Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-12-23

Progress. We may conclude after the lessons of history, over uncountable generations, and every civilization that has dedicated itself to the ideal… that Progress is a false god. Perhaps a worthy goal in the abstract, but little more.

The challenge inherent in “progress” is the fact that it is an abstraction. A chimera: literally something honored in the breach, a dream whose precise realization is an illusion; something impossible to define or finally achieve.

If we judge and celebrate Progress by prosperity, we ignore the poverty, starvation, and misery around the world. If we call the triumph of diseases “Progress” we ignore cancers, plagues, epidemics, and self-initiated ways of dying. We think it Progressive that humanity is proving itself more compassionate and welcoming… yet dysfunction, abuse, addictions, suicides, failed marriages, depression, and wars touch every country, family, and household we know.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

We think we know better than all of previous humankind – “we” being contemporary, liberal, secular societies – that we have, progressively, learned lessons from previous cultures; we have built on the discoveries of wise people; that science guides us ever upward. Indeed we are aware of many lessons of history – triumphs and disasters – but that does mean we learn from them.

In infantile fashion, we pick and choose from the annals of history, not to learn and see more clearly and improve our ways, but to craft new justifications for our original, base inclinations. The pattern is called Human Nature; the inclination, theological or otherwise, is called Sin. The result is called Self-Destruction.

Of course, it masquerades as “Progress,” so we congratulate ourselves.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The West is undergoing a radical transformation of attitudes and codes these days. Under the name of Progress, the roles (and even functions) of the sexes are being redefined. Millennia of foundational spiritual beliefs and attitudes are being denied and even outlawed. Totalitarian practices have permeated national governments and local councils, supplanting authoritarianism, which in its turn had supplanted freedom of thought and expression. Murderous Marxism, tried and failed so often, is being recommended in myriad forms… to be tried one more time. And another, and…

We can look to the French Revolution, among many spasms of Progress, for similar experiments. Discontent led to radicalism so severe that the Church was abolished and its properties confiscated. Members of the monarchy, then the aristocracy, then the middle class, were slaughtered: the revolution “ate its babies” before the factions began slaughtering each other. New governments started foreign wars to distract – and conscript – the public. Fiat currencies were invented; a new calendar was devised; women’s rights were proclaimed and quickly suppressed; and new religions were fabricated to replace Christianity – “The Cult of Reason”; “The Cult of the Supreme Being;” and so forth.

Ultimately, this eruption of Progress, like the Chinese “Cultural Revolution” and myriad others that followed, accumulated its most dispositive statistics by the numbers of people persecuted and slaughtered.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

The 20^th century saw history’s greatest advances in knowledge, discoveries, inventions, medicines… and was by far the bloodiest century of persecution, death, and wars of any century. Innovations dedicated to killing. Progress? We believe ourselves kinder to animals; we no longer kill baby seals or slaughter herds of buffalo. Yet we slaughter babies at rates unprecedented in the history of “humanity.”

As the French say, Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose – The more things change, the more things stay the same. Really, a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. So perhaps the millions of aborted babies are merely the “new” version of infant sacrifice practiced by “primitive” societies. But in this Age of Progress, we sacrifice to the gods of self-indulgence, convenience, and a “wiser” form of progressive morality. We know better.

In the post-Christian West, our orgy of selfish delusion lives on borrowed time, existing more and more tenuously on the inertia of expired sanity and fleeting prosperity. Our homes were built on solid foundations, but are crumbling. A few people have vague memories, inchoate awareness, of history’s lessons. But… collectively we are different. We know better. If there is a God, He will forgive us; He always has. Right?

I believe the most serious of all sins, theologically and practically, is the Sin of Pride. It precedes all other sins, and enables all other sins. We know better than our consciences. We know better than history’s examples. We know better than God. But…

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Ultimately the human race and, yes, much of the Christian world, has put itself in this dreadful situation. For individuals, where sin abounds, grace abounds much more; yet surely judgment is coming to this world. I am reminded, if you will indulge an extreme shift of reference, of a 1952 movie, Ma and Pa Kettle At the Fair. It was one of a series of movies about a family of rural nitwits, very popular at the time.

In this movie, Ma and Pa were tossed in the town jail, framed by the village harpy. Even the jailer was sympathetic to their plight, and he repeatedly left the jail cell unlocked or ostentatiously dropped his keys, so that Ma and Pa could escape. More dumb then honest, each time they called, “Oh, Sam! You dropped your keys!”

When Sam sighed in resignation and shuffled away, Pa slowly lamented, “I wish we could figure a way to escape from this old jail…”

We find ourselves in cultural and moral prisons these days. Jesus provides our way to escape; He leaves us the keys; He is the key. And we – deserving the jail cells wherein we find ourselves, often of our own making – nevertheless we wish we could figure a way to escape. The keys are in front of us. But…

There is nothing new under the sun.

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The Contemporary Christian Music singer and songwriter Rich Mullins sang this (caught on amateur video) at the end of a 1992 concert. A few short years later Rich was killed in a highway accident.

Click: Rich Mullins – This World is Not My Home

11-15-21

Charles Dickens opened his book A Tale of Two Cities with the famous words, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” William Wordsworth assayed societies’ turmoils and wrote, in The Prelude, “Bliss was it, in that dawn, to be alive; but to be young was very heaven!” And the author of Ecclesiastes, probably Solomon, wrote “There is nothing new under the sun,” less philosophical than Dickens; and more fatalistic than Wordsworth.

We live in times now that are fraught with turmoil. From major power struggles around the world, “wars and rumors of wars” – to acrimony in Washington and even echoes of hatred and destruction in unlikely settings of school-board meetings and downtown neighborhoods.

Do we live today in such a zone of a dichotomy? – are these the “best of times”? Well, things are generally more prosperous than in the past; literacy has increased; medicines and procedures are saving lives. These things are mostly true in our country and around the world. We have sent humans to the moon and maybe, soon, to Mars.

Signs of progress are all around us.

But what word should we apply to other “signs of the times”? – unrest around the world; revanchist empires; slavery and human trafficking; genocide and abuse; religious and political repression; increased drug use; divorces, suicides, and homelessness; broken homes… REgress? Surely not progress.

Humankind needs a different yardstick, or a different dictionary – or a different value system – when science concocts ways to protect and prolong life… and develops means to end life before birth, and with the elderly, in advance of natural death. Governments seek life elsewhere in the universe, yet encourage the snuffing of lives in the womb. Or deny that a heartbeat in the baby is life.

And so forth. “Vanity, vanity; all is vanity,” Solomon continued in his indictment. “Meaningless.”

If we – humankind; not merely our immediate neighbors – ever are to redeem our species, what we call Civilization, it will require a revolution (or counter-revolution, actually) of our souls, our standards, our values. Values: what is valuable to us?

This week I was corresponding with friend Nicole LeBlanc, a gifted pianist, who issued challenges for people to list favorite works of Beethoven in several musical genres. Next came thoughts of the reasons for our affections; and then of the interpreters of his works. I have internalized such questions, the reason why I have several recordings each of all the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. We respond to differences in instrumentation, tempi, dynamics, interpretation.

How can we listen to the musical miracle that was Bach, or be moved to tears by works of Mozart – who first composed at age five, and wrote supernal melodies as easily as other men perspire – and think that the world has progressed beyond them?

Such thoughts returned me, from a different route than beholding the spread of nihilism, to a consideration of “progress.”

Question: Which scenario leads to greater enjoyment, richer appreciation, more satisfaction to your soul and mind: hearing Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony (or insert any great work of art) only once in your life as often was the case in centuries past; or having access to DVDs and videos by the dozens, and listening to the music several times a year, for years and years? It is a challenging question, with implications.

In fact, in the question we can substitute any work of art, fine wine, or travel adventure. Does saturation equate with increased enjoyment, intellectual enrichment… progress?

I am a free-enterprise capitalist, and I endorse democracy (like Churchill, I suppose: democracy is the worst form of government unless you consider the rest. I suppose.) Yet since I recognize that human nature is corrupt, I regret civil architectonics such as capitalism and democracy that let humankind work its will. Eventually they must produce harm.

Potential great artists and composers spend their careers designing advertisements and writing commercial jingles to seduce our better judgments. Their works will remain in the culture about long as the fortunes they accumulate producing the ephemeral material. Ah! Some might say that daVinci and Michelangelo also spent their lives and their talents on commercials, too – advertisements for God, commissions for the church. Is it any different?

Yes, is the answer; yes.

We return to the question of standards and value-systems. It is worthwhile to devote your life to an ideal; a noble truth. It is the proper calling of humanity to praise God for the gifts He has given us… to return those gifts, in my view. We advance humankind by recognizing what is true, what is noble, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely, what is admirable. We should think about such things.

These things that are excellent and praiseworthy, and not selfish or short-sighted, these things will save the earth and benefit our fellow creatures. This is progress.

Finally, I return to “creativity.” In so many ways we are like the animals, but… we have the spark of creativity. And that is why it is a shame to waste it on the promotion of transitory things. We are to be “imitators of Christ,” Thomas à Kempis urged, writing of spiritual ways.

I wrote here recently that we actually cannot create anything, as God has created all, and this is a finite world: maybe we can only rearrange. Yet, in what we call creativity, we can in a way imitate God. A solemn privilege! We can imagine, we can dream, we can explain. We can take blank paper, white canvases, and rough chunks of stone… and bring forth works of art and beauty and understanding. We can not, and need not all be Beethovens. But we must, all of us, dream and “create.”

We too can touch souls, and change hearts. To appreciate other artists, and to translate God’s profound messages and love for others through our works – and not to cheapen our talents, throw them away, or use them for selfish and hurtful ends here in the 21st century – now, that would be progress.

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Surprise! You might be expecting a passage of Baroque music or a great poem. But I am going to share a country song, one that expertly captures the essence of creativity – from loneliness to sacrifice to devotion to resonance. We can all relate! The Christian songwriter sings of the iconic 16th Avenue in Nashville, home to studios, publishing offices, and dreams. The songwriters around him relate, too, by their expressions.

Click: 16th Avenue

9-27-21

“The only things in life we can be sure of are death and taxes.” Well, those are not the only things. One more is that stupid, lying saying itself. We hear it a lot, which doesn’t make it truer.

We can be sure of many things. King Solomon said that there is nothing new under the sun, and he was famously wise for such clarity. We can be sure of death, yes; and sickness, disease, sin. Broken promises, lost love. Not so quick – we can also be sure of life, birth, new life, and re-birth. Love. Happiness, joy, innocence, forgiveness, redemption. Salvation.

The good side of the ledger is longer, and more profound, than the dark side.

We can read those good items off the list, and we can write them. We can live them, and share them. But none of it is automatic. Sometimes the gloomy list of things in life seems written boldly, in large letters. And sometimes – too often – the cheery words and promises seem hard to read… the letters small… the words smudged.

But they are there. Move your eyes closer; turn up the light; focus.

Focus. Things like death and taxes, hard times and false friends can seem indeed like the stark, sure things in life. And sometimes the blessings and good can seem distant and obscure. Well, God promised us many things, but not always a silver platter – we are better off when we focus, concentrate, pray, seek, and find.

I recently “discovered” a place called Pictured Rocks on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The UP is a strange and large place that once welcomed workers who felled all its trees (it is dense forestland again) and copper (mostly removed) and iron ore (largely mined). Now it is a remote and, despite its spurts of past exploitation, a sparsely populated forestland.

Its soil is not pure dirt, if there be such a thing. It still has traces and veins of copper, iron, and other minerals. But just as fermentation can be a curse or a blessing in foods, so do these random minerals in the soil – not enough to mine successfully any more, and perhaps annoying to farmers – “redeem” themselves. Along Lake Superior are sandstone cliffs, beaches, sand dunes, waterfalls, inland lakes, a deep forest, and a wild shoreline of cliffs. The minerals, exposed to the sun and air and moisture, present rainbows of copper-oranges and oxidized greens and all varieties of colors. Rust actually can be beautiful.

Dig a little and discover the good that lives in surprising places.

Yeast, wine, cheeses, black tea, penicillin, and a thousand things that “turn”… are transformed to good. As people, we can “turn” too; and even circumstances can turn to good. You know the song: tadpoles to bullfrogs; caterpillars to beautiful butterflies. Rusty rocks to unlikely rainbows.

Turn the pages of life if you have to. There is beauty everywhere in God’s world, and treasures in His plans. Focus; you will see them.

You can be them.

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Click: This Is My Father’s World

1-25-21

Where do we go from here?

This is a question many Christians are asking about current events, at the time of this writing; and very roughly calculated, about half the American population wonders the same. In fact the question is pertinent after many elections, momentous events, and ends of wars.

The “ends” of elections and events and wars often settle matters in a strict sense, but in a broader sense usually bring about new questions and challenges. Therefore members of the winning side may just as earnestly ask Where we go from here; just as aimlessly or with similar uncertainty.

We often fool ourselves about matters of finality, most often because we yearn for finality. Wishing, of course, does not make things so. Fate does not wait upon our polling; God’s will is exercised without regard to our opinions. An example is the meaning many people ascribe to “commencement exercises” – as to mean “OK! That’s over!” Patient families, and parents paying tuition bills, might see it as that. But “commencement” means “beginning,” not wrapping up. So the wheel turns.

And so it is with elections. Campaigning ends; perhaps officeholders change desks; and often a new agenda is advanced. On paper, that’s “where we go from here.” But the larger matter, especially now, is where a group of followers goes. Where is a movement headed? Do believers casually adjust their firmly held beliefs? Should they?

My context, of course, is the recent election. And my honest concern is the status and direction of those Christians who experience a deep moral dilemma about the results and the implication of the results. I am one of these.

As a student of history I am reminded, often in spite of myself, that very little is new; that crises are not as bad as they seem; that a long-range perspective commands our attention. “Nothing new under the sun,” Solomon wrote. Yet logic dictates (and, yes, history too) that sometimes things are as bad as they seem. Sometimes… worse. Being accepting, or phlegmatic, can have negative consequence, from self-delusion to social disaster.

Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. Sometimes, contra Dr Pangloss, this is not the best of all worlds. Sometimes compromise is not the best solution – when, at times, compromise leads to more division and turmoil, counter-intuitively, than “peace.” And peace is not synonymous with righteousness.

“Can’t we all just get along?”

No, we can’t.

Rodney King’s lament spoke for a time in America, and struck a chord. Now we voice a lament for a generation; at an earlier time we faced choices about freedom vs Communism. Today the questions are asked of us about the basic assumptions and commitments of American society and Western civilization. This is not a crisis of flavors of the month.

By many standards we are no longer a Christian culture. “Post-Christian” is not a construct to be regarded abstractly, even against cultural shifts as consequential as Medievalism to the Renaissance, or Neoclassicism to the Romantic Era. It is the result of the seductive slide from Modernism to Post-Modernism to whatever our current state of intellectual and moral anarchy ought to be called. The West, and much of the world, has been moored and sustained by the tenets of Biblical morality and, especially, Christianity, for millennia.

Disruption was always threatened, and the defense of morals, ethics, law, art, and liberty not only resisted corruption but strengthened the ethos. Heresies, however, morphed into political poisons like Socialism and Communism. Doubt begat regression and relativism. Self-indulgence – as promised by history’s inexorable cycles – brings self-destruction.

The nexus might be in these very days, the cultural equivalent of particle acceleration. Portions of society have been shedding traditional morality; capitalism has given way to the welfare mentality; things as basic as a person’s sex and a family’s security are not just questioned but demonized. People call wrong right, and right wrong… as the Bible predicted.

We know we are at a rare moment in history when this cultural rot subsists not in isolated pockets of society, but in the platform, promises, and practices of a major political party (or, eventually, both of them). And dissenters who once were stewards of universal values are lectured about “unity” – which means uniformity. Once again, by history’s example, lecturing quickly becomes coercion, then repression, then oppression. We already hear calls from the victors for “re-education centers” for those needing to be punished for having ideals and beliefs.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, we are told in Romans 12:2.

Every word is important: “Pattern” reminds us that the evil that men do right now is not random, and is roaming about seeking whom to devour. The devil has a plan as surely as God does. And “conform any longer” illuminates what has happened to us, but encourages us to recognize the freedom we have to break that bondage of darkness and sin.

The next part of the verse makes sure we are not left wanting in this admonition: But be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

This is our “Get out of jail free” card. In Christ we are new creations. We can render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s… but those things do not include our souls.

Where do we go from here? We stop conforming – to the cultural rot all around us. We defend our faith, our families, our future – they are in the balance. We commit to deflect the slings and arrows – putting on the whole armor of God – and realize that our mortal enemies might be in our very neighborhoods and favorite entertainments.

Do not conform, but be transformed. Reject the pattern of this world; renew your mind! And test the spirits of “unity” – unify with abortionists, idolaters, and secularists? God forbid!

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Click: Have Mercy, O God, For My Tears’ Sake

4-16-18

There are a lot of things in life we cannot control. Or so we tell ourselves, and believe. Self-evidently, there are things that happen outside our power to anticipate or escape or even plan.

But we also affect more things than we know. Our attitudes affect our altitudes. Our morale influences our morals. And all the other fortune-cookie sayings; cliches are cliches, usually, because they ring true. Heed them… and realize that the “little things” are really big things, or might be the seeds of big things to come. You know, “big oaks from little acorns grow.” That’s true too.

I have been thinking along these lines, lately, in moody moments when I realize how minor decisions made years ago led to major situations – places, jobs, friends. Choices have implications. Let’s say a casual choice about a job, or between two places to live, set us on paths with many implications. Sometimes complications, too; but that’s life.

Seemingly casual choices can affect your life situations, and those of your children too – places, jobs, friends. Spouses, of course.

None of this is to say that life is doomed to be a game of chance, casual in the extreme. No, it is said in Ecclesiastes that “Time and chance happeneth to all.” This is not a lesson to accept the dictates of a mindless universe; we are not ball bearings in a cosmic pinball machine.

Just the opposite. As we make life choices – and life seems to make choices for us – we do best to remember a couple of things.

Life is not so random, despite appearances. God orders our steps. He creates opportunities. The “trick” is to be open to His leading, and not fearful of a soulless fate.

Even when making choices, we should remain in prayer about the next steps, future opportunities, the fields beyond the horizon we can barely see. Fervent prayer avails much, especially when that prayer enables you to be intentional about your reality.

Putting yourself in a position to serve God, to please Him in whatever you do, will put yourself in a place of blessing. You will indeed find fulfillment, to see how your dreams merge with life’s joys and God’s Will.

Never mind what the world tells you about quantum physics, or the results of random choices, or a universe that operates on karma. These things will be assigned thanks or blame for this-and-that as long as you wake up every day, and have a pulse. Design your own filing system and use your own Post-It notes when you look back on life.

Chances are you will be wrong. We cannot ascribe a full life – or even short-term happiness – to random choices, or no intentionality. We are not leaves on streams, but human beings going through life.

Thermometers display temperatures, or our surroundings. They reveal… but only to a degree (ha). We are positions to be thermostats, however: to set the temperatures of our existence. Are we hot? Are we cold? How do we start the day? What choices will we make? What standards do we apply? What situations, among thousands of choices every day, will we face and consider and act upon?

God has given us minds and free will and, most importantly, a channel through which to seek Him; speak to Him; and listen to Him.

And at the end of our lives, when God takes our virtual temperatures – how we have lived and served Him and walked in His will – it is in our power to count our blessings… not count our regrets. Setting that course is something we can do now, and not wait until the end of our days.

Make that journey worthwhile and joy-filled. You have that choice.

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Click: When I Get To the End Of the Way

6-6-16

There is a danger in being a historian. Even the amateur historian and those who love to read history benefit from the special aspect of what my lodestar Theodore Roosevelt called “History as literature” – the thrill of past glories, the tragedy of conflicts, sensing the real lives of real people long ago. We gain perspective as we confront our own challenges. Even better, we legitimately feel like a player in the world’s great events – a part of the contending ideas and possibly grand visions; a soldier in conflicts, if not military then intellectual and spiritual.

Well, you can tell I am enthusiastic about history. The study, the pursuit, the lessons. George Santayana famously said that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. A cartoon-meme popping up on the web these days has an old guy reflecting that those who DO know history are doomed to watch other people repeat the mistakes.

That IS a danger. But I began by saying that being a historian – having a historical perspective – can have its pitfalls. The broader the view, more seductive is the tendency to believe in cycles… pendulum swings… and what the writer of Ecclesiastes averred: “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Indeed. The awful aspects of human nature are unchanged. So too are the propensities in the human breast to hope. There are elemental virtues and common sins. I believe these are the things referred to in Ecclesiastes. But too many people think – when they think at all about such things – that our challenges and problems can’t be all that bad, because countless civilizations have experienced them before us.

Experienced, yes. Survived? Usually not – and especially not when we talk about moral decline, fiscal irresponsibility, decline in family values, sexual immorality, addictions, loss of patriotic fervor and appreciation of heritage and tradition, lessened charitable impulses, and turning away from God’s Word. Yes: review history. We are not the only culture to experience these things.

But, in your review, notice that few societies, precious few, have redeemed themselves and crawled back into the sunshine. Virtually all have withered and died. Some over long, painful gray periods of dissolution. Some quickly, as by invasions. But the law of civilization and decay is that when societies fall, it is usually from within.

I pivot from the panorama of history, behind us, to the current situation about which I will say as dispassionately as I can: The world has gone mad. To me, the only question is the tense: future-progressive (still occurring) (by the way, I am inclined to capitalize Progressive, but that is another essay…) or present tense. In either case, it is still a tense situation.

I employ benchmarks from history’s record of self-destructive societies. I have considered that the great march of personal freedom, intensifying in the West over the past 500 years, has allowed humankind to let human nature overtake the structure of governments, laws, arts, and science – and resulted in the previous century birthing more slaughter than any other century; and this century, so far, reviving (to take an example) slavery on a grander scale than ever before.

So it is not only a madness of the West, although we madly lead the mad parade to “the dawn of nothing – O make haste,” as Omar Khayyam wrote. Savagery, abuse, hatred: all alive and well around the world. Wars and rumors of wars.

We have rejected in many ways the concept of Absolute Truth, the possibility of its existence, and the benefits of seeking to know it. History’s masses often suffered, but often they believed in improvement; in advancement; in better things and better days. They believed in themselves, in leaders they respected… in God.

The world, in turning inward instead of outward, living for today without regard to an afterlife, abandoning standards that nurtured their ancestors, of course will reflect disharmony and chaos. Art imitates life, after all (what Plato called “Mimesis”). This should worry us very, very much about the state of things ’round about us. This world is not one politician, or one new fad, or one hangover, away from righting ourselves.

We have become lovers of our own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good; traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.

You might have heard these words before. They were predicted about our times – or, anyway, the End Times. Do they describe this age? If not revealed in our actions, and conflicts, and multiple crises… then in the writing on the walls of our art and culture. Our headlines.

Never since the Flood has humankind, over the face of the earth and not in isolated pockets, rejected Truth in such determined ways. II Timothy 3 continues: “In the last days, perilous times will come,” and names the attributes of our times we listed above.

It concludes: “From such, turn away.”

These were not merely warnings; not simple predictions. They were prophecies – the Bible’s “sure things” if we do not “turn away from such.” Will it be difficult, for each of us, and as a people? About that, the Bible does promise: Yes. Very difficult.

But our world depends on it.

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Click: Whispering Hope

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9-15-14

I want to tell you about one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met. His name is Stan Cottrell. He is a runner. But to say that is sort of like saying Rembrandt could draw, or Shakespeare wrote stuff. Stan has run all his life, all over the world. He has run in dozens of countries; he has earned certificates and keys to dozens of cities around the world; he is in the Guinness Book of World Records; he has been welcomed by most of the world’s famous leaders of the past generation.

I didn’t know his name, but Stan has been on magazine covers, on many TV programs, and had his picture taken with presidents, prime ministers, and even dictators. His list of achievements and recognitions seem almost as long as, well, the Great Wall of China, which Stan has run atop many times.

But Stan Cottrell is not an Olympic runner. He seldom runs in the famous marathons. Stan has set records for time, especially long distance runs – very long distances, like across entire nations — but those races are not his forte.

He is an endurance runner. Not (necessarily) speed, not those kinds of records. Stan Cottrell runs because he has been gifted with musculature and body chemistry that enable him to run, run for long periods, and run for long distances. All his life he has run. He runs for causes. He will set a course intended to attract attention to causes. He runs across finish lines when nobody thinks he can do it… and he frequently has been met by hundreds or thousands of local children who join him for the last stretch, in a memorable finish to the race.

Stan has called many of his endurance races “Friendship Runs,” often raising awareness and funds for charities, most frequently of late for orphans and the welfare of endangered children. He currently is planning a World Friendship Run – to circle the globe. Not to run non-stop – there are those pesky oceans! – but to step his fleet feet in every country on earth; running courses in conjunction with local people; always to benefit orphans who are in need in every land; and to be joined by children at each finish line.

These goals are remarkable, and logistically daunting, in themselves, but the added astonishment is the fact that Stan Cottrell is 71 years old. Ready, set… he WILL go.

Stan’s example is reminding me of the difference, the vast difference, between speed racing and endurance racing. As with so much we encounter day by day, there is profound metaphor waiting at the finish line. Do you recall the famous Bible passage, from Hebrews 12: 1-3:

“Since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility He endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up” [NLT].

Life is a race. So true as to be mundane – yet we do not always act like we realize the fact. Days turn into weeks; weeks turn into years; we plod along anyway, whether we walk or run. As to life’s challenges, how often are we conscious of that “great cloud of witnesses” of whom we are aware, or not; or who are unseen… but are cheering us on? When we encounter MORE than challenges – grief, tragedy, sorrow – then, I think, another aspect of this passage pertains to us.

Notice the number of times “endure” is used by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Let us run with endurance…”, “Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross…”, “Think of all the hostility He endured from sinful people…”

Ecclesiastes 9:11 had instructed: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle always to the strong…” Endurance is a quality that we should seek and cultivate. In races. In battles. In life.

The rubber (as per soles and souls) hits the road, then, according to our powers of endurance. Christ does not only want us to finish races – yes, He does – but to run with strength, purpose, and to good effect, as we are being watched. And encouraged. A sailboat regatta relies on the wind; airplanes, when they sought world mileage records, did it with fuel.

The wind under our sails, the fuel in our personal tanks, is endurance. It is a moral commitment as well as a physical attribute. And reaching the finish line seems less daunting, within view.

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There is a difference, sometimes fatal, between being headstrong and running with endurance. One of our time’s great songs about spiritual endurance is Andrae Crouch’s “Through It All.” Here it is, sung in a living room setting, by the angelic young Church Sisters.
Click: Through It All

8-25-14

A familiar scene this time of year. Children go off to school, some walking up the steps of the yellow school bus, some into the front doors of the school where you drop them off, some into the car, off to college. Familiar scenes; also familiar feelings, at least for parents.

For parents there is no way properly to describe the mixed feelings of the mixed blessing. You will miss the daughter or son – for many of us, despite the contrary assurance of worldly logic, a crater suddenly exists in our everyday lives. But we are wired as parents to possess an indescribable joy in seeing our children take their next steps into the world. Spread their wings. It is RIGHT. It is what you have prepared your child for – even if not yourself, fully – these 18 years or so.

Being a parent was never easy. Right? Then how is it that the hardest part comes when they leave our homes?

When we sign up to be parents, part of the contract is to let go some day. Actually day by day. It is not a mixed blessing, even if we get, in the immortal words of Maynard G. Krebs, misty in those moments. In a recent essay I quoted Theodore Roosevelt, when he said that both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. Likewise, no less, are dirty diapers, silly tantrums, going off to school, asking for help with homework, the first date, the second broken heart, going off to college or the military, and watching them get married.

Rearing children is more about your values at the time than their “molded” personalities afterward. It is unavoidable, and not to be regretted but rather celebrated. Savor it all, parents, even the separation of day care, summer camp, or college in some state you cannot locate on a map.

Part of God’s sweet plan of life is that when you have children, and nurture them, and train them, and endure (and share) all the dramas of childhood, the hours drag by slowly.

… but when the kids have left home, for whatever the myriad reasons, the years then go by quickly. Remember that, while you still have the gift of remembering. The hours drag by, but the years speed by. Strange.

“Time and Chance happeneth to all,” we are reminded – and we do need reminders – in Ecclesiastes. If God sees sparrows falling to the ground, He also sees them when they leave the nest… and fly. If Mama Sparrow is not sad about that (which is my guess), neither should we regard our tears as anything but droplets of joy.

I’m not sure science has ever analyzed tears. Maybe one of our budding students will win the Nobel Prize for such research. But there are tears of pain, of regret, of sorrow, of bitterness, of lost opportunities, of lost love and found love, and surely tears of joy. The tears that parents (and, I can remember back that far, children too) shed during these rites of passage are of a special composition. Distilled, they somehow confirm to us God’s loving “wheel” of life – “there is a season,” He tells us.

Whether a little scary, or seemingly sudden, or a guarantee of big changes in our lives… we must seize not only the day, but the seasons too.

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Even after mxplf years (gee, how strange: a typo) since my youngest went off to college, I still get as misty as Maynard G. Krebs when I listen to Suzy Bogguss’s bittersweet classic about a child’s Rite of Passage, “Letting Go.” The lyrics about the empty nest, and turning the page on memories, are wonderfully captured in the video with the song. Please treat yourself. Written by her husband Doug Crider.

Click: Letting Go

8-26-13

It is a familiar scene this time of year. Children go off to school, some walking up the steps of the yellow school bus, some into the front doors of the school where you drop them off, some into the car, off to college. Familiar scenes; also familiar feelings, at least for parents.

Separation anxiety, of sorts. Landmarks. Turning points. All very emotional. For me, as a father, these scenes were especially emotional, because my children appeared to seldom notice anything special at all about them. Tra la la, they couldn’t wait to board the buses or run for the schoolyard. The most sentiment ever displayed was my son Ted’s annoyance at my insistence to photograph him on the porch, each first day of school year after year (because, um, I KNEW that some day he would cherish the memories) (that day might yet arrive).

It all threatened to get really slobbery when they went off to college. At those points I was ready to grab each of my three kids around their ankles, unwilling to let them go. They reflected no such emotion. I have chalked this all up, by the way, to their active sense of curiosity and adventure, nothing to do with me being the Weirdest Dad On the Street, proven by such episodes.

OK, I exaggerate a little (I tend to exaggerate at least a million times a day). But we need to remember – which means, when I write it, that I often forget – that the “saddest” things in life really are sometimes the sweetest.

When we sign up to be parents, part of the contract is to let go some day. Actually day by day. It is not a mixed blessing, even if we get, in the immortal words of Maynard G. Krebs, misty in those moments. In a recent essay I quoted Theodore Roosevelt, when he said that both life and death are parts of the same Great Adventure. Likewise, no less, are dirty diapers, silly tantrums, going off to school, asking for help with homework, the first date, the second broken heart, going off to college or the military, and watching them get married.

“Time and Chance happeneth to all,” we are reminded – and we do need reminders – in Ecclesiastes. If God sees sparrows falling to the ground, He also sees them when they leave the nest… and fly. If Mama Sparrow is not sad about that (which is my guess), neither should we regard our tears as anything but droplets of joy.

Our first born, Heather, I assumed to be exceptional from her first breath, so when she was three months old or so, I festooned the house with large signs labeling everything, just to help her to read a day or two sooner than otherwise. My son Ted entered a more sensible world. Our youngest, Emily, we knew would be our last child. My subliminal response to this, I now realize, was to keep her a baby forever, to preserve her like amber in childhood (hers, not mine). I tried to hide from her the knowledge of things like bicycles and solid food.

I kid again, a little, but rearing children, after all, is more about your values at the time than their “molded” personalities afterward. It is unavoidable, and not to be regretted but rather celebrated. Savor it all, parents, even the separation of day care, summer camp, or college in some state you cannot locate on a map.

Part of God’s sweet plan of life is that when you have children, and nurture them, and train them, and endure (and share) all the dramas of childhood, the hours drag by slowly.

… but when the kids have left home, for whatever the myriad reasons, the years then go by quickly. Remember that, while you still have the gift of remembering.

One of Emily’s friends is Amy Duke Sanchez, whom we would not know except for having “let go” of Emily when she left for a faraway college right about this time of year. Recently AmyDuke forwarded to me a very wise saying – “Don’t ask God for anything until you’ve thanked Him for everything.” That is not merely a template for constructing your prayers.

It is a reminder to stop and think about the implications of “everything.” We know that all things can work for good, and we need to see that our momentary regrets, especially in this, the Season of Empty Nests, can really be puzzle-pieces in God’s eternal and joyful plan.

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Even after mxplf years (gee, how strange: a typo) since my youngest went off to college, I still get as misty as Maynard G. Krebs when I listen to Suzy Bogguss’s bittersweet classic about a child’s Rite of Passage, “Letting Go.” The lyrics about the empty nest, and turning the page on memories, are wonderfully captured in the video with the song. Please treat yourself.

Click: Letting Go