Monday Morning Music Ministry

It comes to our in-boxes with increased frequency: “So-and-so wants to be your friend” on Facebook or some other “social networking” site.

Many of these requests come from friends-of-friends-of-friends… or people we have never met.

Here we are in a society where acquaintances call themselves friends… where strangers want you to officially declare them friends… all without words spoken, hands shaken, or smiles exchanged.

We have forgotten the essence of friendship, but thirst for the qualities it represents.

Jesus told us what true friendship is all about. And He not only defined it, but lived it — embodied it. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” Greater love had no man than He had for us, laying down His life for… His friends.

I have felt guilty lately that my communications with friends have been sporadic. Nothing is so important in life that we should neglect out friends. When we’re too busy for that… we are TOO BUSY.

Today my new grandson, Zachary Alpheus Shaw, was baptized. The church service, hymns, and homily, reminded us all that Jesus is Zach’s friend, and all of ours. Today I also received a heartfelt report from a dear friend, Becky Spencer, who just returned from Africa, where she spent nine days in Mozambique, working alongside Israel Jovo and the Rhandzanani Christian School. Israel takes the Gospel to villages in the bush where they have no other preacher, and he trains other preachers/pastors and their wives. He has a case of recurring malaria, can’t so much as lift his legs, has a high fever, and is in horrible pain. He needs to get to South Africa where trained treatment awaits; he needs healing. Becky reports a downhill spiral just since she was there a few days ago saying her goodbyes.

Baby Zach in his innocence has a Friend; Israel Jovo in his distress needs a Friend. Yet the opposite locution is just as true: little Zach needs a Friend like Jesus — we all do — and the suffering servant Israel Jovo in Mozambique has a Friend indeed.

And the extent to which Christians are friends to each other directly relates to the “amount” of Jesus we invite into our hearts… and share.

Have a good week, friends! [update: Israel Jovo, in Mozambique, has been healed!]

Click:  Friends

How often have we heard the story of the shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to search for the lost one; or the Prodigal Son welcomed by the father with a great feast… and wondered, in our hearts, what it must have felt like among the 99 sheep, or how the faithful son felt: Hey, what about us? Haven’t we been faithful and good all this time? Is this the reward of obedience, of doing good?

The truth is, of course, that Jesus wants us to see the complete story through the eyes of the lost ones, and the sinner. Because that is who we are. If truth be told, those 99 sheep and that faithful older brother in the parables were only “safe” and “good” at those moments. There, but for the grace of God, they too would have strayed or been prodigal.

But the best parts of the parables are what happens when the lost sheep, and the prodigal son (read: you and me!) are found! Feasts, rejoicing, and the JOY of Heaven awaits!

“I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7).

Christian music should be joyful, and here is a gospel song by Vep Ellis that mirrors the joy awaiting us in Heaven. Performed joyfully by the Vocal Band and Signature Sound at a concert in Louisville. Comedy (and some musical instruction) beforehand… words of hope… and a joyful noise unto the Lord!

Heaven’s Joy Awaits

When we leave this lowland, We will cross the Jordan;

Past the chilly torrent, Heaven’s joy awaits!

Just beyond the blue horizon, Just above the starry sky, starry blue sky.

Far above this land of sorrow, Way above each tear and sigh, every sigh.

Just a few more miles before us, Just a little while to wait, patiently wait.

Soon we’ll sing redemption’s chorus, Heaven’s joy awaits, Heaven awaits.

Heaven’s breeze is blowing, Gently to me calling.

I will soon be going, Through the pearly gates!

Just beyond the blue horizon, Just above the starry sky, starry blue sky.

Far above this land of sorrow, Way above each tear and sigh, every sigh.

Just a few more miles before us, Just a little while to wait, patiently wait.

Soon we’ll sing redemption’s chorus, Heaven’s joy awaits, Heaven awaits.

Click:   Heaven’s Joy Awaits

Easter Week has ended in the US (of course, we should pray that it never ends — its Truth is everlasting), but it is not so everywhere. Orthodox churches celebrate Christ’s resurrection according to other schedules and, I have just learned from my college friend John Siegmund, now a Lutheran pastor in Germany, there is an “Easter Monday” too:

“Thanks so much for your good wishes for a blessed Holy Week. I will be celebrating Holy Thursday with the mass of the Institution of the Lord’s Supper. Immediately following we will strip the altar, removing everything that can be carried but the remaining eucharistic gifts into the sacristy until Easter Vigil. I will climb up to the main cross in our church and give the Lord a black drape which will hang until the preparations for the Easter Vigil.

“Weather permitting, we will hold the Stations of the Cross in our town following the Good Friday service of penance and veneration of the Cross of Christ. On Saturday night we will celebrate the Vigil of Easter followed by Easter breakfast, donated by church members. On Easter Sunday and on Easter Monday we celebrate the glorious resurrection of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ with a festive liturgy in the morning.

“Easter Monday is still a legal holiday here, although particularly mainline Protestant parishes don’t observe it with a festive service, but, at best, with evening concerts or the like…”

Isn’t there a comfort — beyond the spiritual reality, which is paramount — but isn’t there a comfort in the old traditions, the old hymns, the old fellowships? Indeed, the Old Gospel? There are reasons they all developed, and established themselves, and became beloved and old. Can’t our world and our lives slow down a little bit, so all of the Old — “Good Old” — doesn’t disappear from view?

Enjoy this old-time gospel song. “Ye who are weary, come home…”

Click:  Softly and Tenderly

Happy Monday.. and Happy Holy Week.

“Happy”?

Sure. It was a happy week, back in Jerusalem. Jesus rode into town; if we were there, we probably would have joined the happy throng with our palm-branches. Things turned ugly, the crowd was incited, Jesus was falsely accused. He was tortured, put on the cross, and died. Chances are that we — or at least I — would have been part of that crowd too. In fact, I sort of am, every time I sin.

But it sure was a happy week, after all, because He rose from the dead. He took the sins we commit upon Himself… died the death we deserve… and conquered death so that we might live with Him. I’m happy; are you?

Even Good Friday… etymologists speculate its origin was “God’s Friday”; maybe so. That willing, sacrificial death was Good indeed. Greater love hath no man than this.

Here is possibly the most unique, certainly a most memorable, version of the Easter story you might ever see. A little account of a kid’s Easter pageant. Father and son; death and resurrection; humor and Truth.

It is pianist Anthony Burger a few years ago talking about his five-year-old in an Easter pageant. Ironically, not long after this, Anthony himself died, suddenly, at the keyboard on a gospel-music cruise. His life was a mighty testimony… and so was his little boy’s story.

Click:  We Shall Behold Him

All the Merrys of this season, and the Happys of greetings like the thousands we hear and say, cannot mask that sometimes life is not always merry and happy.

Even Christians, as secure as they can be in their faith, and mindful of God’s many blessings, not only have difficult times and enormous challenges (not warned about in the Bible, but promised to occur)… but also deal with moments of doubt.

To be a follower of Jesus, and admit to these things, does not make you a bad Christian; it just shows that you are… a Christian. We believe, but sometimes doubt things. We trust, yet need His hand to walk forward. We take the risk of trusting like a child…

Those last words are in Bill Gaither’s song I Believe… Help Thou My Unbelief. If you are ever in that fragile spiritual state, or ever have been, or might be sometime, this brief emotional song might minister to you:

Click:  A Hymn for Doubters

A short message about the greatest message ever delivered.

This week’s music is the recent, but already standard, Christmas favorite, Mary Did You Know, sung by its co-writer, Mark Lowry. The lyrics are a profound statement of Christ’s incarnation, in which we are invited to see through the eyes of His mother.

At this concert in Birmingham, Bill Gaither then draws the very proper — the essential — connection between Jesus’s first coming and His second coming. Christmas and Easter should not be two separate celebrations. The same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, He was here among men, and will return for us; the vulnerable baby is also the Great “I Am.”

St Augustine, 1500 years ago, put it this way: “The nature of God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.” And that is Jesus, first born of all creation.

And… He came… for us. As you listen to “Mary, Did You Know,” let me ask: “Do YOU know?”

Click:  Mary, Did You Know

Christmas week approaches, and many of try to brush off news stories that Jesus was born in April or November, according to studies; and we also try to cut through the crowded shops and the gift-sale e-mails… hoping that, by focusing on the simple truths and modest imagery of Jesus’s birth, we can connect with the profundity of the Incarnation — God living amongst us. Coming first as a helpless baby.

Two thousand years later, Hallmark has us thinking that to be born in a manger was some sort of Green bonus, the happy family surrounded by squeaky-clean animal friends and shiny angels. More the truth was that the stable was a step up from a dung-heap. Swaddling clothes were essential, else the baby would have been delivered and lain on musty straw, animal spittle, and bugs.

Think of it: Jesus came into this world rejected and despised, and that is how, as a man, He left it.

Isaiah knew it would happen this way. Eight hundred years earlier, the prophet wrote:

“Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

The rest of Chapter 53, of course, foretells the Easter story. But I think it is significant, too (otherwise God would not have ordered its occurrence and recording) that we remember the challenges to Joseph, the abuse Mary endured, the difficulties of Jesus’s birth… and His entire life. “Despised and rejected of men.”

Yet this “undesirable” was also THE JOY OF MANKIND’S DESIRING. As sinners today, we still esteem Him not sometimes… yet we desire Him, our souls are only complete when He lives within us!

Here is a performance of that ethereally beautiful movement from Bach’s Cantata Number 147, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” It is sung by the group Celtic Women, in an arrangement that is both touching and revealing of how adaptable Bach’s music is. Here are the words the ensemble sings:

Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,

Holy wisdom, love most bright.

Drawn by Thee, our souls? aspiring,

Soar to uncreated light.

Word of God, our flesh that fashioned

With the fire of life impassioned,

Striving still to Truth unknown,

Soaring, dying, ’round Thy throne.

Click: Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring

On top of all the holiday busy-ness, this season seems, to me,  exceptionally intrusive. Do you have the same impression in your “space”? You don’t have to be a news junkie or a cable-news addict to be aware of economic hard times, health-care battles, political corruption, intrusive government, a war, another war, global “worming,” terror threats, runaway spending, and probably another war somewhere. And that’s just yesterday. Next week will probably have its new problems.

For friends outside the US, I’m sure there are the same and similar challenges in the news every morning and every evening where you are.

My son Ted is a TV news producer, and I don’t want to take any work off his plate, but…

This is an appropriate time — this is a good season — to remember what the really big news is. Here is a video of the great Russ Taff, singing with his daughter Madi at his side; and backstage with members of the Gaither musical family, a little song about “The Really Big News.”

Family, friends, life’s little pleasures. Stop the presses! Let’s all remember the big stories in our lives.

(And, at this season, the really good news, too. The gifts we will be exchanging began as a commemoration of God’s greatest Gift, Jesus Christ! May we all remember that initial impetus!)

Click: The Really Big News

Sometime in these days before Christmas, likely this very week, you will meet or be with someone with whom you can share something special.

The Christmas season — everything we are surrounded with, and all that is missing in contemporary-style surroundings — can allow the sharing of thoughts to come easier. Or it can make it much harder. Clichés rush to our lips, and can sound like old truths, which they are; or sound like… well, empty clichés.

Here’s a thought: if you think someone has a need in his or her life that can be filled by the spiritual blessings you have experienced, DON’T tell them about your wonderful church.

DON’T tell them about the great music on Sunday mornings.

DON’T tell them about the amazing sermons, even if you have a stack of cassettes.

DON’T tell them about the wild youth group and all the activities.

DON’T tell them about the small group studies, ladies’ fellowships, men’s breakfasts.

DON’T tell them about the neighborhood Bible studies.

DON’T tell them about the outreaches, soup kitchens, and missions programs.

… not first, anyway. Not even second or third. If the person you talk to needs those things, he or she will come to know them, sure enough. If you act like those things are the Main Deal in your faith life… well, you’re revealing that you are a social animal, but sharing nothing about your faith. Or, rather, the Source of your faith.

Tell them about Jesus. That’s all. Tell them the story of Jesus.

The blind poet Frances Crosby (who never wrote a poem until her 40s and wrote 7000 poems and hymns before she died) said it best — and provided a brief script for us, if our own words come hard! — in the song Tell Me the Story of Jesus. Here it is sung at a Gaither Homecoming camp meeting on a warm summer evening in Fairmount, Indiana; followed appropriately by a verse from another beloved hymn, I Love to Tell the Story.

Click:  Tell Me the Story of Jesus

Happy Monday!

This weekend just passed covered the day we celebrate — or should celebrate and commemorate; a good time to re-dedicate — Reformation Day. October 31, anniversary of the day Dr Martin Luther nailed his 95 These to the church door at Wittenberg, Germany.

These 95 points of ”Contention” with policies of the Pope and the establishment Roman Church are regarded as the sparks that ignited the Reformation, and the Protestant movement. There were reformers before Luther – preachers, theologians and Bible translators who were persecuted, tortured, and killed. The English John Wycliffe died a century before Luther was active. Hatred against him, for daring to adapt the Bible to the language of the people, was that his bones were disinterred and burned after his death. The Bohemian reformer Jan Hus was burned at the stake for his reformist beliefs. His last words, tied to the stake, before the flames consumed him, were “in a hundred years, God will raise up a man whose calls for reform can not be suppressed.“

It was 102 year later that Luther nailed his challenges to that church door.
Luther was persecuted, chased, went into hiding, and translated the Bible into the language of his people, the Germans. He sought reform, not revolution, yet revolution occurred: half of Europe caught fire with the belief that faith alone, by God’s grace, actuated salvation; and that people needed no intercessor with God except Christ. He was excommunicated. He married. He preached and wrote lessons… and wrote hymns.
It is my belief that, as we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, the church — at least the Western Church, certainly the American church in virtually all its corners — is in dire need of reformation again.

More than that, we need to look to Martin Luther as a Hero of Conscience. He said when he was called on trial to recant his beliefs and writings,
“Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can not and will not retract.
“For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience.
“Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.“

The time is coming in this contemporary world when Christians have it demanded of them to renounce their faith. That this is already a time of anti-Christian persecution, is abundantly clear. That, daily, believers suffer indignities and are asked to compromise their principles and forced to sublimate their voices, is a reality to committed Christians.

Some days soon Christians will have to suffer no longer in silence, or have the luxury of withdrawing into small groups and communities of believers. The Bible does not merely warn… prophets did not just threaten… but God promised this holy challenge to the saints of God in the End Times.

Can we, like Luther, have the spiritual strength to say:”For it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. “Here I stand. I can do no other” ?

I have two brief clips for Reformation Day: the first is the powerful “conscience” scene from the 1953 “Luther” movie starring Niall MacGinnis (nominated for an Academy Award).

Here I stand

The second is the “battle hymn of the Reformation” sung a capella by Steve Green. Myself, I can never sing this mighty hymn without choking up. Its final lines describe Luther’s trial… and foreshadow our own:
“Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever!”

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God

Have a good week.
Rick Marschall

Last week my daughter Heather, who is expecting her second child, received a shocker. Awakened by a phone call from her doctor, she heard a disturbing possible prognosis after tests on the baby.

I’ll fast-forward and let her note of a couple days ago tell the story:

Hi, family and friends
This week was a weird one…we all got sick, Pat had a deadline at work so was working 15-18 hour days, and on Tuesday we got a call from our Dr. that blood work showed a possibility for our baby to have spina bifida.

Not knowing much about the condition but also realizing that dreams of a healthy baby might not be the case, we were initially worried but as we took time to pray together and on our own we both felt stretches of incredible peace. We’ve been praying since we were married, for any future kids God had planned for us, that in everything He would be glorified. So during this time, we kept reminding ourselves that God was still in charge and if this is what he had planned for this little one and us, that it would be fine.

We went to UofM hospital today to meet with a genetic counselor and have an ultrasound. The ultrasound revealed NOTHING wrong and everything looks perfect: strong heart, spine is in the right shape and position, brain has no abnormalities, and there are no holes in the abdomen. It turns out that sometimes blood work just reveals higher levels of this protein and only 1/2% of those who have this elevated protein level actually go on to have babies with problems.

This has reminded us to continue to pray for our kids and that no matter what happens that God is still God and will give us what He feels is best. Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement this week!

Love,
Pat, Heather, Gabe and Zachary (yep, we found out it’s a boy!! He was proudly doing somersaults!!)

Heather’s testimony is a tale of faith and trust in God. I have been wanting to share the video of Janet Paschal’s conversation with Bill Gaither about her own health challenge — hers was with a cancer diagnosis — and her performance of the beautiful love-song to God, rejoicing in His sovereign care and the supportive love of friends like Gloria: “It Won’t Rain Always.”

Many people who pray, and singers who sing, and preachers who preach, concentrate on the “storms clouds passing,” and “it’s dark, but morning time’s coming!” Those things are true, as symbols and reflections of reality in the life of believers… but so is the line from this song about “dark clouds” — “the Sun that they’ve been hiding has been there all along.”

Have you ever gotten up before a trip… and it’s raining or snowing? You have a miserable ride to the airport, full of delays and dangerous traffic. The flight is delayed because of the rotten weather. The plane finally takes off into the black clouds… and then the blue sky and blinding sun meet you above the clouds.

It’s been there all along!

Click:  It Won’t Rain Always

Merry Monday to all.

I am in the process — yes, it is a process — of writing a biography of Johann Sebastian Bach. Specifically about the role of faith in his life and work. It is a humbling privilege to deal with, and introduce a new generation of readers to, the greatest musical genius the human race has produced. I will say, somewhere in the book, that the music of Bach is hard to explain but easy to understand.

In a similar way Bach, being as intensely devoted to his faith in God and love of Jesus as to his music, used his talent to make the complicated theology of 18th-century Germany nevertheless understandable to the masses. I was struck in my studies, listening to his astonishing “Magnificat” — the prayer of Mary (Luke I) when she learns she has been visited by the Holy Ghost and is with child — how brilliantly he used his talent to explain Gospel truths. In her prayer, Mary says, “henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” Bach used that verse for the fourth movement of “The Magnificat”… and he might have dwelt on the words, the concepts, of “henceforth” or “me” (as veneration of Mary was a theological issue), or “blessed.”
But he chose to focus on the word “generations,” the phrase “all generations,” and drive home several biblical points. The birth of Jesus became the focal point of creation’s unfolding work: the fulcrum of history. More, all generations to come would look back on Mary and call her blessed. Further, all previous generations looked forward to the birth of the Messiah. And, having isolated that phrase to imbue the Virgin Birth with its spiritual profundity, Bach capped it all by using musical composition to do more than merely quote the Bible verse.

The Latin words for “all generations” is “Omnes Generationes.” In his “Magnificat” Johann Sebastian Bach endows his five-part choir with a cascading multiplicity of that phrase — up the scale and down; women’s statements and men’s responses; from the left (as it were, in the choir loft) and from the right; in repetition and staccato fashion — “all generations,” “all generations,” “all generations,” “all generations.”
Truly, before the short but awesome chorus is finished, listeners have a mental image of the numberless hosts of heaven rejoicing: a mighty cloud of witnesses, to be sure, of the past and of the future.
The brief clip this week has two halves: one, the score of the movement, leading your eye through the multi-part composition — how Bach worked out the concept of future generations blessing Mary. But the second half is a unique piece of speculation by an internet musical-theologian. Along the lines of typology, numerical symbolism, and “Bible codes,” here is speculation that Bach composed this movement to precisely enumerate the generations of Jesus’ ancestry.

Speculation only, but as Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we know that saints of previous days indeed looked forward to the Incarnation (“It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order…” Luke I:3).
Here is Mary’s prayer (“The Magnificat”) as recorded in Luke I: 46-55:
“And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For He hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name. And his mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. He hath showed strength with his arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His seed for ever.”

Join the heavenly chorus! Picture countless angels and saints praising the Incarnation:
click All Generations!

Have a great week. Come on Bach now, y’hear?
Rick Marschall

Happy Monday!

I was talking on Sunday with my daughter Emily and her husband Norman McCorkell, both students at the Irish Bible Institute in Dublin, Ireland, and they told me of the blessings they received at a concert Saturday night. The American Christian singer Jason Upton appeared locally — singing, preaching, and worshiping. Emily and Norman and the whole room were touched mightily. Norman asked me what I was planning for today’s MMMM, and I said, “your thoughts from the evening; and Jason’s music.” Here it is!

Good Morning E-mail Community!
When ‘Pop’ asked me to present this week’s mailing of MMMM (Monday Morning Music Ministry), I could not think of anything better than to share of the marvelous evening that I spent with my wife in Dublin. I pray you will be touched as we were.

Jason Upton, live in concert, was our date of choice Saturday night. And he was simply superb!
During his set, Upton talked about many profound things including freedom, child-like faith, and finding rest in God — which is the theme that I’d suggest we consider this morning.

“The most humble thing that we can do for our Lord is to let him write our future,” Jason said. Too often we try to dictate, manipulate, and control our own futures, rather than simply trust in His perfect promises and gentle directions.

When we recall the precious moments leading up to our moments of conversion, we realize that Jesus wasn’t there luring us with a glossy road map of the future or a scintillating theological plan with all the answers. He simply asked us to trust in Him. Or, in His own words, “Follow me.”
Heart first, head second.

So often we get so consumed with the head stuff. The BIG picture, planning for the day that never actually happens, and worrying about questions that ONLY God can answer. Unfortunately, all too often, we forget that we are primarily called to a life of FAITH.
Should I go on?

OK then, let me finish this by illustrating with the perfect concomitant from the book of Genesis:
When we study the creation account in Genesis 2, specifically the seventh day (the day God RESTED), we will find that God does not call the day to an end like the other previous six. Which means that God is still resting. Thus, in God’s presence today, and this morning, we are still guaranteed to find REST.

To conclude then, before our day begins, let us throw off any anxiety that comes from needing to know exactly where we are going and what the “next step” is. Living in a nervous state of worry and angst robs us from the very thing that God wants us to dwell within – HIS PRESENCE, or put another way, His sovereign, wonderful, and everlasting REST!
So WHY worry?

Lastly, no matter what your have planned for this week, stop for just a few minutes and enjoy Jason leading you into God’s rest right now.
Norman McCorkell

Click: In Your Presence

Have a great week!
Rick Marschall

Amidst talk this week of the 9-11 anniversary, and bad economic news, and the health-care “crisis” in the US, I actually wonder whether Americans know what “hard times” are. I have been through some difficult patches, but I cannot say that I have known Hard Times in the sense that every previous generation in history, virtually everywhere in the world, has experienced.

I have been sad, but not in sorrow. I have been in debt, but never destitute. I have had regrets, but never grief. How many of us can share such relatively comfortable testimony? In my case, to whatever extent I rightly judge my insulation, it is largely due to my standing as a Christian – receiving joy that passes understanding — but we also have to credit modern life, in America, with its technology, medicine, and general prosperity.

Hard Times come in America, but somehow all the wars and crises have the lengths of TV mini-series, and if not, the public grows impatient. The public has a sound-bite mentality. We used to face our challenges; but now we are distracted with the modern equivalents of the Romans’ “bread and circuses” — pop entertainment, push-button gratification.

In many ways this indicates that we are not advancing as a culture. I’m not sure we are “going backwards,” either, because that might actually be beneficial. Giuseppi Verdi (yes, the composer otherwise known as Joe Green) once said, Torniamo all’antico: Sara un progresso — “We turn to the past in order to move forward.”

I got thinking of Hard Times in America when I pulled an elegant old volume off my bookshelf. Folk Songs was published in 1860, before the Civil War. This book is leather-bound, all edges gilt, pages as supple as when it was printed, a joy to hold. The “folk songs” of its title refers not to early-day coffee houses, but to poems and songs of the people, in contradistinction to epic verse or heroic sagas; the way the German word Volk refers to the shared-group spirit of the masses.

Many of the titles are charming: “The Age of Wisdom,” “My Child,” “Baby’s Shoes,” “The Flower of Beauty,” “The First Snow-Fall”… However, such sweet titles mask preoccupations with children dying in snow drifts, lovers deserting, husbands lost at sea, fatal illness, mourning for decades, unfaithful friends. No need to guess the themes other titles from the index:”Tommy’s Dead,” “The Murdered Traveller,” and “Ode To a Dead Body.”

It reminded me that people 150 years ago were not gloomy pessimists: they were not. But Hard Times were a part of life, and therefore part of poetry and song. On the frontier, life could be snuffed out in a moment. In the imminent Civil War, roughly every third household was affected by death, maiming, split families, or hideous disruption; yet anti-war movements never gained traction; life went on. Abraham Lincoln almost lost his mind over an unhappy love affair; his wife likely did lose her mind when her favorite son died in the White House. Theodore Roosevelt’s young wife (in childbirth) and mother (of salmonella) died on the same day in the same house. Hard Times.

Also before the Civil War, a composer named Stephen Foster wrote a song called Hard Times. He is barely recalled today, sometimes as a caricature, but he might be America’s greatest composer. He wrote My Old Kentucky Home; I Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair; Old Black Joe; Carry Me Back to Ol’ Virginia; Way Down Upon the Swanee River / Old Folks At Home; Oh, Susanna; Camptown Races; Beautiful Dreamer … and Hard Times, Come Again No More. This last song has been resurrected lately to a certain repute, or at least utility. In some circles it has become an anthem for charities and lamentation of poverty. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, even the Squirrel Nut Zippers, have sung it. It has taken on the air of a secular anthem. But in fact, although Stephen Foster did not embed a Gospel message in the lyrics, he had written many hymns in his life, and — if we can turn back our minds to the world of 150 years ago — it is clear that the Hard Times he wrote of were the world’s trials, to be relieved in heaven. It is clear that the “cabin,” and its door, in the song are metaphors.

Here is a memorable video to evoke the reality of life’s Hard Times, the promise heaven holds, and the beauty of Stephen Foster’s music to you. The seven singers are from the amazing project of a few years ago, “The Transatlantic Sessions” — singers and musicians from America (US and Canada), Ireland, and Scotland singing old and new “folkish” songs in a living-room setting.

(By the way, they are, left to right, Rod Paterson, Scotland; Karen Matheson, Scotland — hear her incredible soprano harmony on the left channel; Mary Black, Ireland; Emmylou Harris, US; Rufus Wainwright, his mother Kate McGarrigle, and her sister Anna McGarrigle on the button accordian, all Canadians. The other musicians are fiddler Jay Ungar — he wrote the haunting “Ashokan’s Farewell: tune of the PBS “Civil War” series — and his wife Molly Mason on the bass; and the project’s shepherds Shetland fiddler Aly Bain, and American dobro player Jerry Douglas.)

Listen to the wonderful performance, the amazing music, and the important reminder that we should keep Hard Times in perspective… but also that God provides a joyful relief from life’s disappointments when they come. By and by, they will “come no more.”

The lyrics are printed out under the link:
Click:

Hard Times Come Again No More

Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh hard times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
There are frail forms fainting at the door;
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh hard times, come again no more.
(Chorus)
There’s a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away,
With a worn heart whose better days are o’er:
Though her voice would be merry, ’tis sighing all the day,
Oh hard times, come again no more.
(Chorus)

A bit of a personal story, prompted by the video to Click, below.

A number of years ago I was working on a book, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. A friend offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for research and writing one summer. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena TX, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages to chart the location of Assembly of God churches for all the weeks ahead, intent on visiting as many as I could. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing — coincidence? — I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town FOUR HOURS AWAY where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. Yet I was treated like family as if they had known me three decades. It was the Sunday before July 4th, and a fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for the Fourth where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

On the Fourth I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll still fight anyone who doesn’t claim low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ the best) There was visitin,’ after all; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again — smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared the porch of their house. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, later in the summer, opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too; of course in some churches, in some parts of America, you’re just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to — you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

(By the way, not only am I not from East Texas, although it is sort like home now; but I was born in New York City, so you might appreciate just how different, and not merely special, that day was for me.)

Here is a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling — the fellowship — of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” There were cameras at this Gaither get-together, but it took this city boy back to that Fourth of JU-lye, finding himself amongst a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

Click:  The Sweetest Song I Know

Here is a tale about a not-so-happy Saturday I just endured… that got me thinking about current events as microcosms of larger issues in life.

I stupidly opened a blind link from a bogus e-mail address (“cloned” to be similar to that of a friend). Well, dozens of pop-ups popped up. I lost access to all my filters and cleansing software, my internet connection, even my Word files, proposals, unfinished manuscripts, research notes… and I went of my mind.

I pulled out the laptop and Googled everything I could. The pop-ups were phony ads trying to save me from viruses, but was itself a virus. “RansomWare,” it is called, because I was frozen unless I would purchase the program (and even at that, who knows?).

Frantic, I checked in with my new son-in-law in Ireland, a computer wiz. He has a Mac, so (all together now) “never has to deal with such things.” But he Googled too, and checked blogs of other victims, and on the phone and Skype simultaneously, we found a solution that worked. I am now free and clean. Six hours total of angst, three and a half solid hours on the phone with Ireland.

When I recovered, I got to thinking…

It shows how little — that is, not at all — human nature has progressed. People who cause these problems, whether for a little profit or pure malice, are no different than highwaymen hiding behind trees along forest pathways a thousand years ago, or urban pickpockets of Dickens’ time.

It’s the same thing with, say, abortion. Forty million dead babies today since Roe vs Wade — how is this different than “human sacrifice” or babies on pagan altars, in ancient or “primitive” societies? In fact, it might be worse today, in terms of the blackness of our souls. In ancient and primitive societies those people were mistaken, grievously, but at least believed they were serving and appeasing their gods. A murdered baby is still a murdered baby, but in American today, abortion (and so many other sins) are sacrificed to the “gods” of selfishness, greed, laziness, hatred. That’s not progress.

Is there a spiritual lesson? Yes. Human nature has not changed. Human nature won’t change. Human nature can’t change. One of the 700-billion reasons to resent politicians’ assault on freedom and responsibility these days, is that they nurture the lie that human nature is perfectible… and that government can bring perfection about.

Only Jesus can change humans’ nature. And do we despair that the world, without Jesus, is as rotten as it ever was? No… because we are not without Jesus. That’s the plan.

Sometimes this walk seems so dreary, life’s problems seem so challenging. God never said He’d keep us from troubles… just be with us through troubles. A friend wrote the other day, “Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain”!

So, we go through this ol’ life, in the words of this week’s song, “While I’m here I’ll serve Him gladly, and sing Him all my songs”…

… because we know at the end, we’re headed  Home, Where I Belong

I have had the privilege recently of reviewing the manuscript of a novel that might be (ought to be) published in the near future. I won’t give away the ending (or the beginning) (or the middle) (or the title) (or the characters) (or the message)…

… but I’d love to give away one of the subtexts, which is to beware of organized religion.

Speaking for myself, I tend to distrust anything organized, but that’s another matter. Now the world, which looks for any stick with which to beat Christianity, invariably points to religious wars as pro forma warning-labels against spirituality. In truth, however, most “religious” wars have probably been waged using religion only as an excuse.

Moreover, the serious attacks, excesses and atrocities committed in the name of Jesus… do not mean that Jesus would commit them. The world too often forgets that Jesus is the standard, True and Holy. When people scurry around, constructing and construing, blaming and naming, if they fall short of that Standard they dishonor themselves more than they dishonor the Savior.

Before the “amens” roll, it is good to recognize that Christians, also, forget this fact too often. The sad truth — the more important deal than wars and doctrinal arguments (although doctrine is important) — is that the church often fails its mission in direct proportion to the extent it is “organized” religion. Youth pastors who serve (Barna Research says) an average of only 1.5 years — what heartache must that represent? Churches that don’t preach the whole Word. Children abused by priests. Pastors involved in sexual scandals. Judgmentalism. “Open-Mindedness” so open that theologians’ brains fall out. Politics, bureaucracy, and pride on church boards and committees. Is this the church Jesus wanted? — the Bride of Christ awaiting His return?

“What sort of music accompanies this heavy message?” Well, it’s the same message, but a more light-hearted delivery. Hilarious, in fact. But the chorus that Buddy Greene returns to in this living-room get-together is the message for this week, and has been for 2000 years: “Jesus — That’s All!”

You can beware — that is, be wary — of organized religion’s pitfalls by keeping this song in your mental iPod!

Click:  Denomination Blues

Not much to write here this week, because the music we have chosen, and the message that both inspired and flows from it, are delivered beautifully by Sonya Issacs on the clip.

You might know the story of the horrible accident, and the faith of the man who suffered the loss of his family, behind this song.

To me there are several lessons. The role of faith… a faith that can only arise supernaturally by the Holy Ghost. How God can heal through the creativity of music and poetry – and be turned back to praise Him – what mystery! How healing can come from a determination to trust, and even praise, God when the world cries “despair.” Amazing.

In Mr Spafford’s case, these lessons he learned and taught have blessed uncountable millions of people. Yet that was not his intention. He was just having a conversation with God about his family who drowned right where “the sea billows rolled.” How profound this hymn is when we know the circumstances of its creation.

Is it well with your soul?

Click:  It Is Well With My Soul

Spring… a sense that all things are new. Don’t let the pagans fool you into thinking a celebration of life’s “newness” is somehow all “nature” and no God. Many things are new in the Spring – it seems like dead trees come to life; dormant earth turns green again; cloistered souls spread their wings.

“All things new.”

God grants us New Days, not just because His earth spins and the sun inevitably shows up every morning. The promise of a new life is what flows from being Born Again.

When we are born again, it’s not an “other” life; it’s not a “different” life; it’s not a “second” life; it’s a New Life. And it’s not just once that we are Born Again. Oh the mysteries of the Father! When we are born again, we experience the New Life every day.

Experience the New Life! He tells us it is ours to have! We don’t blaspheme God’s name; neither should we blaspheme His promises.

Here’s Janet Paschal with Gaither Homecoming friends, and a room full of joy-filled believers —

Click:  Born Again

I’m not sure I’ve ever known a time when so many people — so many Christian friends — are distressed, hurting, facing challenges, as right now.

Of course it’s the economy. Of course there are political crises. Of course when a culture loses its moorings, the ship is going to be tossed around. And the people in it will be buffeted.

The Bible not only warns about such travail… it assures us its part of the package: raining on the just and unjust; but also that the faithful will experience persecution.

Yet we are not without a Friend, and surely not without hope. A new precious friend, Becky Spencer, has a CD out with a wonderful song of hers, “The Coldest Winter (Always Turns to Spring),” and it got me thinking… spring always follows winter; life replaces death, the sun always shines after the storm. And isn’t the most beautiful Spring the one that follows the hardest Winter? and the most amazing sunny day the kind right after an awful storm has swept through?

There is hope, and even in hard times (not SPARED from hard times, but THROUGH hard times) God’s promises are true. This song sung by Cynthia Clawson reminds us, even further, that even when the storm is at its worst, behind the clouds the Sun is still shining!

Click:  It Won’t Rain Always