Monday Morning Music Ministry

10-26-20

“May you live in interesting times” supposedly is an ancient Chinese curse. Actually, it seems that it is neither ancient nor Chinese, but has been used to euphemistically describe uncertainty and instability; imminent danger.

For the simple dictionary definition of “interesting,” I say Bring it on, most of the time. We should like change, challenges, and opportunities. But this is all theoretical anyway. Days turns to nights, people marry and are given in marriage, and as per Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun.

However, anyone with pulse knows that within those rubrics, there are pendulum-swings that bring more trouble or less confusion; more worry, various causes of anxiety.

In those regards, these time are more than interesting; these very times.

In the next couple of weeks, we will have a consequential presidential election, perhaps the most important in generations. Many people feel that violence and anarchy will reassert themselves if one candidate prevails. We face, collaterally, control of the Congress. A contentious nomination process for a new Justice just has concluded. We still smell the smoke, literally and metaphorically, from widespread rioting and looting. The world still is in the throes of a plague, with peoples’ health and peoples’ businesses suffering.

As the calendar turns, for someone like me, sharing thoughts and comments, these very days also present an opportunity to recognize Reformation Day. This I will do… not because I see it as a way to visit a calm spiritual subject; but because I think the Revolution wrought by Dr Martin Luther was one of the most “interesting days,” so to speak, in the sweep of Western Civilization.

I think the act of nailing 95 complaints to the church door in Wittenberg 500 years ago changed the course of Western Civilization, not only Christianity. I think the forces that nurtured his revolution – political liberty, literacy, individualism, economic freedom – affected the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, and democracy. I think that people today would more firmly reject anarchy, socialism, and relativism if they only would study Luther’s works and acts.

All this despite the fact that Luther himself did not intend to leave the Roman Catholic Church nor launch new denominations. He sought reform – hence Reformation. He even rejected the label of modernism; if anything, he considered himself the last of the Medievalists. He even believed that Reason was the Enemy of Faith (so do I).

The brilliant iconoclast was excommunicated because he intended to translate the Bible into the people’s language (instead of Latin, reserved for priests only). He went on trial because he disturbed public order when he asserted that priests who sold papers assuring people that relatives would be rescued from hell – and such heresies – were in fact blasphemies. He was threatened with death (as other reformers were being martyred at the time) for believing Ephesians Chapter 2, that we are saved to eternal life by grace through faith: not by works that we do.

So in one of the most important moments in human history, the prisoner Dr Luther was hauled before a council (a “Diet”) of regional princes and the power of the Holy Roman Empire, indeed the Vatican itself, all playing out in the small city of Worms, Germany. In the small, rude setting, the world virtually watched – history was watching.

Luther, a brilliant theologian and prolific writer, was required, under penalty of sure death, which he expected, to recant (deny, disown) all his works.

Of course life would have gone on, if he cowardly had surrendered. Other reformers like Jan Hus and John Wycliffe were put to death, and had much changed? Was Luther tempted to give in? Words, after all, are merely words. History is littered, with both heroes and martyrs. And time rolls on.

But here was the fulcrum of history. Words do mean something. We mean something – even we are also in out-of-way places, confronted by massive forces that despise us.

One person, with God, constitute a majority, as Frederick Douglass said… a mighty army. What do we do we stand for? Why are we here? What is the point of a troubled conscience, if we are not spurred to action? Luther did not know, and actually did not care, that his protest of conscience would change the world. He did not look into the future; his testimony was for his own self, his own challenges… his duties as a Christian. As a person of God, whose ideas and ideals mattered.

What might this have to do with us, these days, this year?

A lot. I believe we are at a turning point, not only in politics with an election; not merely in society as forces of anarchy and secularism attack us; not only a crisis of this month or this year but – as with the Reformation – consequences for generations to come.

That’s pretty heavy. But… it’s not the first time, friends. As Ecclesiastes said, “Time and chance happen to all.”

So, with some history as a guide be encouraged.

* Be brave about what you believe. Be armed with knowledge first, then be bold in truth.

* Don’t be intimidated by misinformed family members, kids, teachers, neighbors. Do not compromise with error.

* Discern the truth and avoid media that lie to you. Live without certain TV, movies, news media, papers and magazines. Seek those that speak truth; and redeem the culture.

* In these matters, and voting, consider whether the “lesser of two evils” is something you act upon if you engage or participate. Are you still enabling evil?

* Pray; have fellowship; pray; speak out; pray; let your conscience be not only your guide, but your best friend and constant companion.

* And pray.

And be inspired by words from Luther’s hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God:
Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still;
His kingdom is forever!

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10-19-20

Why do any of us do what we do? My question is not about determinism, or motivational seminars, or feeling like a victim of life’s circumstances, but I wonder at least about myself these days, about my responses to the virus, the riots, the election… and I wonder about you.

We have to react to things because in truth there is nowhere to turn these days. Our friends and families and neighbors are all affected by one or more of these things. Our bodies can be hermits, but our minds cannot… our eyes and ears cannot, and the news over TV or phone calls bring us face-to-face with stuff.

And of course many of us want to be engaged. To resist or learn; to “be there” for others; to solve and save, or try to. We are citizens of our neighborhoods, citizens of Heaven, and we feel responsibilities.

– to do… what? Each of us is but one opinion. One voice. One vote.

We can break a sweat; we can even sweat blood, and at the end of every day, we often feel… tired. And lonely. Do we make a difference? Does any of this make a difference? Who cares?

We need to remember that Jesus cares, at least. If you care, yourself, you are fulfilling your duty as you have seen it. Answering a call. We need to have the perspective that the mightiest of cathedrals was after all built with numerous stones; and there was a first small stone.

Together, the small stones became a cathedral.

Thinking about these things, very personally, I write books and articles and blogs, seldom knowing who will read them; and knowing less whether anyone will care or be affected. With the Monday Music Ministry blog I never know who will share or re-print them, but I feel crazy-blessed when I receive a message from some stranger somewhere in the world telling me that she needed that message on that day; or a man asks how I could have known about his circumstance that I addressed. I never know… not on my own, anyway.

In past political campaigns I physically was active. As a kid I loved ringing doorbells and distributing campaign literature. In college, in Washington DC, I was active in national campaigns. For years I was a political cartoonist and columnist. Four years ago I wrote op-eds for several magazines and for the Detroit News. Lately I have been writing articles, more than one a week, for major print and web publications. I have the feeling, however, that I am doing less than before.

Perhaps I suspect I have less impact; or that today’s challenges are so serious that it is tough for any of us to make an impact. But you know what? To answer my first question up top, we do what we do because we have to.

To borrow from Mother Teresa, Our job is not to be successful, but to be obedient. To steal an aphorism ascribed to Theodore Roosevelt (a first time for everything), We must do what we can, where we are, with what we have.

Referring back, also, to thinking about stones: Jesus is quoted in Luke 19:40 – If people are silent, the very stones will cry out in praise!

We are the stones… and we are getting to a sad point where people around us are silent. Maybe, God forbid, we tend toward silence and self-pity and doubt.

Let us do what we can – about life’s challenges, large or small. They all are important. About the lockdowns, about riots, about healthcare, about prejudice, about the economy, about crime, about our flag, about our future, about the elections, about our souls.

In the face of the pandemic, a group calling itself the New York City Virtual Choir and Orchestra, 140 of them, pulled up their metaphorical pants, employed some technology, and jointly sang a hymn and made a video. Yes! – in New York City!!! (Give me a break. I was born in NYC – I know a miracle when I see one!)

Click on it. Its most powerful aspect is not the determination required to put it together, nor its impressive quality. It is the hymn they chose. The favorite old hymn by Robert Lowry, How Can I Keep from Singing, is a message for today.

… doing what we can, where we are, and with what we have.

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Click: How Can I Keep From Singing?

10-12-20
There is a bit in an old Laurel and Hardy comedy where the boys are caught in a situation, Ollie impersonating a rich guy and Stan his servant. “Call me a cab,” Ollie commands, thinking of a way they can escape.

“What?” asks the typically bewildered Stan.

“Call. Me. A. Cab,” Ollie patiently orders.

Stan says, “All right. You’re a cab!”

Fast-forward 90 years or so to this election season. In fact to many aspects of life today, and politics, and in the church. Labels have become virtually meaningless. They have not become obsolete, because everybody is quick to proudly adopt a label, or to smear someone with another label. But labels are now fungible, malleable, chameleon-like.

In the same way, statistics don’t lie; but statisticians do.

President Trump identified himself as a very stable genius, a manner of self-description people usually leave to others than themselves, and usually to posterity. Today, critics immediately challenged one, two, or all three of those words. Kamala Harris is described, by Democrat handlers, as a “moderate,” but she would have considered that an insult during the primaries. We recently were told that Antifa is not an organization but an idea… the distinction holds no difference to shop owners seeing their life-dreams torched street by street, city by city by thugs in identical costumes.
The irony is most bitter in religion of the 21st century. Joe Biden calls himself a “man of faith” (faith in what?) but bristles when priests and cardinals deny him the Eucharist because he denies Catholic Church teaching, for instance on abortion.

If the church, the Bible, Jesus’ teachings do not mean anything – if your opinion is superior to the Revealed Word – what is the point of adopting certain labels, claiming to be a Catholic? Some pastors deny the divinity Of Christ, and the Virgin Birth. Are their salaries the same as taking money under false pretenses?

We all evolve, change opinions, and learn. President Trump used to be accepting of abortion, as was I at one point; and a lot people I know. But science, experience, and conscience “spoke” to us. When politicians who also are aware of science, hear of experiences, and have consciences – when they switch “sides” or switch parties — they cannot fail to know where they fight life’s battles now: Who their new friends are. And what effects their defections will have. I refer to conservatives and Catholics who support the party of abortion-on-demand.

This is not in a vacuum; these new rules – or lack of rules – are a microcosm of life today. Heresy is as old as human nature; its first appearance was in the Garden.

“Relativism,” it is called: What’s OK for me is all that matters; There is no right and wrong; You are free to make up your own rules…

I wonder why many people today rebel against Christianity, democracy, capitalism, when the fruits of our civilization have advanced, refined, and are blessings to so many. To ignore our heritage, to decline to defend our values, and surrender to the enemies of our souls… seems like a crime in itself.

If America does not undergo a spiritual awakening, it does not deserve to continue as the Republic we inherited.

Returning here to the political context, and to shifting labels: Politicians and pollsters do not even know what they mean when they profile and predict about the “evangelical” community. Ah, the “faith-based.” Yes, “family values voters.” Some “evangelicals” have enormous differences between them.

Just as Jesus did not die for denominations or missions organizations or charities or movements or committees, but for individuals – you and me – so will the redemption of America not depend upon parties, movements, organizations.

America will be redeemed, revived, and resuscitated by citizens. Individuals. You and me.

If someone wants to know our label, we can use the one that was a perfect description when this noble project of a Constitutional Republic began – Citizen Patriots.
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Click: Who Am I

10-5-20

How many of our mothers tried to teach us about wise choices with that time-tested question: “I suppose if so-and-so jumped off a bridge, you would too?” Remember?

Well, either a lot of Americans don’t remember, or they are quite happy these days to follow every so-and-so and jump off bridges.

The bridge-jumpers are either self-destructive at heart, or somehow happily survive the dares and the leaps. The so-and-sos go beyond those who commit vandalism and rioting in the streets, even when as serious as arson and murder, heinous as those acts are. More consequential is the fact that these things have become normalized.

It is not so much the graffiti and burning of churches… but that few pastors and priests condemn the acts.

It is not so much the destruction of statues and looting of shops… but the fact that those acts go virtually unpunished.

It is not so much the occupation of police departments and hundreds of fires… but that officials excuse (and thereby encourage) such activities.

Since Antifa “is not an organization, but an idea,” according to a major presidential candidate, aspiring leaders virtually admit that there is no manner of countering anarchy, otherwise than gradual surrender. In the American civilization, this is not temporary insanity; it is a suicidal tendency.

Returning to our moms’ finger-wagging lecture – it was not a rhetorical question. Yes, the rioters jump off bridges. And, no matter how large or small a percentage they are of the population, America has started jumping off too. Many think they would not; but our society is doing so.

The secularized culture has not substituted new standards for traditional standards. It has substituted NO standards. The concept of standards – right and wrong; codes of conduct; Absolute Truth – is anathema. Unacceptable. Unfair. Fascistic. So we are told.

Seen in that light, the black-hooded army can operate as it pleases, and so can we… unless we object, or are harmed by, their operations. How can there be right or wrong, when you deny any value-system of standards… except by the imposition of their opinions? Lo and behold, we are face-to-face with the totalitarian impulse they claim to hate.

Very much like as in the French Revolution, when the bloodthirsty street-roaming rioters wanted to abolish even calendars and ways of telling time – not only killing middle-class people and gutting churches – the anarchists will be crushed between the really serious totalitarians from above, and the traditionalists and religious classes from below. That is in the future, surely. Sadly, but surely, to come.

The road to “No Standards” has been gradual, but the changing of opinions (once called Hypocrisy) in fact has been resolute. Views of abortion is one instance.

Respect for human life has been a mantra, as never before in political discourse, for several generations, beginning especially in the aftermath of World War II and the United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights. It has been underpinning the work of many nations, many organizations, many activists. Or… it has been the window-dressing.

When abortion became a sub-set of convenience, and as Christianity and religion in general was scrubbed from society’s standard operating procedures, the relevance of someone’s conscience became something akin to arrogant bigotry.

Many societies throughout history have exercised child sacrifice and practiced infanticide. On the path to contemporary peoples’ destination of No Standards are road signs labeled “Convenience,” “Privacy,” and the new mantra, “Rights.”

Rights, of course, except for the baby. Many women (and, by the way, the legal system) regard as irrelevant the fact that men too can have anguish and bitter regrets over abortions. They have obligations when their babies are carried to term, but no role if their babies are murdered before birth.

“Murder” is a harsh term – but less so, for instance to those who currently are wishing that President Trump and his family die (a tsunami on Facebook); or that police must be murdered; or, in gated Hollywood mansions, where they make fortunes by producing movies and TV shows featuring unrelenting violence. So “murder” is a malleable term, too – another case of Standards melting into No Standards. Whatever is right for them is… right for them.

Life is tough. Women who want to recast their biological realities are rescued by a culture whose lack of standards offers them the drugs or forgiveness and acceptance. Suddenly the culture wants us to play football without rules, yard-markers, or goalposts. Like changing the definitions of test scores so idiots can feel like geniuses; or awarding sports trophies for every participant – life might be tough, but is being made easier.

In America 2020, however, easier is getting harder every day.

There is no escaping the fact that God wrote the Ten Commandments. Not the Ten Suggestions.

The platforms of political parties… the pronouncements of cable-news pundits… the preaching of liberal pastors and priests… mean Absolutely nothing to the God of the Universe.

God’s standards do not depend on our own standards, nor lack of them. And surely He does not wait upon our opinion of His standards.

And that truth, even more than riots in the streets and loony political platforms, will shake the foundations of this Republic.

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Click: I Don’t Want To Get Adjusted