Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-30-20

Three events this week seemed connected in a way I think God would have us see. The unifying factors are these: that God has plans for us that occasionally look anything but good at first glance; we seldom can predict these life-adjustments, or even recognize them at first; and, number 3, God wants to use us. Yes, you and me. He gives us assignments for His work.

* In no particular order. I first will address the Coronavirus pandemic. Of course we have enormous sympathy for the deaths and dislocations – businesses closed and savings gone – that are resulting. But last week I listed some of the new priorities and redundant traditions that are good to be cleared away in a single season, instead of over a generation.

This social (not medical) craziness is bringing out the best in people, and I pray it lasts through and beyond the lockdowns. Acts of charity; innovative ways to care; new initiatives. My daughter Emily, in Ireland, was close to opening a restaurant and making other arrangements for her new food business, just a few weeks ago. She could have been locked into a horrible arrangement, as shops are hard-hit there as in the US. Instead of stewing (ha), she came up the idea of operating a “food pantry” to deliver food to doctors’ offices and hospitals, for those weary workers on extra shifts and unable to enjoy home-cooked food. The community is responding, in her city and elsewhere. Pallets of packaged foods; restaurant surpluses; volunteers; contributions.

Her inspiration was Jesus feeding the 5000. It’s not about her; she calls the initiative the National Health Service Pantry. For “Front Line” workers – what we would call medical first-responders and staffers.

Good will come from this plague. In myriad ways. That’s what Christians should make happen. God does not want people to catch and die from a virus. But in the midst, He has plans for us all while it is here. There’s at least one plan for you – just find it!

* Then I was reminded that the Feast of the Annunciation was this week. Forty weeks before Jesus’ birth. Mary woke up one day a lowly handmaiden; was visited by an angel; and went to sleep knowing she would give birth to the Savior of the human race. Quite a day!

Which means we cannot, usually, predict or expect or recognize events. We think such things are rare, but plagues and storms and wars often surprise us; and things are “never the same”… yet life goes on, doesn’t it? And for the good things too – blessings, gifts, visits from angels. Like Mary, as recorded in her prayer called the Magnificat, our souls magnify the Lord. We are humbled. We need to understand His lovingkindness. Those are acts to undertake. Just find one!

* Finally, did you notice in the news this week that Roger Stone, the perennial political dirty-trickster who was swept up in the “Russian Collusion” hoax, and sentenced to prison, attended a Franklin Graham crusade and gave his heart to Jesus? A little like Chuck Colson, the Nixon operative who was born again and founded the Prison Fellowship ministry.

Is it a legitimate conversion? I have a view of the matter. Many years ago I worked with two partners of his, just before the three founded a Washington lobbying group. More to share in a future column, but this born-again story – and a viral 25-minute video interview on CBN – caught my attention. And it ties in to my third “coincidental” inspiration for this week. Just think —

God has plans for us that are not always clear to us at first. His messages and callings usually are things we could never have expected. But… God wants to use us.

Use us. He doesn’t have to. He could use your neighbor. Or a stranger. Or nobody, and wave His hand over situations; He is God. But He issued a challenge to Emily’s faith… He blessed Mary with an unspeakable privilege… He broke Roger’s heart of Stone. He challenges, we respond. That’s how God works.

These things came together this week, amid good and bad health and financial news. The same message is delivered to us all – be open to God; welcome His surprises; and be willing to be used.

Just listen. Just see. Just act.

+ + +

Click: The Unseen Hand

3-23-20

To write of perfect days when every day lately – no, every hour – seems filled with dread. To ask us to stop and savor, or even search hard for, good news, good times, and a good tomorrow… seems naive or crazy these days.

Well, let us be crazy for a moment. It might keep us from going insane.

Someone threw the word psithurism at me recently. I will tell you, it is the precise and compact term for one of nature’s supernal gifts – the sound of a breeze rustling through trees. In Estes Park, CO, after the Christian Writers Conference, up the “hill,” every year I visit a grove of aspen trees whose wind-kissed sounds are like the tones of a distant organ. When winds sometime meet mountain snowbanks and desert sand dunes they produce eerie but beautiful sounds; music, almost. Where there are rock formations and in caves, breezes can bring forth heavenly chords.

Wondrous coincidences explained by science, or God’s messages – like rainbows – of His presence, His hand in creation, His reminders of lovingkindness? It makes no difference, which, to believers, because with God there are no coincidences anyway; but He ordered the moon and the stars and enabled such blessings.

Everyday blessing they are. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in “A Day of Sunshine”:

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

God is in all. Creation proclaims His glory. That means sunshine and shadow; rain and drought; good times and – sometimes – hard times. I do not believe God sends sickness or disease. He is not a child abuser. Yet we struggle to comprehend the “bad”…

We wonder why God “permits” viruses, plagues, epidemics. People ponder and pray these very days about this. It has always seemed clear to me that there is sin the world – nurtured further by humankind’s rebelliousness, evil acts, and, yes, our sin natures. Nature can be beautiful: the way God created. But we waste our gifts, pollute and corrupt, and wonder why nature, sometimes – creatures, weather, resources – “turns on us.” Do we deserve things like pandemics? We say no, especially about innocent victims.

But this is our world. Is it God’s will, any more than cancers or tornadoes? The Lord can chastise in many ways, but we should not look for lessons or punishment in every act like the Coronavirus. It might be so but rather we should look to the God who loves us and shows His love and mercy in so many other ways.

The clouds are stormy? Blue skies and bright sunshine still are above those clouds.

The agonies of birth pangs yet bring forth beautiful babies, miracles of life, souls to love.

The suffering and death of Jesus Christ had to be endured, as per prophecy, in order to bring Salvation to the human race.

We cannot see or understand fully, not all the time; in fact very seldom. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable. His acts do not depend on our understanding of them. His ways are not subject to our approval. His plans will not come up for our votes.

A sickness in our household, or a pandemic sweeping the globe ought to be no different in terms of our responses. God help us, let us curse the little virus less and trust in our mighty God more. And praise Him. Is not God bigger than a microscopic virus?

His sun still shines brightly behind those dark clouds.

+ + +

Click: The End Of a Perfect Day

03/17/2020

Not the caricature, please. No green plastic hats and “Kiss Me” buttons and green beer.

Honor the man who honored Christ. Taken into slavery. Found a Bible. Freed, evangelized England. Evangelized Ireland. Evangelized German lands, the first great evangelist since St Paul.

The Patrick who preached, and lived, reconciliation. I have been to places where he stood, where he preached, and where he knelt. Let us kneel with him.

Click: Hayley Westenra,  Abide With Me

3-16-20

The title here is from a story about London during the “blitz,” the bombing by enemy planes in World War II. Supposedly, Winston Churchill and an aide viewed the city on fire from some vantage point, and the aide supposedly said, “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.” Churchill supposedly harrumphed, “Some blessing. Some disguise.”

The Bible says, Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20), but that wise warning addresses those who intentionally bend the truth to their own purposes. In a time of confusion and near-panic – may I characterize the Coronavirus situation that way? – there surely are forces who might be manipulating events, if not having conspired somehow to initiate them; as well as people who might profit. My suspicions and plausible scenarios aside, confusion and panic are the predominant emotions around the world right now.

And I invite us to take the long, long view of things. And woe unto those who think that my speculation about a silver lining to the Coronavirus pandemic means that I am indifferent to the suffering and deaths. Of course not, not any of us. But there is a future: let us wonder what it will be.

Do we know what is ahead, after “this too” shall pass? No, we don’t know, but we can ask; and we can guess. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know… (I Corinthians 13:12). Being a “Futurist” does not mean having flawless predictions but – perhaps rarer – knowing the right questions to ask. Let us see if that hat fits us.

First of all, in human history, disasters like plagues and wars often are followed, roaring, by comebacks and revivals. When I researched my biography of Johann Sebastian Bach, I learned that a monstrous plague and the Thirty Years’ War left one-third of Germany dead and displaced. Yet the middle-class resurgence, and literacy, and a culture that could produce Bach and Handel sprouted and blossomed in its aftermath.

It is not only culture and commerce and stock markets that rebound after calamities, but, somehow also the human spirit. If under-girded by a firm faith, human nature when fed by democracy and capitalism, gets up, finds the path, and races to the goal. And the next goal, and the next.

For several generations we have been advancing to a major re-calibration of societal interaction. This virus “dislocation” will actually cause an acceleration: a good thing. And a major thing; new and better ways of doing things.

If we are indeed headed for paradigm shifts, we should recognize that when such things seem “major” in our human existence, the most profound changes are, rather, the many minor things that weave themselves together as the basic fabric of our lives.

We already are at the advent of tele-medicine. I have interviewed hospital staffs who tele-diagnose from a great distance. Tele-procedures, operations conducted from other states, are here. Auto mechanics already diagnose, too, with computers in their garages. We are a step away from plugging under our own hoods and having mechanics diagnose from across town. Except for package delivery, most mail will be obsolete; we can sense that already.

Uber and Lyft. Transporting people, then restaurant orders; then groceries. Easy, socially distant… ultimately economical. Ford should transition to be a mobility and vehicle-sharing company. Someday cars will be like time-shares: Only when we need them.

Teaching at almost all secondary and advanced levels, maybe elementary too, will be by screens. Excerpt for labs and hands-on training, this is overdue.

Is anything counter-intuitive? Sermons, fellowship? In the 1950s California churches experimented with drive-in worship, like drive-in movies. It didn’t work – neither did drive-in movies survive – so corporate worship, fellowship, conventions, will not die.
“What about old folks? Those without web?” Neither will the “marginal” be marginalized. In the future, every house will be built, or equipped, with, basic computer terminals. As common as phones.

Drones were mere foretastes. They will be not only be for mischief or spying or wedding photographers but for crop analysis, mineral exploration, climate warnings.

Is there a danger of social isolation? Will personal interaction die? This already is a situation, if not a challenge, in contemporary life… but reunions, meetings, rallies, sports, all will be more special, when they happen, if they are less common. People will find ways. And maybe feel more motivated to find ways.

Sports without crowds? I have two visions: (a) – when the virus is history, stadiums will be packed again. (b) We will have adjusted, however, to crowd-less stadiums. I currently pay $129 a year to watch every baseball game played by every team for a whole season, at home. If tele-fandom becomes the norm and not the luxurious exception, I might complain as prices go up… but this will be the future for tele-fans, plain and simply. It is inevitable. Sing: “Take me out to the home-screen…”

Skype will become less “ghostly” and eliminate audio echoes. In the past, when I was a guest on, say, CNN, I was “happy” to drive two hours to Manhattan, tolls and parking, to be interviewed and on air for less than three minutes. Not in the future; we already see a lot of Skype interviews. Split screens will bring Q-and- As to virtual classrooms. In the same way, there will be no way to avoid virtual town halls with our politicians – not face-to-face, but screen-to-screen. A good thing.

Maybe those awkward and obligatory hugs will disappear from the bundle of social habits. Many readers of this essay – of this I am sure – will someday be explaining to their grandchildren what mailmen were, and school buses, and bank tellers; and driving to libraries or lectures.

Will baseball games, or concerts, or rallies, be outlawed? No… but they will seem more special, because they will be more special.

We already have to explain to our kids what polio was; black-and-white TV; and and having to ask telephone operators to “dial” numbers for us. My grandparents, as kids, did not know cars or planes or walking on the moon. Those changes came, and – hardly believable – they happened slower than the changes will come to us about things just on the horizon.

– a horizon, possibly, with a silver lining? Nothing to sneeze at.

+ + +

A classic Ira Stamphill song, written just after his wife was killed — for those who wonder about moving forward when a virus seems like a big problem. Sung by the amazingly talented and sensitive pianist / singer Sangah Noona.

Click: I Know Who Holds the Future

3-9-20

A recent poll of American citizens revealed surprising percentages of correct answers about basic American civics, as high schools used to call courses in the essentials of government when they taught such things. The results might surprise you:

70 per cent did not know that the Constitution was the supreme law of the land;

44 per cent were unable to define the Bill of Rights;

8 per cent could enumerate the Bill of Rights;

36 per cent did not know how many Supreme Court justices there are;

41 per cent did not know the countries the US fought in World War II;

38 per cent knew how many Representatives and Senators sat in the houses of Congress;

34 per cent knew the lengths of terms of Congressmen and Senators;

… and so forth. I had a high school history teacher who once said, “Statistics don’t lie, but statisticians do.” That might have been the only things really remembered from the year in his class, but he was, mostly, a nitwit. Anyway, this survey might be “off”… but surely not by much. Civics courses on the schedule do not guarantee students being educated in civics.

In a democracy we are supposed to school ourselves, embrace our heritage, protect our freedoms, and advance our liberties. On our own. Even in a constitutional republic – which the United States is; not a democracy, although it leeches into our system – citizens should want to be informed about our “basics,” and not only for final exams, grumble grumble. By the way, citizenship tests for legal immigrants ask the questions above; and applicants, new citizens, know the answers. Hmmm, maybe we should be required to re-apply for citizenship every five or 10 years…

Ask yourself the following questions. And – no snap quiz here – how many basic questions about the Bible, basic questions about the bedrock of Christian doctrine, can you, or friends, answer?

The books of the Bible? The 10 Commandments, in order? The (basic) lineage of Jesus, through Mary and Joseph? The prophesies of the Redeemer? Typology of Salvation and the Savior? The Beatitudes? The nine spiritual gifts? The acts of the Apostles and early-church martyrs? The seven churches of Revelation?

… And what, exactly, we need to do in order to be saved?

When I was young – even now, and I am not young – I could recite the American Dental Association’s endorsement of Crest toothpaste. It is, pun intended, a mouthful, yet I know every word of it. Had I intended to memorize it? No, but as I watched uncountable commercials that once quoted it… it hid itself in my heart. Recently, over dinner, I found that I could repeat the My Pillow pitches of Mike Lindell. And the old guy needing a hearing aid and his son’s love. And those poor little kids in special-needs hospitals. I know all their scripts, and can imitate their voices.

What is wrong in a society where citizens, and “Christians,” do not know the tenets of their citizenship and their faith, yet know by heart things like commercials and pop music lyrics? That is a question we can answer – a lot is wrong.

Contemporary church services are too often entertainment concerts. Church youth programs are too often desperate alternatives for potentially wayward teens. Sunday Schools are too often play dates. Not all – of course – but these are tendencies of the contemporary church. People more in love with the music than with (as Joe Biden recently said), “you know, that Thing.”

God knows I am not a fan of intolerance and the old religious wars, yet I do know why disputes arose – the desire to understand Scripture – and knowledge informs our own views. Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism and Presbyterianism and Methodism and Pentecostalism emerged from cherished views of theologians and followers. Today (again: not all, but many) members of denominations do not know the differences between them, or if they have strayed from the Bible. And worshipers’ ignorance can be partly forgiven because their pulpits do not preach the great truths nor the practical distinctions any more. Political correctness, “acceptance” of sinful differences among us, a relativist view of god, whoever he or she really is.

A lot of our church-going neighbors (whose numbers shrink every year) wind up repeating the things they hear, too, by osmosis – learning those heresies by heart. Creeds? The Lord’s Prayer? Endangered species in a lot of churches.

These abominations are rife these days… but are not new. Throughout history, people have gone astray and become lovers of selves, and with “itching ears,” not merely willing but hungry for lies by which to live. In the past, when humankind sinned, God dealt severely. And when His own people turn their backs, He chastises them – with the justice they deserve.

Jesus Himself prophesied, Peoples’ foes shall be those of their own households (Matt 10:36). Don’t blame others; we must blame ourselves.

God chastises those whom He loves. He loves us. Like the old guy in the hearing-aid commercial, pray to God: “I heard you the first time. I just wanted to hear it again!”

+ + +

Click: Don’t Forget To Thank the Lord