Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-25-19

I am usually reminded of the same things each Thanksgiving. That is human nature, or perhaps an infertile imagination. But I don’t mean the Pilgrims and Indians, no. I do mean intentional reflection on God’s grace-filled blessings on me and mine, yes. On us all.

But I have also noticed (some would say that I am obsessed, to which I plead guilty) that “Thank you” and “Thanks” are still breathing in our conversations; however, “You’re welcome” has been displaced, or deleted. On television interviews, in phone calls, in chats around town. “Thank you” is sometimes responded to by silence – that is, not at all. Or “Thank YOU,” or “No problem,” or “You bet.”

Watch and listen; you’ll see. If you wind up thanking me, I will say, “You’re welcome,” I promise. But this development seems to be more than a conversational tic. I believe it manifests a basic unraveling of courtesy in our culture, even the loss of appreciation and thankfulness.

I also reflect on the validity of turning around the order, if not the meanings, of “Thanks” and “You’re Welcome” at this time of year. Yes, we thank God for His blessings. But can it be valid to think that, in the Pilgrims’ case for instance, when they praised God, dedicated their land to Him, and operated the colony by His precepts as a way of thanking and honoring the Lord… that His blessings and bountiful harvests were God saying, “You’re welcome”?

“He loved us, in that while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son to die for us.”

As unlikely as it would seem to be – and remembering that Grace is unmerited favor – perhaps God thanks us preemptively for our humble acts of praise and gratitude.

Circular reasoning can remind us of the miracle of God’s love, and of His wondrous ways. Those wondrous ways include uncountable things we do not understand. And we should not try to, because “such are the ways of the Lord.”

I recently came across the news about Madison Shyanne Keaton, a member of the large and talented Keaton and Collingsworth families. Below is a link to a family gathering, around the piano in the their sun room, exactly one year ago, at Thanksgiving. 

Shy, a beautiful 24-year-old, speaks very briefly about her life – running away from home at 15; drugs and sex; losing her baby and fiancee. She was also in and out and in and out of rehab. With the prayers and help of her friends and family, as she says in the moving video link below, she ought to have died, but did not. Straight and clean, her face beams with joy and faith. As everyone sings “Bigger Than All My Mountains,” she drops to her knees in… thanksgiving.

Only a few weeks ago, Shy was killed in an accident, when a car ignored signals at an intersection and hit hers. 

How can we “Thank”? Where is the “You’re welcome”? Did God have a purpose? – I always answer quickly to such questions at such times, “no, the devil had a purpose.” Our responses to these horrors in life – yes, even an aspect of our thanks and praise – is to remember the verse that “all things work for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.” NOT “all things are good,” but “all things work for good”… and that is our job: to turn things around on the devil, and toward the glory of God. 

It is not only the random moments in life when the ways of God are mysteries. Much about Him is mysterious – although He surely has shared a lot in scripture! – but we would be, not as angels, but as God Himself if we understood everything. So we should not try. Rather for us, then, the living, to… have faith. That’s what faith is – the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.

The “sacrifice of praise” is something He desires, that we acknowledge His goodness even when we don’t feel it. 

And maybe the essence of Thanksgiving is to thank Him when sometimes it is tough to summon gratitude. It is easy, after all, to say “thanks” when everything is rosy. But you mean “Thank you” when you have to dig deep in order to acknowledge His love and His ways. And that’s when the Master of our souls gently says, “You are welcome, my child.”

And if we don’t quite understand, we have a greater gift, God’s cycle of gratitude. Thanks for things seen and unseen.

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Bigger Than Any Mountain – Shy’s Testimony

11-18-19

Back around 1970 I was on the staff of New Guard Magazine, the monthly journal of Young Americans for Freedom, the national student organization founded by William F Buckley. At the height of the hippie culture and anti-war protests, we were, perhaps the original “resistance” movement against the political status quo.

YAF had 55,000 members across America, and more than 700 chapters in high schools, colleges, and in communities. I was state chairman for a while in DC and New Jersey, and, as I say, on the staff of their magazine, and editor of The Free Campus News Service, syndicating news and cartoons and opinions to college papers.

I cut more than a few eye teeth at YAF, but concurrent with these activities I was still a student at American University, and worked a part-time job in YAF’s mail room. Always look on the back of everyone’s business card.

Some of those “eye teeth” I cut were opportunities to meet and work with many of the leaders of our time. One seems unlikely today, and is an example of how much our nation has changed in one generation.

West Virginia Senator Robert C Byrd, Democrat, was a conservative. He wrote an article on tradition, conservative principles, and religion in America for New Guard. I was asked to illustrate it. I was a budding cartoonist, but this assignment I handled with realistic drawings. A patriot next to the flag; a student praying; etc.

Robert Byrd eventually became Majority Leader in the Senate (beating Ted Kennedy in the caucus) and when he died he was the longest-serving senator in American history.

In this period of his life he was a fierce defender of conservative values and the role of Christianity in our national life. He defended his own values, too; a country boy, he liked mountain music… and often played fiddle tunes and hoedown-music at festivals, rallies, and… well just about anywhere.

“Anywhere” included the Grand Ole Opry and the hit TV show Hee Haw. The music video to click below is one of his guest appearances on the CBS network show. More than his service in the Senate, more than his article that I illustrated, I ask you to watch Sen. Byrd, in his trademark red vest, playing and singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” the old Carter Family standard.

Watch and listen… and think about how much America has changed.

Today, a United States senator singing hillbilly music on a cornpone TV show? (More: CBS carrying a hillbilly-music show???)

Today, the Majority Leader of the U S Senate singing a gospel song on network TV? Can you imagine Chuck Schumer pickin’ and grinnin’?

Today, a politician of either party enthusiastically singing about Jesus, smiling and raising his arms in joy at every mention of the Savior’s name?

We all know that – somehow – we have arrived at a place where senators, not only local jerks, would threaten to sue TV networks or shut down TV stations for daring to mention the name of Jesus. A lot of senators spend their time and efforts working to legalize drugs and decriminalize criminals these days. Mentions of personal faith or faith-based policies, like defending the unborn, have to be done in carefully chosen places, speaking carefully selected words.

We sang the songs of childhood, Hymns of faith that made us strong…

I’m gonna sit down besides my Jesus When I lay my burdens down…

Will the circle be unbroken By and by, Lord, by and by?
There’s a better home a-waiting In the sky, Lord, in the sky.

The song has lived in several versions since it was written in 1907 by Ada R Habershon and Charles H Gabriel; the most familiar is a funeral theme by the Carter Family.

When you see the joyful and unembarrassed performance of this old time Gospel classic, on national television, by the Majority Leader of the United States Senate – not too many years ago, really – you might think it is, after all, kind of a funeral theme for America.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken? Meet Times, They are A-Changin’.

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Click: Will the Circle Be Unbroken

11-11-19

Many essays, and many of our own thoughts, remind us of how special we are, we human beings. Haven’t you read this, thought this – we are the only species (virtually) that laughs… or reasons… or still likes Barry Manilow… there are a hundred emotional distinctives.

Some of these thoughts are logic-based, deduced by observation. Some are theological: we have no Biblical teachings that birds or bugs can have a consciousness of sin, nor know the gift of Salvation. But God loves us, specially.

Indeed we are, we people, special in the eyes of God. He sent His (special) Son to die for us and take on Himself the punishment we deserve as creatures with the special attribute of free will.

I would like us for a moment to think about how special we are not, sometimes and in some regards.

One way in which we are common creatures with each other, no matter our social status or sex or race or age… is that we all need a Savior. One of the ways we are alike in the eyes of God.

I am thinking beyond that, however; beyond the clichés. It is more common than we tend to think, in nature, that a “family instinct” dominates behavior. Yes, we know there are strays, and herds, and seemingly impossible ways animals can discriminate and recognize… but why are we amazed, time after time seeing news stories and viral videos, at mother dogs who successfully seek out their young; penguins who nurture the right chick of theirs among a thousand wandering rubber-stamped little ones; bees that fly miles, sometimes hundreds of miles, to their home-hives?

How about the occasions of a creature of one species that protects and nurtures the vulnerable young-one of another species? Odd! But is it so rare? We hear of these things every week. Begin to see what I mean.

The family – knowing, feeling, building, protecting – is not one of those aspects that sets humans apart from animate creation. It is something that makes us part of God’s creation. And God Himself.

This primal instinct, an essential attribute of our heavenly Father, is something we should savor. We are part of His universe, not in a New Age sense, but in how He has wired us as parts of the family of God.

Family: Bonds. Traditions. Loyalties. Affections. Care. Receiving and Bequeathing. Respecting.

Loving.

The more we let contemporary life, and our rotting culture, drive family members apart, the less we respect God and His plan for our lives and well-being. In many ways we should not celebrate individualism or “independence,” when it leads to being cold and aloof, separated from fundamental and naturally healthy familial attachments. Oh! and those cursed cell phones are wedges!

When family attachments, tribal associations, and cultural traditions are erased, something has to fill such holes in our lives. These days, it is secular theories and governmental paternalism. Disaster.

We sense these things in uncountable ways every day… or, we should be aware of them. I have been in the news in little ways recently, and I have heard from friends sometimes the first time since high school or college. We always recognize that we are still friends, but, no problem, merely have not spoken in a while – do you know that feeling? I have a friend, Mark Dittmar, who writes a wonderful daily blog, “Spiritual Nuggets” at mdittmar65@yahoo.com , and we have not actually spoken in a year or so. But he prays for me every Thursday. I am aware of this and do the same for him. That is a family-thing that Children of God do.

Appreciating the simple fact of the Family of God – with all of His creation, not only family reunions – puts our hearts and minds where God would have us. It is where are already, if we would only realize it. We are part of the Family of God.

Start noticing, appreciating, and celebrating this fact. Act on it in your everyday life. You might as well prepare, because Heaven itself will be like a great family reunion, better than summer picnics. You will be hugged by the Savior; you will hug all your family members, so many you never knew you had.

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Click: Getting Used To the Family of God

11-4-19

“If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?”

Sometimes such aphorisms – what I call bumper-strip theology – pack a lot of implications and wisdom.

In many place around the world, being a Christian is illegal, or nearly so. I can tell that this blog is read in some of those countries, perhaps to the peril of those readers.

Will such a thing ever happen in the United States, in Western Europe? Many of us think so – it has happened in societies that were once like ours – and at the moment, if belief in Christ is not yet illegal it is however improper or at best impolite in many places and situations.

When the leader of ISIS recently was killed, we were reminded that one of his countless victims was the young American missionary Kayla Mueller. The Christian woman had been held in captivity for 18 months, a sex slave of al-Baghdadi himself. The man whose Washington Post obituary called “an austere religious scholar” and a shy man behind spectacles, repeatedly raped and tortured Kayla, according to eyewitnesses like Yezidi sex slaves even younger than Kayla.

That description of Kayla says more about al-Baghdadi – and the Washington Post – than it does about Kayla. Almost.

What is scarcely said in the news stories is that Kayla was repeatedly asked, and frequently beaten and tortured, to renounce her Christian faith. This she never did – by ISIS’s own frustrated reports – and it gained her torture, rape, beatings, and death. Photographs of her bruised and lifeless body were e-mailed to Kayla’s parents by ISIS.

She lost her life. By her confession and faithfulness, as a contemporary martyr, she secured a place in Heaven, we can believe.
Correction: she saved her life.

Kayla was not alone, I am sure she would maintain. Every day, Christians around the world are being persecuted, tortured, and killed for their faith.

We smugly think that things in this world are growing brighter and better. Not everything. There were more Christians killed simply for being Christians in the 20th century than in all the combined centuries since Christ, including the iconic grotesqueries of Nero.

This week we noted – did you? – Reformation Day, the commemoration of Martin Luther’s challenge to the Church of the day. He nailed 95 complaints about corruption to a church door in Germany. It spread beyond Wittenberg’s town square; past the triangle of land formed by Hannover, Berlin, and Dresden; through Germany; to Rome and other territories of the Vatican; through the Christian world… and even unto today.

Luther had not intended to leave the Catholic Church – he was an ordained priest – nor establish a denomination, much less see his protest turn into Protestant-ism. Yet the “world system” that had corrupted the people and practices of the Church transformed widespread dissatisfaction into open revolts.

Luther’s reliance on “Scripture Alone” – that is, not mankind’s rules or new doctrines not found in the Bible – was a revolution of the spirit, conscience, and faith. Indeed, Luther was not the first anti-Romish reformer: previous theologians had similar heartfelt critiques… and had been martyred.

Fired, exiled, imprisoned, tortured, killed for their consciences. Luther was to be the next. Hunted and excommunicated, he was hauled before a council in the city of Worms, Germany.

All his writings – books and pamphlets, sermons and essays – were laid on a table, and Luther was ordered to renounce them. Outside the castle, at night, the Church was burning his books.

“Renounce them?” he said in effect, “How can I, when they all quote the Bible and rely on Scripture?”

Further, he argued that they were the result of his conscience, and “no man, no council, no Pope” can force me to act “against my God-inspired conscience.”

It was made clear that he would suffer death if he did not deny his writings. He said “I will not and I can not.”

With his life on the line, and conscious of the blood of martyrs before him, in the hushed council, Luther firmly said, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”

“Here I stand. I can do no other.” Those simple words, spoken in that obscure German town, have rather thundered like mighty artillery through the ages. Indeed for 500 years they have been spiritual and intellectual bombs. They inspired the translations of Bibles into languages of local peoples. They ignited a rediscovery of Scripture. They freed believers from relying on human intercessors when praying or petitioning God. They inaugurated the spread of literacy. They were the underpinnings of democratic movements around the world.

Luther was not murdered; he was secreted away by German princes who likewise “saw the light.” Thrown out of the Roman Church, he married and continued to write and preach. Others who knew him, and many who never met him but were – and still are – electrified by his words, followed.

“Here I stand. I can do no other.” These are the words, perhaps word for word, that the missionary girl Kayla Mueller spoke.

God forbid – which cliché is my hope, but is not a certainty – that any of us will be in the position of a Martin Luther or a Kayla Mueller. It is not an abstract warning: every day Christians are in those positions.

When you have the opportunity, are you however too shy to speak the Name of Jesus? Do you hold back from sharing your faith with a stranger, or a family member, knowing that they might be on their ways to hell? When politicians, from school boards to the presidency, offend the Truth of the Gospel, do you think, speak, and act in opposition?

Do you “stand”? Will you stand? Can you do no other? If being a Christian were illegal, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

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The “Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” words and music by Martin Luther. All my life, tears come to my eyes when I sing, or try to, the last verse: Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also: The body they may kill – God’s truth abideth still!

Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God