Another Surprise

The surprise is not in the letters that come
this one today and another just like it
with kindest regards, thank you, we’re sorry
the judge has decided, the results are in
the contest is over and I didn’t win.
But this should not be any special revelation
it’s all part of the same
the surprise, if you’d see it,
is that I submit, again and again
to what will, almost certainly, be
another rejection letter.

(2012)

The 'am'haretz and Me

In an earlier post I commented about the presence of the ‘am’haretz  in novel Mary of Nazareth.  They were the poor and illiterate peasant people of Israel.  The phrase means “the people of the land.”

In the earliest parts of the old testament the phrase was sometimes used to indicate the Canaanite people; they were “the people of the land,” i.e. the original inhabitants of the Promised Land.  Later the phrase came to mean “landed people” – as in those who had money and property. They were princes and members of the prince’s entourage. They were priests, eunuchs, and servants of the king. Even the king himself was occasionally included in this group.

But after the Babylonian exile, the phrase underwent a radical reversal in its meaning. Instead of indicating those who owned land and property, it referred to those who were left in the land – those who had not been taken away into exile, and then eventually, as a derogatory slur, those who were dirt.

They were despised.  They were considered poor, and illiterate, and boorish.  They were uneducated and stupid, and because they could not read to study the torah, they were held in contempt for their inability to abide by the Law of Moses.

Our Rabbis taught: Let a man always sell all he has and marry the daughter of a scholar.  If he does not find the daughter of a scholar, let him marry the daughter of one of the great men of the generation. If he does not find the daughter of one of the great men of the generation, let him marry the daughter of the head of the synagogues.  If he does not find the daughter of the head of the synagogues, let him marry the daughter of a charity treasurer.  If he does not find the daughter of a charity treasurer, let him marry the daughter of an elementary school teacher, but let him not marry the daughter of an 'am'haretz, because they are detestable and their wives are vermin, and of their daughters is is said, "Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast"  [1]

The Pharisees particularly viewed the ‘am’haretz with disdain. To the Pharisees they were an untouchable caste within Jewish society. They were subhuman.  They were outcasts and “sinners” because they could not read and study the torah.  Recall Jesus’ many interactions with both the “sinners” and with the Pharisees.  Jesus provoked the ire of the Pharisees because he was willing to associate with these poor, uneducated “people of the land.” He associated with "sinners."

Now it would be easy to castigate the Pharisees for their prejudice. But I have to admit that I am something of a Pharisee myself in this regard. Not to the point where I would describe someone as a “sinner” merely because they are poor or uneducated, but I do find myself, at times, cringing away from those who might be considered the ‘am’haretz of my time and place – the redneck… the “poor white trash.”

I have laughed at photos at People of Walmart.  I have been quick to judge. I have sometimes allowed myself to believe that I am more important to God than others merely because I have some ability to read and study and understand the scriptures.  May God forgive me.

[1] Pesachim 49b - http.www.cs.utah.edu/~spiegel/kabbalah/jkm003.htm

Waiting for God

Advent 1 – 2011

Isaiah 64: 1 – 9 / Psalm 80: 1 – 7, 17 – 19

Waiting for God

Advent is about waiting.  It’s the time during these four weeks before Christmas in which we set in our hearts an anxious expectation for the coming of the Lord Jesus.  We put ourselves into those 400 years of “silence” between the old and new testaments.  But I am convinced that we do not understand Advent. I am convinced that we do not celebrate Advent at all, because we do not wait.

The Christmas Creep has infected us, and our symptoms are getting worse every year. The orgy of consumer driven Black Friday sales begin earlier and earlier each year.  Thanksgiving dinner is barely cleared from the table before we’re off the stores. We’ve hardly finished saying “Thank you, Lord for all that we have been given,” before we’re out the door to buy more stuff. 

And there are more reports of violence every year as impatient shoppers trample and shove and shoot and pepper-spay those around them in their maniacal drive to be the first to purchase that oh-so-essential Christmas item.   There is no waiting. There is only pushing and shoving.

There is no waiting.

“What do we want?”

“Christmas!”

“When do we want it?”

“NOW!”

We rush into Christmas without any waiting around for Advent, there’s no time for waiting. This is a holiday frenzy.  There’s Christmas in the waters and we’re like sharks that can’t stop moving or we’ll die. We’re thrashing around for that “Christmas Spirit” of celebration and joy and we must keep moving. We decorate, and we bake, and we shop, and we carol, and we wrap, and we wassail, and we share holiday greetings, and we insist that we are keeping the Christ in Christmas but if there is no waiting, there is no Advent. And if there is no Advent – there can be no (real) Christmas.

Advent is about waiting.

The author of our text for today (whether the prophet Isaiah living in the 8^th century B.C. or another (Trito-Isaiah) living in Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile…) was waiting for God.  He was desperately waiting for God to do something that would prove himself to the nations of the world.  He begged. He pleaded with God.  “Tear open the sky and show yourself.  Shake the mountains and burn the world, just let us know that you’re there.”

He’d been waiting and waiting for some evidence of the divine presence. But there had been no response.

I get annoyed by Christians who claim to find God “miraculously” intervening for them on a daily basis.  When they talk about God saving a parking spot for them or supernaturally helping them to find their lost car keys or whatever, I get annoyed.  Maybe it’s because I’m jealous, because what I find in my life – and in the witness of scripture is that there are periods of time when God seems very evident and there are peculiar displays of God’s handiwork  - but – between those miraculous interventions are long periods where God seems silent or even absent.

For some, it seems, there is no waiting for God.  He’s on-demand, delivering minor miracles when you need them. 

But the prophet says that it is the one who waits for God that will see God.  (Isaiah 66: 4)

But this waiting for God isn’t just a sitting around, twiddling our thumbs.  The next verse qualifies and describes that waiting. The one who waits for God is also the one who delights in doing righteousness.  The one who rejoices in doing the will of God. The one who makes peace.  The one who serves others.  This is how we wait for God.

I know that I get a bit cantankerous during the advent/Christmas season.  But I also recognize that there is great joy in Christmas.  But that joy doesn’t come to us all at once without waiting. 

Someone has said that “the Christian faith is a thing of unspeakable joy.” And if I may paraphrase him a bit… ‘Christmas is a time of unspeakable joy.” 

“But” he continued, “it does not begin with joy but rather in despair.  And it is no use trying to reach the joy without first going through the despair.” [i]

And that’s why Advent comes before Christmas.  We must begin by waiting. We begin by waiting for God. 

And as we wait we examine ourselves as the prophet did.  Are we ready for God?

The hullaballoo of Christmas can distract us from this question, and even worse the lights and sales and Christmas specials on television can drown out the answer.

We are not ready for God.  The prophet says that we all have become like one who is unclean.  Our attempts to be good, our trying to do good, our righteousness is corrupt. Our “Christmas spirit” is contaminated. (Isaiah 66: 6 – 7)

How can we be saved? (Isaiah 66: 5)

And there is the point of despair.  “How can we be saved?”  If we don’t start there, we won’t find the way. 

If we don’t begin by waiting we won’t discover that unspeakable joy.
And so we wait for God.

But now, O LORD, You are our father.
We are the clay, and you our potter,
all of us are the work of your hand.
Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD,
nor remember iniquity forever.
Look at us.  We are all your children. (Isaiah 66: 8 – 9)

And we are waiting.

Please remember The Salvation Army during this time of the year.  This is our biggest fundraising season.  The Salvation Army of Fairmont, Minnesota needs to raise $23,000 in our kettles.  If you haven't contributed in one of the buckets or mailed a donation,  please consider giving via this online kettle.  Every gift will help us to to serve those in Martin County who have great needs.  Thank you.

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[i] I found this quote attributed on C.S. Lewis online, but I have been unable to source it.  Every instance I found quoted it without a source.  It sounds like Lewis, but he may not have actually said it. Does anyone know?  If it turns out it wasn’t Lewis, I still believe it to be true.

S&Man – What Does it Say About Me?

Why are horror films so popular?  Why do these stories of death and dismemberment and destruction come back to us again and again and again?  And why do we find them so entertaining? I’m sure that I don’t have an answer. No one answer will be complete. 

How is that we can be entertained and amused by a movie’s depiction of someone being killed – but we (most of us) are repulsed by the idea of watching someone actually die?  Do we derive some sort of voyeuristic thrill from watching a horror movie? 

In 1960 the British filmmaker Michael Powell released the movie Peeping Tom to great controversy.  The film revolved around a serial killer who murders women while using a portable movie camera to record their dying expressions of terror.  Though it was initially scorned by critics, it has since become regarded as a complex and classic film.  Do we, like the film’s main character, derive a thrill from watching horror movies?  We would loathe to admit it.  But it might be true. 

Roger Ebert, in his review of Peeping Tom, says that "Movies make us into voyeurs. We sit in the dark, watching other people's lives. It is the bargain the cinema strikes with us, although most films are too well-behaved to mention it."[i]

But put aside the horror film for the moment. Voyeurism as entertainment has all but swallowed up television programming.  Every so-called “reality show” on television is based on the premise of allowing cameras (us voyeuristic viewers) to watch people as they are without a script. How is it that admitting that you like Survivor is acceptable – even respectable, but mention that you like horror movies and people look at you as if they suspected you to be mentally unstable?  Is there really that much of a difference?

Yes. I’m sure there is a difference, but I’m not sure I could define it. That’s why the question – Why are horror movies so popular? – is difficult to answer. And that’s part of what makes the movie S&Man (2006) so compelling and so revolting.

On the surface S&Man is a documentary about the world of underground and fetish horror films, films with a limited and specific audience.  These are not films for my mother (or, I’ll assume, your mother).  It is a journalistic look at the directors, and actors who make films about simulated death, torture, and paraphilia (aberrant sexual practices).  Through interviews with a variety of people like Carol J. Clover (a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film), a forensic psychologist,  and horror film director, Bill Zebub, a fairly balanced view of this underground world is presented to the viewer. 

But quietly and without fanfare, director J. T. Petty, slips something horrible beneath the surface of this pseudo-documentary.  One of the filmmakers that he interviews – Eric Rost[ii] - may be crossing the line between “reality-show” entertainment and voyeuristic murder.  And the deeper we look, the more horrifying it becomes.

Is it a “snuff” film?  Or is it just a movie?

This movie, like Peeping Tom, turns us viewers into voyeurs of a sort.  And that is the horror of this movie; that we are pulled in, that we are simultaneously entertained and repulsed by what’s being put on in front of us. It is horrifying and is entertaining.

Did I like the movie S&Man?

What does it say about me if I did?

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[i] "Roger Ebert: Great Movies: Peeping Tom". rogerebert.suntimes.com.

[ii]  A fictional character… as real as it seems, keep in mind that he is a fictional character.

You Just Need to Get Over It!

“You just need to get over it.”

That’s what her mother told her when she tried to express the range of emotions she felt after loosing her home in the flood on the Souris River in Minot, North Dakota.   Her mother cut short their telephone conversation with the brutally curt advice, “you just need to get over it or take some medication and stop crying about it all the time.”

The woman who told me this is a 55 year old mother of three.  She and her husband came to The Salvation Army today for some financial assistance.  Their house, like so many others in this community, was completely flooded by the waters.  And while I was able to give them a voucher for some of the things they need, what she really needed was a chance to express her grief.

Her grief wasn’t for the loss of their home.  She and her husband seemed to be dealing with that pretty well.  They’d bought the house some years ago, paid off the mortgage and thought all was well.  Now they’re getting an SBA loan and starting over.  It’s hard but they feel up to the challenge. 

Her grief felt more like a death… and in a way it is.  She’s grieving for the loss of a close knit family.  She’s grieving for the loss of that intimacy she thought she had with her parents and her sibling.

Immediately after the flood her family helped her and her husband and their still at home teen-aged son to evacuate, but as the days and weeks and months now have passed they want her to “just get over it.”

“They don’t understand. And they don’t care,” she said before the tears and sobs choked her voice. “They don’t call.  They don’t ask about how we’re doing.”

She and her husband spent a little more than an hour talking with me.  And they came to realize that her sense of loss wasn’t so much for the house or the possessions they lost; her sense of loss is rooted in the realization that she doesn’t have the relationship with her family that she thought she had.

“Sometimes we see what we want to see.  We see things that may not be there because we want them to be there.”

But rather than drowning in that sense of loss, she very quickly came to the realization that she has in this the chance to reevaluate more accurately what kind of relationship she has with her family, the chance to ask herself what kind of relationship she would like to have, and the chance to ask herself what she can do to make the relationship better.

“It would be easy to make the relationship worse, to fight and say ‘I never want to speak to you again’… but I don’t want to do that.”

She might want that familial intimacy more than they do, but at least she’s aware of that fact now.  The immediate future will be difficult, and she’s anxious about the traditional family get together at Christmas, but she feels strong.  She has a good husband and three children that she loves and who love her.  She has friends at work and at church.  And she has a “calm in the center” that she attributes to faith in God.

Before they left I gave her a hug, and before I could turn to shake her husband’s hand, she grabbed me and hugged me again.  “Thank you.” she said.

I’m not sure what I did but I think she’ll be all right.

To volunteer in Minot visit http://www.usc.salvationarmy.org/usc/www_usc_minot.nsf,
or call: 701-838-8925.

Monetary donations can be made in the following ways:

-Donate $10 by texting “MINOT” to 80888 and replying “yes” to the confirmation text. A one-time donation of $10 will be added to your cell phone bill. For terms, see www.igfn.org/t.

-Or by calling 800-SAL-ARMY (725-2769)

-Or by mailing a check to The Salvation Army,

315 Western Ave., Minot, ND 58701

Be sure to designate your donation “Minot Flood.”

-Or donate online

Fading Away

The air temperature outside the van hovered around 91 degrees Fahrenheit even though it was nine o’clock in the evening and dark thunderclouds were creeping over the sky.  The highway stretching out in front of us was mostly empty as we drove home last night.  I put a CD in the player - U2 the best of 1980 – 1990 and I began to sing along as I drove.  

This is what I do when I drive. It keeps me awake and makes the drive seem shorter and most of the time it amuses my wife.  She claims that she likes it when I sing.  And most of the time my kids tolerate it.  At least I think they tolerate it; I can’t see them rolling their eyes in the back seat. But last night as we drove home through the heat and insect swarms smashing themselves against the windshield, I could hear my family singing along with me (and Bono). 

I’m not exactly the sentimental type, but I had one of those moments as I heard my kids in the back seat singing “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…”  You know those moments, right?  One of those proud and happy father moments, the kind of moment that is impossible to capture or describe.  I won’t say that I was teary-eyed, but it was something like that.

And had that been the end it would have been, as the Passover song says, Dayenu – it would have been enough.  But there was more.

The CD continued to play through Sunday Bloody Sunday and then Bad my kids were less familiar with the lyrics for these songs so they stopped singing, but I continued listening.  And that’s when I heard something I’d never heard before.

I’ve been listening to U2 since I was just a bit older than my daughter is now, for 20 some years now… (I’m old, aren’t I?)  And there, in the car as we drove through the surprising heat of a Minnesota summer evening I heard the song Bad in a way that nearly broke me open.

Bad is the 7^th track from U2’s 1984 album The Unforgettable Fire.  It is a song about addiction and watching someone who is suffering and wanting to intervene for them.

If you twist and turn away

If you tear yourself in two again

If I could, yes I would

If I could, I would

Let it go

Surrender

Dislocate

If I could throw this

Lifeless lifeline to the wind

Leave this heart of clay

See you walk, walk away

Into the night

And through the rain

Into the half-light

And through the flame

And as the Edge played those guitar arpeggios over and over and over again with the driving shuffle of Larry Mullen junior’s drumming and Adam Clayton’s bass, and as the intensity of the song was building and the highway was rolling away behind us, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t Bono singing.  It was Jesus.

If I could through myself

Set your spirit free

I'd lead your heart away

See you break, break away

Into the light

And to the day

To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away

This desperation

Dislocation

Separation

Condemnation

Revelation

In temptation

Isolation

Desolation

Let it go

In the car at 65 miles an hour through the heat and fading light with the kids beginning to fall asleep in the back seat and my wife sitting next me I had one of those moments, the kind that mystics through the ages have tried to describe.

I'm wide awake

I'm wide awake

Wide awake

I'm not sleeping

Oh, no, no, no

A Solitary Man...

When I was younger I had difficulty making friends.


No. That’s not quite true. I made friends, but only hesitantly. The combination of my parents’ frequent transfer from city to new city and my own introverted personality kept me from diving into new friendships. I don’t think I was reclusive, but for the most part I was content to not interact with the other kids.

Mostly…

I read books. I took walks by myself. I listened to music. Solitary activities for a solitary young man. I remember going to the Salvation Army’s camp in Indiana, Camp Elm and during the afternoon free-times when the other kids were swimming in the pool or buying candy at the sweet-shop, I would sometimes go off into the woods to a spot I thought of as my own. I sat there and thought about life and God and man … - well, I thought about those things as much as any 9 year old can.

But it was in those solitary pursuits I figured out who I am. I didn’t know the Neil Diamond song, but if I had I might have sung:

I'll be what I am
A solitary man…

But at the same time, I knew that I was lonely.

I was able to be alone with myself, and alone with God, but I felt something was missing. Not just friends. I had friends. I had may friends (few close friends, though). I had many acquaintances in places all across the mid-west. I could go hundreds of miles in any direction and be able to find someone that I knew. But I still lacked something.

Community – I later realized that that missing piece was a place in a close fellowship of people, intimately bound to each other by a shared belief and a common purpose and mission. And that is what led me to becoming an officer in this Salvation Army.

If you’d asked me when I was 9 if I wanted to be a Salvation Army officer, if you’d asked me when I was 15, if you’d asked me when I was 18 if I wanted to be an officer I would have told you flat out – no. This Salvation Army is what bounced me around from place to place, uprooting me each and every time I took the risk of making friends. But I come to recognize the community of fellowship that we in the Salvation Army share.

The author of our psalm for today (Psalms 42 & 43, which should be read together as one psalm) certainly knew the blessings of community. He knew the beauty and splendor of sharing worship with his brothers. He had experienced that sublime sense of God’s presence as he worshiped in the temple in Jerusalem.

It’s quite likely that he had been a leader in that worship, one of the musicians who lead the crowds in the sacred songs and daily prayers. He had stood shoulder to shoulder with the throngs, his voice blending with theirs, his prayers going up with theirs in the smoke of the their burnt offerings on the altar. He’d shouted for joy with them. He had worshipped with them and in worshipping with them he had experienced the very real presence of God.

We believe in one God, who is infinite and perfect in every regard. We believe that there is only one God and yet we believe that that one God is in community – a triune God, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This one God has never been alone. This God is in community. This God is in fellowship. And we have been created in his image, male and female, we are created in God’s image and we have deep within us this need for community.

But now the author of this psalm is cut off from that community. It’s not clear what has happened – some scholars speculate that it was an illness, other that he has been taken captive and forcibly removed from Jerusalem. But, whatever the reason, he has been separated from the community of worship, and in his mind – at his very essence, he feels separated from the presence of God.

His isolation is a desperate solitude. His soul is dying of thirst and he longs for the time when he will once again drink in deeply the presence of God.

As a deer yearns for running streams,
so I yearn for you, my God.
I thirst for God, the living God;
when shall I go to see the face of God?

Psychologists studying the nature and effects of attachment – human relationships- have pointed out what may seem very obvious: “The relationships that mater most to us are characteristically to particular people whom we love – husband or wife, parents, children dearest friend… These specific relationships which we experience as unique and irreplaceable seem to embody most crucially the meaning of our lives.” (Peter Marris, “Attachment and Society” in The Place of Attachment in Human Behavior, 1982.)

Our relationships are the structure, the supporting pillars of “meaning” in our lives. Think about the recently bereaved who feel that life is “meaningless.” The meaning of our lives and even our self identity is tied up, to some degree, in the way we relate to the people in our lives. If the important people in our lives are taken away, by death, or divorce, or relocation, or what have you, we will have to re-define who we are.

For the psalmist and others living in under the first covenant – the Old Testament, God’s presence was thought to be localized in the Temple in Jerusalem. They knew that God couldn’t be contained in any one building or in any one place, but still they believed that the Temple was THE place of God. God was present there as he was nowhere else on the face of the earth. His shekinah glory – the glory cloud of his presence had been visible when Solomon dedicated the Temple. His voice could be heard there. That is where he lived. The Temple was his house. Mount Zion was his home.

But our psalmist isn’t there. He is, against his will, very far away from there. He can’t see the glory cloud. He can’t sing the sacred songs with the joyful throngs. He can’t pray the daily prayers in the courts of the temple. He has lost the sense of God’s presence. He has lost his work. He has lost his community. He has lost a sense of himself.

And added to this are the insults and taunts of “the enemy,” who surround him with jeers and catcalls. ‘Where is your God, now?” Do we wonder that he is downcast?

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God
for I will yet praise him,
my savior and my God.

He sits upon the lonely stone crags of Mount Hermon, watching the water cascade down the rocks. He hears the thunder and roar of the rushing water as it flows down into the Jordan River. And he feels dead inside.

There is wordplay we miss in translation. When the psalmist says:

Therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan,
the heights of Hermon, from Mt. Mizar… (verse 6)

he’s not simply giving geographical names. A very literal translation of this verse may sound strange in our ears:

I remember you
from the land of descent and of nets,
from the mountains at the rim.
(Mitchel Dahood, Psalms 1 – 50, The Anchor Bible Vol. 16)

This is a poetic name for the nether world, the underworld. In his desperation, the psalmist imagines himself in the depths of Sheol – the grave – at the farthest possible remove from God. The crashing chaotic waters have swept over him, have crashed down upon him and death – poetically if not literally – has swallowed him up.

He is not happy. He is very far from happy.

Why do we come to church week after week and pretend to be happy when we’re not? We smile and sing – but sometimes we’re just pretending. The psalmist makes no pretence of happiness. He is broken and dying in his spirit and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. He admits to his depression. He gives it voice.

And by admitting it and giving it voice he makes a prayer. It’s not really a prayer asking God for anything. It doesn’t even sound (to me) like a prayer that expects an answer. He has been waiting and waiting and desperately waiting for God but there has been no response and now he prays this prayer of desperate loneliness. He prays, not to influence God in heaven, but rather to change something in himself. He prays in order to produce a right state within.

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God
for I will yet praise him,
my savior and my God.

Three times he comes back to this refrain. He prays a confidence that I’m not sure he feels – but he prays. He wrestles. He challenges. He prays. And he trusts that God will eventually and somehow answer. The psalmist trusts that God will send his light and his truth – his shekinah presence to guide him back.

Send forth your light and truth
let them guide me
let them bring me to your holy mountain
to the place where you dwell.
Then I will go to the altar of God,
to God, my joy, and my delight.
I will praise you with the harp,
O God, my God.

And whether this is a physical return to the temple in Jerusalem or it is a more inward, spiritual return to a sense of God’s transcendent presence – either way the psalmist will experience the joy of worshipping in God’s presence.

One of my favorite authors – Marva Dawn – knows a good deal about isolation and loneliness. In her life she has dealt with debilitating illness and loss of her husband. She could have succumbed to the despair that filled her life. She could have given up. But, like the psalmist, she continued to pray a confidence that she didn’t feel, in order to find that sense of God’s presence. Her book My Soul Waits: Solace for the Lonely in the Psalms is a challenging and comforting book.

“Worship is not simply a panacea of happy songs to cure forever our being downcast. It will not bring an end to our loneliness unless it truly offers us the way to meet a triple need – our longing for closer communion with God, for deeper fellowship with His people, and for the opportunity to use our gifts to express praise. This is why we can continue to hop in disturbing times: for surely we will yet praise him. We will know him as our personal Savior and God as we join together with other believers in the assembly of light and faithful love.” (Marva Dawn, My Soul Waits: Solace for the Lonely in the Psalms, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1998. Page 204-5)

To worship together as we do is to experience a piece of heaven. General William Booth – founder of The Salvation Army once said that “making heaven on earth is our business.” One of the ways that we do that is in our communal worship. Wherever two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name – God is there. God is present here. This humble chapel becomes the very throne room of heaven.

But sometimes it’s difficult to feel that. Sometimes we are removed – or we feel removed – from God’s presence. Depression, whether caused by chemical imbalance, stress, the burdens of overwhelming life can make us feel like our soul is slowly dying of thirst. But we can pray like the psalmist.

And maybe there won’t be an answer right away. Maybe God won’t shift the mountains and smite our enemies with thunderbolts. But in prayer we can begin to change ourselves from the inside until we are able to see and sense God’s light and truth leading us ever into his presence.

And what am I to do

Just tell me what am I supposed to say
I can't change the world
But I can change the world in me
If I rejoice

I don't know what to change
Rejoice...
U2 - "Rejoice"

I'm So Sick of This

I'm so sick of this.

Two - TWO - rejection letters in one day. Two less than an hour apart.  "It's not quite what we're looking for," says the editor at one, and "we wish you luck," says the other.  Yeah. Thanks for playing. Good bye and  Good luck.  Can we still be friends? 

All told I still have an acceptance ratio for the past 12 months of 31.82 %. If I were a baseball player, that would be a fairly decent batting average.


But  still, I'm so sick of this.

Perhaps I'm oversensitive.  Perhaps I'm just anxious about a couple of big projects in the next couple of weeks. I'm speaking at a theology conference in Ohio, and I'm intimidated by some of the other speakers, and by some of those who I know will be attending.  Who am I to be speaking? but I am.

And I did recently audition for a part in the local theatre group's production of the one act musical - The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee - and I did get a part, a big part. I could be excited about that, right?  right. But I'm nervous, now.  Almost wishing I hadn't.

I'm nervous and anxious and pent up and frustrated and excited and irritated all at the same time.  So sick of this.

(as always, click the image to see it full size. thank you.)

No Answer but Silence

“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.” Job was a good man, a righteous man who, because of cosmic wager between God and the Satan, lost his wealth, his family and even his health. And yet through it all he insisted that God was good.

The story of Job is a Theodicy. It is an attempt to explain the problem of evil and suffering. How do we reconcile the presence of evil and pain and suffering in the world with our belief in good and loving God? If God is good why does he allow people to hurt and to grieve and to suffer? If God is powerful why does he not stop natural disasters?

These are not just esoteric philosophical, theological, questions for scholars and academics. Everyone everywhere has asked this most difficult of questions: Why? It’s part of who we are as human beings. We hurt and we want to know why. We weep and we want to know that God cares. Cultures around the world and all through history have asked these questions. And after thousands of years of asking the question and debating the issue, what answer to I have? What wisdom, what insight do I have into the problem of pain?

I don’t know.

Now, to be sure, the flooding here along the Red River and further west in Jamestown haven’t been as catastrophic as in past years. There hasn’t been the destruction and devastation that we’ve seen in other natural disasters or in human caused destruction. But being here these days causes me to probe these theodicean questions. Why?

The Salvation Army responds to floods and hurricanes and earthquakes, and burning buildings. Our Emergency Disaster Service (EDS) teams offer cold water and hot coffee and the comfort of food to those in crisis situations. But even more than that, we offer the comforting presence of one who cares. Spiritual and emotional care is just as important as that cup of coffee.

And it has always bothered me that I can’t answer these questions. I do not know why God allows floods or hurricanes or earthquakes. I do not know why.

Sometimes I feel like I don't know
Sometimes I feel like checking out.
I wanna’ get it wrong
Can't always be strong
And love, it won't be long.
       Ultraviolet (Light My Way) – U2

As a cadet on my summer assignment I was called to respond to a drowning. A group of teenage boys had been swimming in the river. One of them was pulled under by the current and swept away. The rescue workers and dive teams went to work, and the Salvation Army EDS team was there to offer sandwiches and beverages to them. After making sure that the food and drinks were laid out and that the EDS team was set up to do what they needed to do, I sat down in a chair next to the family of the missing boy. I sat there with them for three days until their son was found. And I said nothing.

What could I have said to them? I was 21. I had no answers. And now more than a decade later, I still have no answer to that kind of question, no satisfying answer anyway.

I could give those stupid and clichéd answers: “well, God must have wanted him in heaven…” or “It was just his time.” But I don’t believe those answers. And I know that when I suffered a loss in my own life that kind of answer only made me angry.

I have no answer but silence.

A friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief or bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing … not healing … not curing …that is a friend who cares.  -Henri Nouwen

Who Am I, Really?

I've been wondering about this recently.  Who am I?  Really?   

One might expect that I'd have some sort of answer to that after 34 years, but I must confess that sometimes I'm not really sure.

I could tell you what I think of myself  - and knowing myself as I do, I should warn you that this would probably be inaccurate.  On some days I am filled with confidence bordering on arrogance.  I am smarter, quicker, sharper, and measurably more clever than those around me.  And handsome too.  Other days I am convinced that I am a sham.  A phoney. A hypocrite fearfully wating to be exposed in my lies and depravity.

Obviously, I am not a reliable witness.  So to answer this question 'who am I, really?' I could turn to the perception of others.  But this, too,  is complicated.

Depending on who you ask, I am either a trouble making rabble-rouser intent on bucking anyone in a position of authority and should not be entrusted with any responsibilities or I am a warm and compassionate leader with exemplary qualities that make me a fine Christian role model.  Of those divergent opinions, I am much more conditioned to hearing the former.  One person with a measure of influence on my position and status described me as a 'psychopathic deviant' (his very words). 

I recently had a performace review with my Divisional Commander.  As the day of the review approached I became increasingly nervous and apprehensive.  I was used to these reveiews being confrontational and acrimonious.  I was used to attacks and condemnation disguised as a performance review.  But this one was surprisingly and refreshingly different.  My DC said very kind things, gave me higher scores than I anticipated and shared encouraging comments.  I was shocked. 

I don't think that I've changed all that much between these reviews, yet the gulf between them was immense.  I was told that I am percieved as a good teacher, an efficient officer and as being a kind and patient father to my two children.  Where did this come from?  Why am I now percieved so differently?

In addition to this surprising review, another unexpected comment left me stunned. 

Before dating and marrying my wife, I, for a short time, dated her college rooomate.  Funny story there, but now's not the time for that one.  Anyway.  She has for the past several years been a missionary in central Asia. Currently she is back here in the states for while and so she took the opportunity to spend an afternoon with my wife to reconnect and share experiences and memories and whatever it is that women do when revisiting old friends.  During that visit she shared with my wife that she measures potential suitors by how they compare to me.   Yikes.  I don't know what to do with that. I know the mistakes I've made as a husband and as a father.  I can't imagine anyone using me as a yardstick.

I don't know how to be as good as people think I am.  And I don't know why some people think I am as awful as they do.  I don't trust my opinions of myself - they're overinflated in either direction. So...

Who am I, really? 

I'm still working on that one.  Ask me again in another 34 years.



This essay, by the way, should not be construed as a sort of passive-aggressive attempt to fish out compliments and encouragements from freinds and family.  It is what it is and nothing more.