Monday Morning Music Ministry

8-2-21

I was talking with a friend this week about canals and rivers and cruises; memories and bucket-list kinds of things; and how different our country would have been if canals had asserted their utility and prominence in the face of railroad and highways. (Cleaner, quieter, more picturesque landscapes, at least…)

I have been blessed to have traveled on the legendary Orient Express train; and to have enjoyed cruises through Europe, those that connect great cities and pass breathtaking scenery on fabled rivers). On my bucket list still is a barge trip through France. On first mention it might not sound romantic, but France is still crisscrossed with old canals; and barge excursions wend their way at slow pace through beautiful countryside. Your “pilot” will stop where you want, and go ashore to acquire local produce, meats, cheeses, and wines so every spontaneous meal he prepares is fresh.

My current research into Theodore Roosevelt’s career taught me about an active movement during his presidency. He was a proponent of something that might have been realized if he had served another term. Basically it would have connected America in imaginative ways – joining rivers, expanding streams, building canals. From the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of the Rockies, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico; all would have fed into the Mississippi, making it – and all the other watery constituents – vast, interconnected routes for travel and commerce. Flood protection, irrigation, westward expansion, and trade would be beneficiaries. Locks, reservoirs, towpaths, and muleskinners were legacies.

In Roosevelt’s time a nationwide movement – actually scores of local initiatives, called, in one instance, “Fourteen Feet Through the Valley” – advocated an aggressive, coordinated policy. Unfortunately, lobbies of railroads and highway builders and unions were more aggressive and coordinated. There still are many miles of canals in America, and by greater proportion, around the world, but this grand interstate waterway was not to be. It could have been as consequential, a modern miracle, as Roosevelt’s Panama Canal proved to be. I eventually experienced a canal trip, between two Great Lakes at Sault Ste-Marie (where their levels are different, necessitating canals and locks). Not yet have I been to the Panama Canal.

I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. Isaiah 41:18

Otherwise on such subjects, and many others, I am naïve, and I will confess that I realized how provincial city boys can be (I was born in New York City) then when I visited the source of a river outside Angoulême, in the Charente region of France. There was a little lake from which flowed a little river, but it appeared to have nothing flowing into it. Except from below. There was a swell of water, as of a fountain, that revealed the point of the source.

I felt like a hick to be amazed at this. As a kid in New York, the only similar thing I ever saw was water swelling from broken sewer pipes or fire hydrants. Otherwise, I thought water came from… faucets. Oh, yes, upstate reservoirs. Oh, yes, magazine pictures of melting snows in mountains, and great waterfalls. But obviously there are many natural springs; we read about them. They don’t require drilling. Bottled water companies subsist on them. But I was 30 before I ever saw one of these underground springs.

There is a spiritual message; there always is (in life, not only here with me). In the Bible there are many “types” of the Holy Spirit, like oil and rushing wind. And water; frequently water. We thirst for Him; we need oases in life’s frequent deserts; we know these things.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13,14

The Lord met a woman at Jacob’s Well and impressed her with knowledge of her sins and shame, and the explanation that the water she drew there was nothing compared to what He provides us. The TV series The Chosen remarkably captured that encounter.

Wells that are dug are smaller versions of springs that are sources of rivers. We can be amazed at such sources of water, but do we realize that unless we channel and direct them, neither the source nor the thirsty themselves know where they will lead?

In the case of water, it will flow somewhere. In spite of Greenies’ hysteria about imminent flooding of Kansas prairies, the earth holds just so much water – always has, always will. It might freeze or steam, become rain or alter its courses, even change locations from oceans to deserts over time, but water is finite in its volume. As springs well up, so do vast underground rivers ebb and flow.

As with water, so it is with all components of God’s world. We cannot double the size of the earth; we cannot invent new elements. I celebrate “creativity” but always try to remember the quotation-marks: only God the Creator can create. At best, even in the arts, humankind merely rearranges.

As with water, and springs of wells and rivers, the Source knows not where it will flow, or end, except in God’s omniscience and providence. With the Holy Spirit, the “springs of living water,” we can be refreshed and sustained… but having it become “a well of eternal life” is our responsibility.

Jesus offers to turn the deserts of our lives into gardens. How will we then live? Too many of us choose to become thirsty again, and again, and again, when we can be free of that; and never again be spiritually thirsty.

“There is a river that flows from deep within.” Come to that water.

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I could not decide which of three relevant video music clips to attach today. The inspiration flooded over me to offer three themed songs, of three different traditions.

Click: In the River
In The River (featuring Kim Walker-Smith)

Click: There Is a River
There Is A River – Heritage Singers

Click: Down In the River
Down in the River – Shenandoah Christian Music Camp

7-26-21

I do love mysteries. Books, stories, movies, real-life events. I think we all do; but there is a difference in our next steps. Some people, and I think humankind in general particularly in the past few centuries, love mysteries because there is a passion – almost an obsession – to solve them.

Is this a good thing, a natural impulse? Not necessarily. Mysteries, the unknown, deep challenges, dare us in many ways; and we accept the challenges. Answering the call, thus have diseases been conquered, new lands discovered, and faraway planets visited. Not bad things, and an aspect of humankind’s DNA that grows when exercised.

I regret some negative aspects that inevitably follow. We have been deluded into thinking that we can solve any mystery, in time; which is of course ridiculous. We lose sight of the fact that life often substitutes new challenges when some mysteries (diseases, plagues, natural disasters) are met; for nature and human nature seem immutable. And we tend to equate the passage of time with real progress. Some mysteries merely deepen: we solve mysterious sicknesses but insist on inventing better ways to kill each other. How’s that for a mystery?

No, I love mysteries because they are mysteries. We cannot know everything, or else we would be as God – and I admit my credentials are lacking. But I do not merely settle for being very human; I embrace the mysteries that place me apart from God; that is, subordinate.

His mysteries are wonderful, just as His ways are inscrutable. That leads me to the basis, the definition, of faith. There are things I don’t have to know, because God knows. There are things I don’t have to worry about, because He cares for me. If things seem out of control… I know He is in control. Martin Luther said that Reason is the enemy of Faith. Hmmm.

I embrace mysteries like birth, and the formed fingers and joyful smiles of babies. Of flowers that return after seeming to die; of seedlings that push through rocks. Forgiveness is a mystery. Salvation is a mystery I don’t understand, but I accept. And when all is said and done, love is a mystery.

If we dissect a butterfly to see how it can fly, we kill it in the process. Therefore, many of the mysteries of life – of God – I simply accept and embrace.

Parts of the Bible we need to understand; but parts of it present the mysteries of God without explaining them. That’s fine. “We will understand it better bye and bye.”

For instance, in the Book of Revelations – surely a book that reveals as many mysteries as matters of clarity – we read of the “24 Elders” who fall down before the Throne of God in Heaven, and cast down their crowns before Him. We read of treasures in Heaven. We read in two passages about this scene, the “glassy sea” before the Throne of God.

Crowns and treasures that some might have? The rest of us will not? Aren’t we all to be equal, once saved? Maybe the Elders represent churches, or dispensations, or saints of the ages…?

It is true that forgiven and blood-bought Believers are no more, and no less, “saved,” or Children of God, which is confirmed many times in Scripture. In the same way as the vilest sinner on earth might gain Heaven by confessing Christ at the end of his or her life. Or the most generous charity worker might go to hell if he or she never believe and confess Christ. These things fight against our own logic, but are not mysteries. They are God’s honest truth.

About those treasures and crowns, I have always thought that in God’s plan there have been saints or martyrs, perhaps, who have a place of distinction, not greater favor, in His sight… but before the Throne of God, nothing else will matter except bowing before Him, praising Him forever, gathering with other saints around the river and the beautiful, calm, glassy sea; and placing at God’s feet whatever honors there might be.

Greater service, greater perseverance, greater love will seem like nothing when we behold Him. In proper perspective, we will lay everything before Him.

Heaven – we try to imagine. Do you want to see loved ones again? You probably will. Children want to see their pets? If that thought pleases them here, it might happen there. But our minds cannot for a moment imagine the riches that await us in glory. The words of a great hymn attempt a picture:

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore Thee, Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea; Cherubim and seraphim falling down before Thee, Who were and are and evermore shall be.

Does this make sense? No matter; let the mystery be. We will see these things.

Some “emergent” churches claim to embrace mystery, but in my experience they embrace candles and incense instead.

For now we see through a glass darkly; but then, face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know (I Corinthians 13:12)…

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This hymn of church was a poem by Reginald Heber later set to music by John Bacchus Dykes. The “Holy, Holy, Holy” from Revelation reminds us that the Bible’s frequent use of numbers is significant – three for perfection; seven for completion, etc. Not clues for lotteries, but lessons to learn from. Here, worship with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir:

Click: “Holy, Holy, Holy” sung by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

( If you are reading the blog on a mobile device and have problems downloading, please copy and paste this link — https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=MFdObQIE4tA — into your browser. )

7-19-21

~~ A guest message by my friend Leah C Morgan, a gifted, spiritual writer whose thoughts always move me. ~~

They didn’t understand what he was saying, and they were afraid to ask him what he meant.

This verse from Mark’s Gospel is eye-opening: it exposes the faulty habits of communication we all share. The passage preceding this scripture tells us that Jesus wanted to get away from the crowd for a while, to spend time alone with his disciples, to teach them, so he kept their location quiet.

His plans were to set aside time for them. Teaching implies understanding.

But this special time apart became a one-sided conversation, Jesus talking and his friends not comprehending. And – does this sound familiar to you? – they didn’t ask for clarity. Whether out of fear or timidity, they did not seek to understand.

Watch the difference in Jesus’ methods. Immediately following this, they walked to a house where they would be staying and when they were settled, Jesus was not afraid to ask what they meant in their private conversation. “What were you discussing out on the road?”

“But they didn’t answer, because they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.”

What a difference between how Jesus communicates and how we communicate.

How did the disciples model communication? They avoided it:

•They communicated out of their fear. Don’t inquire, don’t seek understanding, don’t ask questions about things that are uncomfortable to talk about.

•They communicated out of their shame. Don’t respond, don’t divulge details, don’t answer, keep quiet about things that make you look bad.

How did Jesus model communication? He ran headlong into it:

•He set aside time alone without distraction. Away from other pressing and legitimate needs He committed to be fully present and to communicate his thoughts. He gave enough information to alleviate fear and to open the door for further discussion. Even when those closest to Him remained mute out of fear.

•He listened when others communicated. During their daily activities He waited for an appropriate time to bring up what he observed, and asked questions of them. Even when the closest to him remained mute out of shame.

Jesus healed the deaf and mute while those closest to him selectively chose too often to be both.

Have you ever said to those closest to you, “I don’t want to talk about that”? It is likely then that you need to talk about that. We continue to carry what we continue to bury.

Is there someone “being Jesus” to you, giving you space to ask questions and allowing an opportunity for you to give honest answers? Choose the uncomfortable now. The disciples were not able to avoid difficulties by avoiding to talk about them.

The disciples referenced were men. There is a culture around manhood that creates the lie: to speak is weak. Jesus dismantles this lie. It takes courage to be vulnerable. It takes incredible strength to talk about uncomfortable things. Look at His boldness, look at His honesty. Jesus is the ideal man; He both asked and answered hard questions.

Silence in conversation often is an effort to retain self-respect. We imagine that truthful engagement would cost us the respect we’ve worked so hard to create. But the more we cling to it the more we strangle it. The paradox is the “letting go.” Respect is earned when people have the courage to be real… not when they master the art of silence.

When these men were transformed by spending time with Jesus, it empowered them to survive the worst of times they weren’t prepared for. They learned to start talking about it!

John later wrote: “I have much more to say to you, but I don’t want to do it with paper and ink. For I hope to visit you soon and talk with you face to face. Then our joy will be complete.” (II John 1:12)

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The disciples’ reluctance to communicate – listen and speak – made them weak in the hour they needed the greatest strength. Here is a song about talking, sung by Sheri Easter. The camera also finds Jeff, her husband; and Reba Rambo, whose mother Dottie wrote this song. Taped at the Cove, Billy Graham’s retreat center.

Click: I Just Came To Talk with You, Lord

7-12-21

We all endure trials in life; and we recently discussed that fact here. Some trials, of course, are more severe than others… some only seem so, and lesser challenges become bigger obstacles… and some trials are “blessings in disguise.”

You have heard that expression, “a blessing in disguise.” Whenever I hear it, I think of the story about Winston Churchill during the London blitz, looking out over a burning city. An aide supposedly said, “Perhaps this is a blessing disguise.” Churchill supposedly harrumphed, “Some blessing. Some disguise.”

We see through a glass darkly, and cannot always know the larger picture. That is one reason why faith, and prayer, and reliance on God, are so important.

These days, I am persuaded, our trials are worse than ever, at least unique at this point in history. I refer to our national trials and trauma – the challenges we face in society, the breakdown of morals and manners, standards and traditions; betrayal by institutions and destructiveness by groups and individuals.

And I also refer to personal trials. How can I know the trials outside my circle of friends and correspondents? Because our society’s crises are causing personal crises. Many of our trials, yours and mine, in the areas of friends, family, finances, security, and confidence flow from the dissolution of our culture. Addiction, abuse, violence, crime, broken relationships, abortion… these are trials we endure in the larger realms of our lives, and the close-up spheres of our existence.

Let us think of one of the most iconic examples of a trial, so famous that it has entered the language, “going through the fiery furnace.”

In the Book of Daniel, chapter 3, is the account of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, who constructed a golden idol and commanded that all bow down before it. And anyone who refused would be executed, thrown into a blazing furnace. The king was told that three officials, named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to worship the golden statue.

They were brought before the king and explained that they worshiped only the God of the Bible, and would not bow down to an idol. Nebuchadnezzar commanded that they be thrown into the fiery furnace, heated seven times hotter than normal. It was so hot that, it was written, the jailers handling them died of the heat. When the king was able look into the furnace, however, he saw the three walking around, not bent, not bowed, not burned. And he saw a fourth figure with them – he said looking “like a son of God.”

Who was the fourth man? Not an angel; not a Holy Fireman except by metaphor. Bible scholars regard the Fourth Man as the pre-incarnate Jesus, as He did appear at times through the Old Testament.

This is a lesson for us today.

Unlike some other nuanced views, this is what I take away:
* There will be trials, always; don’t kid yourself.
* Never compromise with the “world system.” We are surrounded by idols these days. Don’t be seduced; don’t compromise; do not lose faith.
* Don’t bend; don’t bow; and you will not be burnt.
* If God wanted to spare those three men, He could have extinguished the fire. He could have made the furnace crumble. He could have struck down the king and the jailers.
* God had them go through the trial, and then save them, as a lesson in Faith. For us.
* Jesus is with us in trials. He does not want us to pray that “life” never happens… but to trust Him when “life happens.”

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” Notice again that God doesn’t push us toward peaceful detours. But He promises to be with us… so we can “fear no evil.”

The rotten world-system today is our King Nebuchadnezzar. Our crises – and they are real – are our personal fiery furnaces. Are you thinking of a family problem, or at the other extreme, society’s mess? Do you grieve over a friend, the school board, the White House, everything in between? Do not compromise, do not fear, do not bend, do not bow…

… and you will not burn. Look for that Fourth Man. He is with you.

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One of my favorite actors, Charles Laughton, once appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and dramatically recited, from memory, the story of the Fourth Man. Please watch! (The only mistake was, he called it the fourth chapter of Daniel instead of the third.) By the way, can you imagine a Hollywood star, today, being invited on prime-time TV to recite a chapter from the Bible? Times HAVE changed.

Click: Charles Laughton Shares the Story of the Fiery Furnace

7-4-21

This title might seem blasphemous to patriots. Those who know me and my works and my essays know that for the old red, white, and blue I would cheer three hundreds times, and I have.

There are many among us these days who would offer three jeers for the red, white, and blue. And do so, every day, in many ways.

“My country right or wrong”? Yes, I will defend the flag and our American heritage; and most of you readers do, too. But is not a trio of random colors that we revere, or the mere fabric on which those colors appear. Rather it is the fabric of our republic – the warp and weave, literally, of what made us Americans – that we defend. Or we should.

If those 50 stars represent, instead of separate states, let us say the hallmarks of contemporary America, will we yet rise and defend stars that stand for abortion, loss of free speech, threatened denial of firearm ownership, open borders, censorship of the Bible in public places, government weaponization of tax agencies, legalized drugs, gambling, and perversion, monitoring of “hate speech” and free assembly…?

The Revolution-era Patriots would not have fought for such things. They rebelled against far milder intrusions by the King! Their “lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor” meant more than accepting attacks upon our country, as today’s Christian Patriots go along and get along… not wanting to hurt the feelings of those who despise us. Happy Fourth of July.

This Christian column will turn to Christian things. Many of us have referred to Alexis de Tocqueville’s long visit to America in the 1840s, and his brilliant writings, his analysis of why America is unique in world history. Shame on us, not many of us have read him; shame on me, I did not until recently. But for all of his examination of immigrant groups, laws, fertile resources, and social traditions, he returned again and again to the bedrock strength of the American character: religion.

“America will cease to be great when it ceases to be good,” he wrote in that regard, and how community churches and Christian faith undergirded the American character.

Is Christianity dying in America? Is Christianity an essential component of American greatness? Have our iconic wood-frame churches and beautiful cathedrals become mere social clubs or museums? How many pastors and priests preach “inclusion” instead of the Gospel? How many homosexual rainbow flags fly with – or in the place of – the American flag or a denomination’s Christian flag?

Jacques Rivière once observed to the poet Paul Claudel that “Christianity is dying…. We do not know why, above our towns, there still rise those spires which no longer [host] the prayers of any one of us…. Surrounded by railroad stations and hospitals, and from which the people themselves have chased [the faithful].”

This describes too many churches, too many places, too many people in America today.

These very days we hear government officials bleating for trillions of dollars to take care of those in need. We listen to commercials where companies brag about spending millions (our money, of course) on the poor and disadvantaged. Whatever else these initiatives are – they are battles in the war on religion.

Jesus desires that His children have a heart for the poor. God ordained His church to exercise charity. And the Founders of this nation said – many times, in many ways – that without a religious spirit, a republic is doomed to fail. They would not have dreamed of having a government rob those initiatives from its citizens.

Thank God, the poet Claudel responded to Rivière with brilliant clarity: “Truth is not concerned with how many people it persuades.”

As an aphorism, that is valid; but the question that confronts us on July 4th is, How many people in “Christian America” care about the Truth any more? America no longer argues against Truth, but tends often to ignore it. Truth has become irrelevant. We remember that a lady outside Constitution Hall, as it is known today, anxiously asked Benjamin Franklin as the Framers left one evening, “Sir, what have you given us?”

You know Franklin’s answer: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

Note well: He was not differentiating between the American Constitution and Monarchy. The Framers were careful to design and bequeath a Republic – structured, limited, balanced, representative government. In the style of Athens, Rome, and, yes, the Bible blueprints for a society, as those men frequently invoked.

NOT a democracy, which was despised and feared by Athens and Rome and the wise Framers. There is a difference, and today’s mobs not only blur the distinctions: they have declared war on order, tradition, and the religious spirit – Christianity and its role in our civic life.

I ask again, for serious thought: is this what we should salute as the flag passes by? If we shed a tear, is it for the America of today… or what America used to be?

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Click: Red Skelton’s Pledge of Allegiance