Monday Morning Music Ministry

1-6-25

Around 20 years ago I lost my daughter Emily. Language gets a little funny here, so I must quickly explain that we lost her to the people of Ireland. Specifically, Northern Ireland. More specifically, to the city of Londonderry. To be even more specific, she was lost – language is indeed funny: I mean found – to the divided city of Londonderry / Derry, a city split down the middle, half in Ulster (the United Kingdom) and half in the Republic of Ireland. Micro-focus: to the neighborhoods and streets of that troubled city where for generations people had hated and fought and killed each other.

“Troubled” city: the so-called sectarian violence that divided neighborhoods and divided families and whose trademark was a “Bloody Sunday.” That day was merely the most populous and extreme example of decades of thousands of deaths and many more thousands of people, including children, inoculated with hatred. Catholics and Protestants did not debate theology; “religion-inspired resentments” is non-funny language; after centuries of national rivalries and cultural strife, hate can become a habit.

It was to that city of Londonderry / Derry, and that crying need for healing and reconciliation, that Emily traveled. She had felt the call of missions work as a little girl, and served on trips to Central America, Russia, and eventually to Northern Ireland through the help of our friend Paula Hays. Emily went on one trip; followed later on another, and after deciding to locate in Derry, invited other believers from America including my other daughter Heather, who took her church youth group on a missions trip.

Emily’s ministry often involved seeking out street kids or youths when the pubs closed, offering coffee, friendship, and Jesus… not denominational pitches. In this work she met Norman McCorkell. They fell in love, attended the Irish Bible Institute in Dublin together, and married, gracing me with two wonderful grandchildren.

Emily did not know it, but she was to duplicate a path traveled by Norman’s father, ironically but in a similar way.

Norman McCorkell Sr., had been a fireman in the Fire Brigades in Derry. Prosaic work, you might think, naturally somewhat physical. But during the “Troubles,” there were fires everywhere, many set by arsonists and terrorists. Car bombs. Stores set afire. Not infrequently, police and firemen were targets of snipers. I have met friends and relatives of the McCorkells who lost family members, even saw relatives killed, during these times. It was, perhaps, a blessing in disguise when Norman Sr was diagnosed with a heart problem and forced to retire.

Did I say that language can be funny? Norman, ex-fireman, did not go from the frying pan into the fire, but vice-versa. He became a worker, eventually a leader, with Prison Fellowship, the missions organization founded by Chuck Colson in America. For 29 years he visited prisons in his area, preaching from the pulpit, conducting Bible studies, holding meetings. Several new health problems overtook him, and he retired from active ministry; and he died last week.

(photo by Elsie McCorkell)

Since COVID, I have not made a trip to Derry to see the generations of McCorkells. I will surely miss Norman Sr., who was fun to talk to, ready with smiles and winks, could be earnest about his faith – he gifted me with local Prison Fellowship materials – and his love, common in Ireland, of American Country Music. Sadly, I never was able to manage a trip to Nashville for (and with!) him…

I watched a video feed of Norman’s memorial service in the Kilfennan Church. It was a beautiful and traditional service with hymns and Psalm readings and a moving sermon. One of Norman’s associates, introduced only as Jerry, shared some personal aspects of witnessing to prisoners, sharing God’s love and Christ’s compassion, and offering hope.

He spoke of Norman’s lack of hesitation to enter cells alone, to meet difficult inmates, to pray with hardened men.

He spoke of Norman’s “grand manner” of putting people at ease; of soft words, for instance instead of good-byes, asking “Would you mind if we just said a little prayer?” and “Can I just tell you today that God loves you?”

He spoke of what seemed to be Norman’s favorite word. To me, it sounded like “we.” But this is Ireland; the word was “wee” – as in “Can we have a wee word…?” or to a friend like Jerry in the beginning, “Can I ask a wee favor of you…” that led to his own decades-long volunteer work.

He spoke of Norman’s habitual mode of pursuit: pursuing God to grant blessings; pursuing friends to join the ministry; pursuing prisoners so to share the love of God.

He spoke of the prison ministry that expanded beyond Norman’s appointed hours and confines of prison walls. Follow-ups… mentoring… prayer times… contacts after prisoners’ releases.

In the congregation were quiet witnesses – the man who led Norman to faith years earlier; released prisoners who are leading productive lives; and converted followers of Christ, all because of Norman’s work.

Jerry mentioned one of Norman’s favorite Bible verses. Matthew 12:20 expanded on Isaiah’s words, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench,” until He brings justice to victory.… It is a verse that inspired the title of a recent book by my friend Becky Spencer, and is a comfort to the downtrodden. In the words of a country song, victims of life’s circumstances.

Mentioning country music, this humble servant’s funeral service ended, after several ancient and reverent hymns, with loudspeakers playing out Sonya Isaac’s country hit “Only Jesus Loves You More Than I Do.”

Amid the memories and verses and music was the over-arching sense of the verse from Matthew 25, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” What a blessing if such can be said of any of us when we pass! What a challenge for the work we who remain must do.

Little is much – even, and specifically, those wee efforts – when God is in it.

+ + +

Click: Going Home

11-23-15

An ironic side-effect of the current wave of bombings and attacks against Christians by fringe-group Mohammedan jihadis is the revival of disputes between Christians. Not Moslems vs Christians; but Christians vs Christians.

On the airwaves, in churches, on street corners, over dinner tables, proponents range and rage. Put aside the ancient debates about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin: I would not be surprised if even those angels are arguing as they dance on the heads of pins.

What would Jesus do? Should we stop the flow of refugees? Are some of them “refujihadis”? Should persecuted Christians from the Middle East receive preference? Are we being bigots as we express wariness of Moslems? Do we invite slaughter on our doorsteps? Isn’t it about who we ARE as a people? What is wrong about wanting to preserve our inheritance and traditions? And so forth.

It seems certain that there is not one answer to each question. There might be no good answers. They might all have bad answers. Maybe the choices of the Christian West, speaking generically of our background and heritage, are Bad and Worse. Challenges that shift and morph are difficult to solve wisely. Enemies who declare their blood-lust hatred but refuse to expose themselves are complicated adversaries, surely.

Theoretical, even theological, responses, in the face of secular and Christian dissenters with whom we contend, are influenced by putting ourselves in the places of persecuted refugees (I hope none of us identifies with embedded terrorists)… or innocent potential victims.

There are many aphorisms in folk wisdom, which we all revere, that nevertheless contradict themselves. “He who hesitates is lost,” yes; but “Look before you leap.” Life lessons whose wisdom, sometimes, is difficult to discern. The Bible is no different – in fact it contains the pre-eminent life lessons.

Yet we have Jesus adjuring uncharitable listeners with the parable of the Good Samaritan… but told His disciples to tend to the Jewish “lost sheep” before the Samaritans. He tells us to “turn the other cheeks” but overturned money-changers’ tables and called people “fools, blind guides, hypocrites, murderers, brood of vipers, tombs with rotting corpses inside, hell’s offspring,” etc. Was Jesus inconsistent? No, God cannot lie, and Bible scholarship relies on scripture confirming scripture – contexts, cases, prayerfully perceiving God’s will.

So it is with “secular” issues… many of which, today, are not so secular after all.

In 1988 I took my family on a vacation to Europe, landing in Paris and proceeding through France to Germany. In 1988-89, the Eiffel Tower was painted a tan color that looked dull up-close, but at night, in floodlights, gave it a look of pure gold. It was for the 100th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 World’s Fair.

One evening we took a boat ride around Paris on the Seine, watched a fireworks display, then went up the Eiffel Tower to view the city, and for a late snack. It is not a one elevator-ride express, ground level to top: there are platforms with shops and restaurants. But we decided to go all the way to the top, and then walk down the iron-rail steps a level or two.

My daughter Emily, who was only five, suddenly froze in fear halfway down one of the stages. It was hard to get her to move… until we suggested that we all hold hands and walk down together. Some people joined us (including an Australian couple we met again on a tour bus in Germany a week later!).

At one point, Emily smiled and looked up and said, “If we all hold hands, we can do ANYTHING!”

That is true today as well. In Paris, certainly. And all over the world. And… in our own neighborhoods.

Before we can join hands with our enemies, even potential enemies, we must learn to join hands with one another. But does it seem, these days, that this is the more difficult challenge?

+ + +

Click: Jesus, Hold My Hand

6-1-15

Many of us have come to assume that “commencement,” as in every June’s spate of Commencement exercises, means the end: ceremonies that mark the end of high-school or college or grad school stints; the end of studying; for some people, the end of emergency calls from your kids needing money in their accounts at college. (Um, it doesn’t end with diplomas.)

But of course “commencement” means beginning. It is not a mere word-exercise to keep the meaning straight. It is well that we always have the attitude that almost everything we do is preparation for the next stage. This is true about one’s first job, and it is true about one’s last job, so to speak, in Glory, for which we always should prepare.

A personal note as I commence this little essay. I will write about endings and commencements and seasons of life. I usually do in June, for graduations are useful reminders of the larger cycles wherein we spin. I have just returned from a month overseas with my daughter and son-in-law Emily and Norman; my grandchildren Elsie and Lewis; my hosts Kenny Morrison and Ann Campbell and so many other new friends. It was not easy to arrange the trip there… but less easy to leave. Circles and cycles.

Parenthetically, this week is the exact fifth anniversary of this blog. And coincidentally, we just passed precisely 100,000 subscribers, hits, visitors, and, perhaps, even eavesdroppers. And respondents, from all over the world. It is truly humbling. I thank God and Google; the web and YouTube; my amazing Web Master (and I do mean Master) Norm Carlevato; and sites that pick us and share to places unknown – RealClearReligion, AssistNews, CBN.com, etc.

Ironically the germ of these messages was, five years ago, sharing a music video with a precious friend, singer/songwriter Becky Spencer… and I shared the link below, on the theme of kids’ graduations (and my enthusiasm for the singer Suzy Bogguss).

So here we are, back again. Circles and cycles. And thinking about the seasons of life. For me, enjoying my grandchildren after two years. For many, children graduating, and preparing for college or some other schooling or the military. You don’t have to be a parent or a grandparent to savor the unfathomable mixed but sweet emotions at the commencements of new chapters in life. You can be a child or grandchild. The pathos might take longer to be evident, but you eventually will feel it.

When Emily’s pastor Keith McCrory drove me to the Dublin Airport last week I wept for several minutes after waving to the family. Keith finally sympathized, “It must be hard to say good-bye.” I don’t think he believed me when I protested that I had merely jammed my fingers in the car door.

But these feelings of pathos, these tears we cry, are not sad, or not 100 per cent sad. There is an elemental part of us that appreciates when a significant transition of life takes place. It is natural, it is proper, it is what comprises life, as much as breathing and sleeping and eating. But because these moments come at fewer times, and with concentrated emotions, they seem more poignant. They ARE more poignant… but not unwelcome.

When kids go off to college, or the military, or professions, they are just doing what you reared them to do. When they marry, they fulfill your dreams, not only theirs. When they leave home, sometimes to live in other states or countries… you will miss them, but you feel the pride a mother bird must feel when a young one spreads its wings and flies. Elemental.

The tears we shed when we welcome our babies to the world have the same real and virtual ingredients as the tears we shed when the world, in turn, welcomes them years later, and we say Farewell. What different emotions! But parents holding on at first, after all, is the same sort of act as parents letting go later on.

“For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.” (Ecclesiastes 3: 1,2, New Living Translation)

+ + +

Music vid: Singer Suzy Bogguss was barely a newlywed when her husband Doug Crider wrote this song, an early hit record of hers, about circles and cycles of life, the mysterious poignant joys of parenthood. Two decades later she drove her own daughter to college before singing it on the Grand Ole Opry. Not an easy task. To every parent this June. Happy Commencement!

Click: Letting Go