, when all was quite on the Northern Kentucky front, no actual tornadoes had touched down. A few houses down by the road and a small nearby church had flooded basements. Photographers showed up for about an hour taking pictures of the aftermath...

There’s a certain portion of Scripture found in the Book of Revelation that’s long given me reason enough to pause and take a good look at Christianity in its present form. Anything in that section of your Bible, of course, suggests mystery beyond a man’s ability to fully comprehend. When John writes, under an anointing, though, of a prostitute that sits “upon many waters, with whom the kinds of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication”, I can make no other sense of it other than to equate it unto a personification of the Church. Such image is said to actually be a great city, Babylon by name, and old-time Holiness preached it as being the Vatican; but if I ever really believed that, it became clear to me along the way that corruption isn’t denominationally exclusive. What I question is God’s command for His people to “Come out of her”. With everything that’s blowing out there, where do you go?...

Even as I voice such interrogative, I well realize that there are many who are very satisfied with their religious affiliation. My good buddy, Wayne, writes of his own experience within Catholicism and his journey has fed my soul. There’s a new link posted on my sidebar that will take you to “Under the Overpass”, a minister who’s reaching out to the inner city in a way that touched my heart. So, maybe it is not a matter of seeking some certain location, but of following His voice as He leads us through all of the nonsense men have brought into the program. If we have indeed arrived at some prophetical point where God’s judgment is going to shake the very foundations of the ecclesiastical house that man has built, yet there is assurance in Him. If atmospheric disturbances are as much a part of “church” as anything else, then let it be known that a man can have peace in the midst of the storm. I’ll leave the ship and abandon the pew only by His tug at my heart…

One of the Biblical verses we examined in regards to hypocrisy this past weekend was Acts 24:16, where the Apostle Paul, in defending his cause unto the governor of Caesarea, avowed how he exercised himself to “always have a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men”. That certainly sounds worthy enough for us, as believers, to imitate; but, as I asked the class, what exactly does that imply? Alice, while wandering through Wonderland, once quizzed Humpty Dumpty over his use of a particular term; and, when they quibbled about his right to so assign a personal definition to a word, the puffed-up, animated egg-head said that the only question in that matter concerned which was to be master: Language? Or the one who brought it forth? My point in quizzing those there in the room, however, was not about gaining a dictionary explanation of “conscience”, but about giving them pause as to whether their sense of morality being free from guilt actually held any concrete status other than their own pronouncement of such state…..

Theologians have long divided the Scriptural account of God’s relationship with humanity into seven over-lapping, dispensational segments that reflect His manner of “allowing people to be people”. In the Garden, of course, man was pronounced innocent before Adam rebelled and rejected his Creator’s blessing; but henceforth, or at least until Noah climbed aboard the ark under a forecast for heavy rain, those early members of society lived by their individual, mental ethics. We know them only by one chapter within the Book and, therein, merely by a long list of “so-and-so begat so-and-so”; but we are immediately informed afterwards that God wasn’t at all pleased with where humanity’s moral navigation had taken them. Permitting one of the original bunch to ride out the storm, however, seems to indicate a flood wasn’t intended to do anything other than give Him fresh approach to the problem. Conscience was still alive. Now, though, we were to learn we’re no better at being righteous as a self-governed community than we were as separate units…..

So it has proven to be with every phase of this divinely appointed journey. If our having no conscience designates us as psychopaths, possessing one doesn’t always mean it is anchored in Him. What we believe about what we do and who we are can have evolved out of nothing more than that which has been fed into our thinking by our parents, the church as we have experienced it, and the world around us; and, in sorting it all out, I want better than someone else’s ecclesiastical viewpoint when it comes down to the nitty-gritty. It’s not enough for me to read it in print. While you might give me something to chew on and process, it will not be swallowed until it gets approved by more than just your witness. I walk by life as it comes to me, by faith in what He has already proven unto me, and by such truth as He gives to me each time I stumble upon His oasis. Trying to illustrate that latter portion to those around me, I utilized a scene from an old movie and brought left fingertip to meet right fingertip. “E.T. phone home”, I said; “It’s as simple as that!”…..

For the last two years, we have turned our sanctuary over to a local biker group on Sunday evenings; and, this weekend being their second annual reach-out, our pastor asked the minister who is their shepherd to speak to us. It was no sermon, in terms of his having forged a message out of chapter and verse. His silver beard and moustache blended well with his hair pulled back into a single braid hanging nearly to his waist. On his right bicep was a large tattoo, quite visible since there were no sleeves on his shirt. Denims, boots, and a fancy belt buckle completed the image. When he talked, however, any perception of him being some rough, tough, hogger with a chip on his shoulder was mentally erased. If he was yet passionate about Harleys, such love now took second place to another that had captured his heart along the way…..

In introducing him, Terry spoke of different cultures existing within our society and how, if we would but take time to investigate, we would find that people are people in spite of those things which tend to identify us as individuals. Then, in speaking of his acquaintance with this fellow, he noted that, while character is often altered in Christ, he thought personality to perhaps be genetically wired into us at birth. His foundation for such belief was laid in witnessing his own daughters, right from early age, exhibit two completely opposite natures. Whether that truth can be taken to the extremes that some wish is another matter, but it seems to me that, even if we ARE programmed to hold certain inclinations wherein we vary one from the other, the fact is: we all, also, face the same struggles with our humanity. It aint easy being green…..

Invited to present a portion of the Sunday school lesson this past weekend, I used an Adlai Stevenson quote to define the topic. “Hypocrisy,” he said, “is a politician who cuts down a redwood and then mounts the stump to give a speech on conservation.” Everyone smiled. Everyone was familiar with the accusation as Jesus once pinned it on the Pharisees. Had anyone in the room ever looked at someone else and mentally, at least, so classified the person in such terms? Again, facial expressions gave me my answer. An almost audible gasp, though, came forth when I asked if anyone had ever directed such label at them. Christ, after all, referred to the condition as being a kind of “religious leaven” that puffs us up in our own righteousness. All it takes is a Book and a membership card minus the Holy Ghost check-ups…..

Teachers, like the rest of us, come in various personalities; so the tale told here is, in no way, meant to suggest anything other than the humor that children can bring to life with their propensity to tell it just like it is. With that said, let it be known that one of our school’s music instructors is a rather petite woman who believes the first order of business in such a relationship with young students is: maintaining order. Probably a good approach; but I laughed to hear that one of the First Grades classes, when asked the other day what they had learned this year in Art, gave various answers like: “Red and yellow make orange! How to make a mask! Some of the colors are hot and some are cool!” Good response; but when likewise queried as to what knowledge they had acquired in Music, three in the group, both immediately and simultaneously raised their hands and shouted: “How to be quiet!”…..

Authority. Some of us seem to grasp at an early age how it works. None of us enjoy it if it abuses our sense of freedom. David, over at Naked Pastor, keeps sparking heated discussion over his desire to experience a form of ecclesiastical community without all the “complications of structure, institution, government, mores, politics, laws, hierarchy, expectations, agendas, and goals” that fuel religion and destroy one’s faith along the way. He isn’t interested in the future of his denominational organization. His heart is for people; and, if love be all, then it ought to embrace without demanding the sheep be brainwashed and branded. I can appreciate the sentiments. Any time men package the product, however, it always increasingly involves the accumulation of the above; and it matters not the name over the door. It’s who we are. Allowing Him to be who He is in the middle of it all is Christianity as it ought to be…..

Our last week of school was filled with more than the normal anxieties of knowing summer vacation was about to be a reality. Rumors had somehow escaped a closed-door meeting of the powers that be and, while nothing official had yet been released on the matter, there were few who didn’t know of changes being made that affected present job conditions. Panic ensued. Some threatened to quit. Management wasn’t happy. Truthfully, though, while the move to another unit was unexpected, it didn’t surprise me at all when they requested me to assume the Third Grade boy as a one-on-one assignment next August. I like the team with whom I’ve travelled this year, but am quite familiar with this other bunch, the room actually the one where I first started this journey in Special-Ed. If the adventure has its moments, it still seems a privilege God has set before me; so sign me up for another go…..

In “Teaching a Stone to Talk”, Annie Dillard devotes the last portion of the book to an experience once shared with a child, possibly her niece. The little girl is nine; she is thirty-five; and the story takes place at a cabin rented somewhere within that long stretch of the Appalachians, mid-July, just the two of them on an annual outing that always ends too soon. It is a tale told from the perspective of how life changes us as we go and how each individual slice that comes to us, therefore, needs to be caught, because memories are really all we get to retain; and, as the journey picks up speed, even memories are too prone to become blurred if we don’t squeeze as much of the present as we can into mental snapshots for safe-keeping…..

Monday afternoon I walked the graveyard talking to ghosts. My dad and just about all the older folk on both sides of the family tree are buried there, scattered all over one particular hillside, headstones hidden beneath the mower’s grass clippings. It’s always an effort to find them; always there are a few that escape me; and, yet, only going once or twice a year pushes me to try. Each, after all, is a part of me, a point in time to which I am connected; and, like that old man in the opening and closing scenes of “Saving Private Ryan”, tears fill my eyes as I express a bond not voiced so well when they were alive, a questioning of whether my years have failed what they invested into me…..

It’s not that they, collectively, achieved great goals or were any less human than I. It’s not that, in looking back, my existence has been some horrible mistake. You do what you can do; you meet each day as it comes; you stumble much too often in the process. In the end, though, it is those relationships once held with others that are so dear to your heart. Small, seemingly insignificant events, moments shared along the way, somehow stick with you, love overcoming personalities and opinions that fail to agree. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, people not unlike others encountered through the years. These, however, were “my” people. Few were church-goers; but they can face God for themselves with whatever theology they had. I just miss them…..

Over on Jesus Creed, one of Scot’s readers asked how to respond to her eleven year old daughter concerning God’s wrath as it is illustrated in the Old Testament. Some of the answers offered by the large group of followers of that site are representative, I suppose, of what one usually hears whenever such question is raised. The little girl struggled with mass homicide being divinely required because of one man’s sin; but the idea of genocide being a commandment and a proper way to dispose of enemies wasn’t discussed. There was, however, a suggestion for this mother to just abandon the front of the Book. What she was to do with the demise of Ananais and Sapphira is beyond me; but my personal favorites were: (a) resignation to the truth that, since “the Judge of all the earth” cannot be wrong, we, as believers, ought not be troubled over Biblical account; and (b) patience brings maturity; or, in other words, her child will outgrow her distrust and eventually come to faith……

Scripture, itself, of course, is but another item on a long list of doctrinal issues that, within Christianity, can be taken to the extreme in either direction. There are those who label it infallible, setting chapter and verse in concrete once they have reduced it to their own understanding. There are others who have no problem with ignoring certain portions since, once you admit to inspiration, having been funneled through a man’s mind, being subject to imperfection, the tendency is, again, to re-write the Gospel in your own terms. Place me in whatever category you wish, but I long ago determined, as my explanation to the puzzle posed, that the Jews may well have, as a nation, pointed to Jehova as being the authority for such violent extermination of people when, in reality, it came forth out of nothing more than their own reasoning. It is, after all, the nature of the beast; and I’ve seen too many supposedly “speaking in the Holy Ghost” whose words fell short along the way…..

I sat in a Sunday school class this morning where the lesson dealt with our having, as believers, “purity” in our walk. The teacher equated that with maintaining those things set forth in THE Word. Just before we left, I noted that the term means to be single, or “unpolluted by other substances” and that it was a good bet none of us in the room would pronounce ourselves as existing in such a state. For me, then, what the Creator expects of us is a mind determined to know His voice in our life. Not a theology beyond adjustment, held together by an opinion that long ago decided we had it all figured out. Rather a faith continually renewed by a stepping through the veil and meeting Him “face to face”. That’s what I taught my three daughters; and that’s what I desire for my grandkids. The rest will evolve as they go. It remains a journey individually accomplished as we look to Him…..

Wednesday evening’s service at the rescue mission was special for several reasons. Its message, divinely pieced together through the testimonies of three men who knew not the other’s heart beforehand, dealt with the idea that, while life may indeed bring to us tragedy and discouragement, God is a strength and a peace unto us in the middle of all. It was a word of hope, meant to encourage desperate men that “Christ in me” isn’t just a promise unto the multitude who occupy a pew on any given Sunday, a word of truth, suggesting that even the “saved” struggle with questions, and a word of invitation that simply said the only requirement in this was a heart surrendered to Him. We closed in communal prayer, seeking no public statements of faith, trusting in His ability to meet the needs of those who were there…..

Afterwards, almost always, a few come forward with conversation, sharing viewpoints on something we’ve shared, showing gratitude for our being there, asking for individual petition regarding a problem they face. On this occasion, however, one fellow left me in dilemma. Earlier, within my segment, I had told these men of my stepfather’s death two decades ago from liver cancer and now this gentleman wanted to know how quickly he had passed after being diagnosed. When I answered “three weeks”, a tear ran down his cheek. He had just been given a year with the same condition. If the facts as they were cut deeply into his emotional stability, though, he made it clear that he didn’t want any continued conversation regarding such state. Whether he blamed God, blamed himself, or just counted it dumb luck, I know not. He turned and left…..

Pat. His name was Pat. He’s had my thoughts since; but I realize our meeting going as it did doesn’t necessarily encompass the whole story. The event, as it played out, in no way signifies failure on my part nor denotes damnation unto him. He’s not the first to wrestle with the journey. I’m not the solution to every problem I encounter. This is, as far as I’m concerned, a day by day walk with the Holy Ghost for both the unsaved and the saved, the tug on our heart perhaps being different as to what He would have us to do, but ever embracing the need for us to submit to “Not my will, but Thine”. We are all in this together; and yet, having been utilized in whatever manner, I can now do no more than petition from a distance, believing God has not abandoned hope. It remains, like all things, in His hands and our choice as we go…..

This Wednesday evening we visit the rescue mission once again and so my thoughts begin to rummage through the cluttered mess that always occupies my mental desk. I approach such outreach much as I do this blog, not all that struck by some individual revelation, but as if I were piecing together a puzzle and hoping that, like David with his slingshot, if I just fill my bag with a few smooth stones, the Holy Ghost will meet me in the effort. It’s not a matter of developing chapter and verse into a thirty minute sermon. My intention is not to impress anybody with my knowledge of the Bible, but to simply share Christ as I have found Him in the journey. Something as every day as the woman in the school cafeteria being depressed over her forty-fifth and my telling her she need only to remember a lot of people didn’t get that far…..

I believe that; and I find that it attaches itself to my perspective of just what the Bible means when it speaks of God’s people perishing without vision. That particular portion of Scripture doesn’t refer to chasing some pastor’s dream supposedly appointed him by the Almighty, but to possessing, both as individuals and as a body, an understanding of His voice in our present circumstances. That reality, after all, is what has been given us through the Cross. The past is ours only in lessons hopefully learned along the way and the future belongs to Him. While He may, indeed, birth within us a goal to be achieved, the best way to reach it is by resting in Him right where we are, relaxing in who we are, if not in what we are, and trusting Him to be who He is, the “I am that I am” within that which we surrender unto His hands. It works better that way…..

There’s a story in the Gospels of a man of a man in need of healing who was taken to a roof and lowered down to Jesus by his friends when rumors spread of His being “in the house”. I used to think the account centered on those last three words; but, as the years passed, I began to realize that, while the phrase is important in its actuality having been accomplished in our life, its significance really hinges on whether the “house“, at times, finds itself “in” Him. We have no option in this. The next breath takes us forward. Yet, while He has promised to go with us, how well we know Him in that next step tends to depend on how much we have experienced His reality. Faith is not a product I, myself, create, but one He creates within me as I invite His presence to meet me in the way. He proves Himself as we go if I but give the reins unto Him…..

Six years ago, sitting in the principal’s office and discussing the idea of my working with a young autistic boy in Special-Ed, I was not all that enthused. The condition was a term not in my vocabulary and my greatest fear was that perhaps I wouldn’t be able to communicate with him. That proved to be an erroneous assumption on my part, although, as I’ve learned along the way, the label covers a wide spectrum of behavior. Just who “is” and who “isn’t” is still a mystery to me; but this year there have been two within our unit who, in my mind, anyhow, who “fit the category”: one-a Fifth Grade over-grown leprechaun, full of mischief, but void of anything even resembling a temper; the other-a Third Grader who demands you meet his fancy and is not beyond making that fact known via a physical display of anger. It is beyond me why, the last six weeks or so, he has taken a particular liking to me, gives me no problems whatsoever, but woe be unto anyone else who approaches him. I’ve become a bribe, the prize to be won if he humbles himself to any task assigned. Good strategy? Who knows? We operate one day at a time. With a plan, of course, but one that remains subject to change as we go…..

Over on Naked Pastor’s site, there’s a bit of a debate being waged concerning his opinion that a Christian community needs to examine its vision. Actually, he stated that the latter “corrupts” our unity and immediately people brought rebuke, failing to grasp his meaning that what too many profess to possess is often nothing more than their ego chasing its own fancy. One fellow, however, found witness in the author’s words and his comment spoke to me so strongly that I post it, in part, here. “When we are consumed with an ideal,” he said; “it becomes very easy to be discontent with a reality. When we are focused on creating perfection, it becomes easy to overlook or deny imperfection. When we are obsessed with an end-goal, it becomes too easy to disregard or toss aside anything (and more likely, anyone) standing in the way of that goal–even when the circumstances change.” Right on! At least, in my opinion. Seeing where we’re going, as believers, is always, at best, a step taken through a veil following an inner tug on our heart. Give me, therefore, a leader who recognizes that God verifies the journey as we go…..

”Experience has taught the race that, if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means, but the condition in which the means operates. You do not have to do these things; not at all. God does not, I regret to report, give a hoot. You do not have to do these things-unless you ant to know God. They work on you, not on Him. You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. The stars, though, neither require nor demand it”….Annie Dillard, “Teaching a Stone to Talk”

The lady is not a preacher, but a naturalist and a writer of fiction. I’d even go so far as to suggest that she’s not a believer, at least in the sense of her having had an encounter with Christ. Nonetheless, she’s one of my favorite authors, refusing to abandon the idea of a Creator even though the Church (or I probably should say religion in general) gives her much reason to scratch her head about the matter. To put it in simple terms: she just tells it like it is. In this chapter I’m currently re-reading, she points out the comedy that our humanity brings to our ritualistic endeavors and compares it to early expeditions to the Earth’s poles. I have enjoyed the humor that can, indeed, be found in such analogy, but would beg to differ with her when she likens God unto a certain “Point of Relative Inaccessibility”. History proves both scenarios able to be conquered when men follow truth with a bit more than their egos…..

With thirty-seven years of more than just “fill-a-pew” involvement in the Pentecostal denomination, I can testify to laughter being part of the journey. There’s the night that one preacher, so excited that he miscued with his diction, shouted into his microphone for the congregation to “Praise the Gourd!” My wife could tell you about another who once invited people to get in line for a disease. One of the deacons at my old assembly, after counting ballots at a hot business meeting concerning the election of a new pastor, asked those present if they wanted to take a vote to see if they would “accept the vote”; and there is still a smile attached to my memories of one old saint who stood to request prayer for her “cranky, unloving husband” one morning, not knowing he was seated a mere three or four rows right behind her. Ms. Dillard, however, refers to far more than our ability to so amuse each other…..

Our expedition is not into some frozen wilderness with little wisdom in what we take in order to survive. We merely step through an outer foyer into an inner sanctuary; but she is quite correct when she finds that event often accomplished with little or no regard for such space supposedly being holy ground. We stumble through our programs week after week as if the promise of His presence actually coming forth to meet us in some manner has long been lost along the way; and there, of course, is the problem. It’s not that He has left us, but that we have forgotten the Reality and merely attempt to rehearse the routine. It’s not that He is unwilling to sit down with us in the garden, but that we have occupied ourselves with silliness and neglected the soil. If, from time to time, we catch His voice, feel the breeze as He passes by, it’s become so much easier to hide and cover ourselves than it is to face the facts as they are…..

When my knees hit the floor of my living room on the afternoon of March 27th, 1972, there was no doubt in my mind as to what a mess I had made of my life. It is just as true, however, that, when I arose, a realization of having been somehow given a second chance possessed my heart. Yet, when asked if an assurance of my being “saved” had come, I answered in the negative. Such ecclesiastical use of the term wasn’t in my vocabulary. Then, before I could convince myself that what I’d experienced was really no more than an emotional breakdown, while lying flat on my back in bed one Sunday night after church, my spirit somehow slipped into a flow of the Holy Ghost and the reality of His resurrection became so much more than a few verses of Scripture. Faith was His gift unto me, not something for me to wrestle with in an attempt to find His favor…..

The promise of God manifesting Himself unto us via an inner connection given through Christ is Biblical; yet, denominationally speaking, our interpretation of just how that is accomplished in our life is another matter. In taking a good look at the Church in its present state, in fact, I often wonder if Satan, rather than our former President Harry Truman, wasn’t the one who first quipped: “If you can’t convince them, confuse them!” As an ecclesiastical community, we claim that a focus on Jesus unites us, and then, not only doctrinally divide ourselves by what we believe about the Word, but also what we believe about the Spirit. For some, the third person of the Trinity is no more than a mysterious inner leading that is undetectable other than a sense of His involvement as we go. Others see Him as power, but only as an impersonal force subservient to their ego…..

For me, the Indwelling is not an individuality apart from the Father and the Son, but the very “mind of Christ”, the very “presence” of the Creator. Purchased and returned to us through Calvary’s Cross and a walk the Savior took for us into the depths of hell, the Holy Ghost is more like a “plumbing connection” restored. If that seems to strip Him of image, then so be it; but, in losing such perception, let us not dismiss His divinity. He is an “extension” of God, the “door” which Jesus declared Himself to be, for within us is a place where heaven and earth meet, an altar before which we bow, a well from which He comes forth unto us in a time when we think Him no longer there. In those moments when two are one, we do not have to question grace. It has an identity that goes beyond definition. This, alone is Truth. The rest is a stumble in an attempt to follow…..

Sunday afternoon, while Beth labored with laundry, I sat and watched a cinematic viewpoint regarding this country’s war on terrorism. It starred Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, and Robert Redford; and, while it should have been clear to me at the time of purchase exactly what I was buying, one has to remember that I’m the guy who once stood frozen in the fairway, correctly deducing that the golf ball flying at me was about to introduce itself to some portion of my anatomy. In truth, I did enjoy the story, did not disagree all that much with the opinion being brought forth, and would recommend it to others; but thought some about Hollywood stars who use their clout in such manner. One has to be strong in that which they believe to risk their name and invest their fortune into a political statement…..

Yesterday our entire school enjoyed another Wulfe Brothers concert, an annual treat after final testing. There’s little educational value to the presentation. Three middle-aged men take a specific decade of our nation’s history and fill the auditorium with the sounds of artists who dominated that time frame. They’re sort of a Larry, Curly, and Moe combination, clowning around with each other as they draw the kids into the performance; and everybody, teachers included, loves them. One young fellow from a lower level Spec-Ed unit, however, seated with his teacher on the front row of the bleachers, became mesmerized by the flow of such rhythm. Sliding off her lap to the floor, he began to bob and weave as if in a trance, slowly inching closer and closer to the source of that music…..

Inside each of us, it seems to me, is this mystery, this creation in progress, a living “something” that exists beyond the miracle of who we are in a physical sense. The Bible puts it in terms of our possessing a soul, and a spirit, and a mind, and a heart; but leaves us in ignorance as to exactly what each one is. If the first two represent, as Theologians suggest, the emotional and thinking segments of our identity, then how does the last set differ from that already expressed? Questions: truly I am left with questions; and, yet, of this I am almost certain: however that person inside us breaks down, it can be “hooked”, following faulty reasoning and strong passion to do and say what we later regret. Thank God for a Savior…..