Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-8-23

“Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent,” ran the opening line of a crime series in the early days of black-and-white TV. In the stories here, names are neither given nor relevant, but the situations are sadly too common in contemporary life.

They concern parents who are among my most precious friends; and precious children.

In the case of the first family, a family of strong Christian faith who show joy to the world about them and are upright in every way. One son had hidden demons, so to speak – episodes of emotional struggles and bouts of what the world calls mental health crises – and were that, indeed. Spiritual crises, too, but only episodes, because most of the time he was happy; a good friend and brother and son; strong in faith. But there were threats of suicide, and then prayer, therapy, meds, counseling. Then, evidently, victory. Then… suicide.

No more to be said, here anyway. Unimaginable grief, unending questions. Precious memories remain of the good times, of the good kid; for he was. Suicides are not new in humankind’s history… but why are they so common today? And among teens? And in a “comfortable” society, in happy homes?

In the other family, a son born with a proverbial silver spoon has periodically turned to drugs. The family is of conventional Christian background, and no social situation – other than the contemporary pattern of drug use so common – suggested that addiction was a prediction. Yet each episode was part of a vortex of more serious self-harm… then absences… and then bare escapes from disasters. Check-ins to programs and farms were accepted by the son every time… until he invariably checked out or went AWOL.

In this situation, currently, the parents are in a frenzy because the son has disappeared, evidently homeless and desperate, but by occasional accounts more addicted then ever.

In both of these cases, by some inner strength and faith, the moms neither gave up hope for their sons, nor faith in the One who can deliver… even amid the storms, even when the world screams, “Defeat!!!”

At this moment in history, in this rotting structure of a once-solid Christian society, I could be writing about other families, other children, other parents’ grief. Don’t we all know friends, relatives, neighbors with similar situations? Or… our own households?

The world grows crazier by the day.

And the world’s answer to the challenges of children who doubt is… to add more doubt.

The world’s answer to fear is… to provide more fear, to focus children’s attention on hopelessness and futility.

The world’s answer to craziness is to introduce more craziness: lies about gender, about patriotism, about tradition, about loyalty, about life, about faith.

Many of peoples’ problems in life are caused by their own sins. But many of today’s problems, I believe like those mentioned here, are the result of society’s evils visited upon vulnerable children – lies we are told; lies they believe; lies dressed up as truth.

Mental illness is real. Addiction is real. Does society – the “system” – provide help? Often, no. The culture, too often, is the enabler-in-chief. Music, entertainment, the media, Hollywood, education, even the church, too often provide excuses instead of solutions.

Are there solutions? If you believe the ills we face are bedrock spiritual crises… then, logically, the solutions are spiritual.

Shakespeare paraphrased Deuteronomy 32:2 when he wrote,

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It drops as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesses those who give and those who take…
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God Himself.

… and I suggest that, as the quality of mercy is not “strained,” neither are the qualities of love, and anguish, and grief, and a parent’s heartache. Neither a child’s needs, whether recognized, acknowledged, or silently screamed.

Only with God’s help can we end these cycles of horrible choices and frightening situations. They are cycles, for these situations described here are not random. This is contemporary America. This is our Post-Christian society. This is the world.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever (I John 2:15-17).

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This is a song written by the grandfather of my friend Daryl Coats about a “wayward” child and a parent’s love.

Click: The Greatest Gift

2-6-23

There are many names of God in Scripture; and many names of Jesus. Similarly, names of the Holy Ghost.

Casual students of the Bible know these. Some of names are titles; some are descriptive; some are prophetic; some are virtual codes that communicate the attributes of members of the Trinity; some are poetic. Among scores are, for instance, God as “the great ‘I Am’”; Jesus as the “Bright and Morning Star”; the Holy Spirit as the “Comforter.”

One of my names for the Father is God of the If-Thens. It’s an odd phrase, so I will explain. It is based on my recognition that God loves us unconditionally, but many of His promises are conditional. We, His children, do not always recognize this, because we don’t want to.

Many Christians in these days of national turmoil and societal distress quote a passage from II Chronicles, Chapter 7. We hear it in sermons, speeches, and prayers:

If My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Now, maybe God has many names for His people – us – too. Perhaps, if we think about the number of times Christians invoke this verse, one of those names could be: Lazy.

Lazy? When we hear those prayers often, even in anguish? But start thinking about all the times in the Bible that revival was needed among His people, in their lands, in His promised places. Many times! In fact, the need for spiritual revival is a repeated theme. People who are “called by God,” the blessed chosen who nevertheless exercise human nature, not God’s nature; and who inevitably (as per human nature) stray, rebel, grow apostate, reject God – the Bible record is populated by such people. And they, generally, are like you and me.

Whether God sends prophets who warn; or floods, famines, conquerors, or even a Savior, He provides ways out. He has ways to remind us of His love. He invites us to return. He issues promises. He offers forgiveness. Yet (to cite an aphorism from the Book of Proverbs) “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”

“Revival!” preachers yell. “Revival!” Christians call down from Heaven. “Revival!” believers pray for.

But in their yelling, calling down, and praying, very few Christians cite the whole passage from II Chronicles, Chapter 7, verses 12-15, when the Lord appeared to Solomon after a Temple had been built to honor God:

I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I shut up Heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people; if My people, who are called by My name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from Heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now Mine eyes shall be open, and Mine ears attentive unto the prayer that is made in this place.

There’s the God of the If-Then. In language, “if” should always, and logically, be followed by “then.” That is the function of the “if.” And the prerequisite of the “then.” Cause and effect.

God can, but never has, brought revival to a person, a people, or a land – a country – without the prerequisite of repentance. Nor should He, in my view. The plea would be lazy; and the holy answer would be cheap.

America, in so many ways, places, and times, was dedicated to Christ. It has been the land of “Great Awakenings,” evangelistic outreach, learned theology, but has turned into a culture of death, apostasy, secularism, hedonism, and materialism. There was wisdom in a bumper strip I recently saw: “If God does not destroy America, maybe Sodom and Gomorrah deserve an apology.”

Why would God “send” revival if His people do not bother to desire it more earnestly? Why do we merely preach it to each other? How arrogant to think that, amid our manifold sins, we can order God to fix things?

Christians, all moral patriots, need to work for revival ourselves!

Just as we surely deserve God’s holy judgment, so does God deserve our heartfelt repentance. To “humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways.”

THEN will He will hear the reports ringing through Heaven… and heal our land. But not, I’m afraid, before.

A Friend came around, Tried to clean up this town; His ideas made some people mad. He trusted His crowd, So He spoke right out loud; And they lost the best Friend they had.

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This popular song from the late 1960s has strong spiritual implications. It was written by the influential Gram Parsons, whose work inspired a generation of singers and groups. It is performed here in the room where he died at age 26, Room 8 of the very humble Joshua Tree Inn motel. I have been there, now a very accessible, informal shrine to Gram Parsons.

Click: Sin City

11-8-21

It seems like everywhere we turn these days we meet “virtual” things, “bots” (robots and robotic actions), and automated actions. When I was younger, the prospect of such things were called “labor-saving devices,” and promised a future of… saving labor.

Car washes led to driverless vehicles, in a way. Now we can read newspapers when going to work. Of course, when I lived in California, crazy drivers on the freeways read newspapers instead of paying attention to speeding cars in the dozen other lanes. Now, a few years later, there are no such things as newspapers any more. This is all called Progress.

On our computers, the program will finish our sentences. Algorithms predict, with high degrees of accuracy, what we want to buy and where we would like to travel. No matter, because commercials and subliminal messages mold our desires anyway.

So modern life is telling us what to do. Modern life increasingly also dissuades us from pushing back; prevents us from asserting ourselves.

We are at a precipice in history. These things are not momentary fads, but Brave New modes of living. Candy, of sorts, that will cause cavities in our souls, I fear. The Romans lulled the population into subservience by giving them “bread and circuses.” We remember – we should remember – that Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

I have found myself lately wishing that modern life could provide us with virtual Volume Controls. Can’t we all just get along at a quieter level, a slower pace, normal surroundings?

I think it was Patsy Clairmont who said that in her life these days, “Normal” is nothing but a setting on the clothes dryer. In its own way she rivals Franklin’s profundity. There are many dangers in contemporary life, seriously parlous trends and signs. Some who are not alarmed are welcoming of the tremors and coming disruptions (at their peril, I think). And some people merely are distracted by the shiny toys and sweet candies, so to speak, and media propaganda and guilt trips and…

Combined with wars, inflation, crime, corruption and so much else, we might wish we could turn the clock back. Except for Daylight Standard Time, that is something we cannot do. We are being told that we can do almost anything we set our minds to… except to say “No thanks” to some of these rapidly changing elements of contemporary life.

My essays of late have careened from grim to glib and back again. So will this one, all by itself.

I am much worried about the state of affairs in America and the West, in popular culture, in government, and everything in between. I lament, and blame, the institutional churches in large part. And I try to rally Christians to assert their faith, their freedom, and their fates – that is, our civic duties and prerogatives – as our heritage is being erased and our liberties eroded.

But then I tell myself, and remind you of the fact, that we can peek ahead to the final chapters of the Book. There will be travail; trials; and literal tribulation. What we currently endure might only be a shadow of persecution to come. Yet we know that God reigns, Jesus has defeated the enemy, and the Holy Spirit has been given to strengthen and guide us. “Gospel” means “Good News.” There will be a happy ending to all of this.

I was sarcastic about the concept of “Progress” above. Yet I harken to the book I have read many times, The Pilgrim’s Progress, reportedly the second best-selling book in history after the Bible; and deservedly so. We are pilgrims and strangers in this world, but headed somewhere as we all must. But keep to the Road called Straight, enduring twists and turns, and climb upward to the Celestial City. You like “virtual” things? Bunyan’s book is a virtual picture of reality!

This week I have had moments of crying tears of grief, for friends. Both Christians. A friend whose dear husband died, I believe of Covid or symptoms brought on or exacerbated by the virus. Creative people, united in love of Christ and each other. And a friend whose son committed suicide – as is often the case, sudden, surprising, a mystery. My friend is new to me, a “Ted-Head,” devotee of Theodore Roosevelt; our friendship further informed by a common love of Jesus. The Lord gives my friend the strength to bear up and share a positive witness in these days following. I cannot pretend to think I could be able to do so, as he is doing.

So. What’s important in life?

Yes, these controversies threaten us, and when evils attack us, maybe we turn the other cheek. When they attack our families… or when they attack the Savior… Well, we remember to pray; we ask the Spirit’s wisdom. Sometimes we turn down the volume, if we can. Sometimes we may answer in kind. The Bible does lay out the “whole armor of God.”

But something else came to my mind this week, and it was not an accident to “find” it. It has centered me, and ministered to me. I pray it does for you too.

Another new friend, Daryl Coats, is the grandson of the composer of Gospel songs J B Coats. J B wrote some of the greatest songs of the past couple of generations. You might know “Where Could I Go But To the Lord” and “Winging My Way Back Home.” And many scores of others.

He also wrote one of the most beautiful, sentimental Gospel songs ever – “The Sweetest Gift, a Mother’s Smile.” Do you know it?

One day a mother went to a prison To see an erring but precious son;
She told the warden how much she loved him; It did not matter what he had done.

Her boy had drifted far from the fireside Though she had pleaded with him each night,
Yet not a word did she ever utter And though her heart ached, her smile was bright.

She left a smile, son, you can remember; She’s gone to heaven, from heartaches free.
Those walls around you, could never change her. You were her baby and e’er will be.

She did not bring to him parole or pardon, She brought no silver, no pomp or style;
It was a halo sent down from heaven, The sweetest gift, a mother’s smile.

Can we remind ourselves that amidst the fears and fights and threats and hate and dangers, that we have our heavenly faith, the love of Jesus, the promises of God… and each other?

Cherish your family members, and your dear friends in Christ. This simple song reminds us of, yes, a mother’s smile…  and God’s unconditional love.

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Click either (or both!) versions of this song. One by an elderly mother on a mountain cottage porch; one by the great Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt.

The Sweetest Gift – Jan Clark

A Mother’s Smile – Dolly, Emmylou, Linda

10-17-16

Once upon a time there was a president named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. No… I will start this story earlier, and in another way.

Once upon a time there was a different America. Different than we know now. Not only different presidents and candidates, but different manners and morals. Different standards. You and I could go back in time and might recognize places and relate to interactions. But it is possible that Americans of earlier times, if they could materialize in our midst today, would be lost and bewildered.

U. S. Grant, the superior general and inferior president, was known to like his cigars and whisky. After a dinner with a group of generals or politicians – those details are lost; but a group of men who enjoyed after-dinner cigars and whisky – one man rose and proposed to tell a story or two. He signaled that the humor would be bawdy (“purple,” in the day’s parlance, meaning naughty) by announcing, “I see there are no ladies present.”

Grant reportedly said, “No, but there are gentlemen present”; and told the man to leave. The good old days. Can you imagine?

Theodore Roosevelt, exuberant hunter and woodsman and cowboy, was sometimes photographed and frequently caricatured in informal attire, however was respectful of the dignity of the presidency. He chose frock coats and top hats. He hated newsreel cameras.

But almost every day the weather allowed, he played tennis on White House courts. Other presidents had “kitchen cabinets” – unofficial advisers and confidants who met in friendship or for policy brainstorming. TR’s was on the tennis court. Yet not one photograph exists of TR playing in his tennis whites.

At the end of his term the Tennis Cabinet met for one last time, and TR was presented with a gift from the assembled friends. Finally they were photographed as a group… in formal attire. Dignity (even if readers from 2016 think it was irrelevant) was important.

Now I will mention TR’s distant cousin, FDR. The nation knew that Franklin Roosevelt suffered from polio; that he was in braces, unable to walk, barely able to stand. He had run – sometimes literally – for vice president in 1920, hale, hearty, handsome. But then polio struck.

Common knowledge it was, but he seldom was photographed struggling with crutches or arm-braces. Occasionally a news photo showed him tightly, and awkwardly, gripping a podium. Or when sitting with Churchill and Stalin at a wartime conference, his leg-braces could be seen peeking between his pants-cuffs and his shoes.

Dignity on his part; respect on the part of photographers and newsreel cameramen.

Fast-forward to 1976. I covered a George Wallace rally in suburban Chicago during the Democrat primaries. “The Fighting Judge” was the victim of an assassin’s bullet four years previous. Paralyzed from the waist down, he was dependent upon wheelchairs and assistants.

In those days the press’s role had changed – on a track toward today’s blatant partisanship. Wallace was viewed with opprobrium by most of the liberal media for his earlier segregationist stands, as was the incumbent president, Nixon, for a variety of excuses and justifications.

At that rally, a few photos were snapped during the speech. And then reporters and news photographers gathered at the hall’s exit, where a car would meet Wallace, who waited in his wheelchair. When the car pulled up and opened its door, Wallace’s aides did what was necessary and routine. Nowadays these maneuvers can be effected differently, but that night, two men joined arms to raise Gov. Wallace like a bundle of bones, from underneath, and awkwardly trundled him into the seat of the car.

It was inelegant. Embarrassing, clearly, to Wallace. Which is why the assembled photographers of the press corps instantly snapped their flash photos for every nano-second of that clumsy scene. I never did see any such photos on front pages… but the reporters seemed intent on making Wallace uncomfortable.

My point is not so much about presidential dignity, itself (remember that Lyndon Johnson surprisingly lifted his shirt to show a gall-bladder scar; and Jimmy Carter chatted about his hemorrhoids), but more about society, that it has changed. Our culture is cheapened; we have lower standards; manners and morals are endangered species.

“F Bombs” are dropped with total-war intensity. Movies are replete with filthy language and filthier behavior. Young girls in malls are heard talking in ways that once would have embarrassed stevedores. Plotlines of TV shows deal in topics once too “delicate” to raise in family or social circles; that is, in private. Athletes who denigrate the flag are stoutly defended; athletes who affix slogans to their shoes, supporting the police, are threatened with suspension. An upside-down world.

In politics, which, traditionally, closely follows and carefully leads the normative values and aspirations of society, cutting-edge outrages now are indulged. Onetime taboos – for instance, allowing men into any public restroom where little girls might be – is suddenly decreed to be a Constitutional Right. And, as with monarchs or tyrants of old, is allowed with a stroke the pen, a punishable crime if violated.

In this year’s politics we have a candidate who is endorsed by “Evangelical” leaders and immediately salts his speeches with hells and damns. Instead of issues, we hear discussions of sex allegations about him, and about a former president. The latter’s wife, a current candidate herself, is cast as an enabler, almost a harridan persecuting the putative victims. Whether true or half-true, these become part of the evening news, press conferences, dinner-table conversations.

That other candidate continues the march toward re-defining customarily deviant behavior. Discovering “rights” in the same manner as the incumbent president, her new discoveries routinely offend traditions, always under fraudulent banners. Inventing “rights” for sexual deviants or criminal aliens is to dishonor those who fought for racial justice, female suffrage, and other civil rights.

So Hillary would enshrine privileges for “women” with male accessories, and pedophiles, into the Constitution. She would continue her predecessor’s crusade to denigrate Christians at home and abroad. She frequently boasts of her early, and continuing, passion for vulnerable children, yet evinces no second thoughts about the killing of viable children sucked from wombs in their ninth months, and murdered by a blade to the bases of their skulls. Suddenly, in Hillaryland, these children are “formerly vulnerable.”

Debates and speeches seem to be ghost-written, now, by headline-writers of supermarket tabloids. What, in 2020? Spitballs and water-balloons at 20 paces?

Our current level of discourse has been cheapened, I believe irretrievably. All these things I have mentioned – and myriad others – are, none of them, splotches of toothpaste that possibly can be put back in their tubes.

Are we on a slippery slope?

Rather, a vortex in the unfortunate toilet-bowl of contemporary life, almost flushed away completely. And deserving of it.

Anyone who teaches something different is arrogant and lacks understanding. Such a person has an unhealthy desire to quibble over the meaning of words. This stirs up arguments ending in jealousy, division, slander, and evil suspicions. These people always cause trouble. Their minds are corrupt, and they have turned their backs on the truth.
I Timothy 6: 4,5a NLT

They prove the truth of this Proverb: “A dog returns to its vomit.” And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.”
II Peter 2: 22 NLT

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Click: Sin City

8-31-15

When I was a “baby Christian” I had been familiar with scripture verses and Bible stories, but was new in the personal knowledge of the salvation message and a relationship with God in Christ. When “born again” I often prayed in a certain way that I thought was appropriately humble.

I began my prayers – and sometimes filled them and ended them – with confessions of unworthiness. I was conscious of my lowly status before God. A sinner who felt presumptuous to approach the Throne of God. This realization was humbling, and I thought was a step forward in my proper relationship with God. A spiritual breakthrough.

In fact, it is just the opposite. The pilgrim’s progress on the way to Heaven, to the presence of God for eternity, certainly has way-stations of setbacks and also, yes, those of clear realizations. It is hard to move to the next spiritual step until we approach, appreciate, and pass by the stages that include, say, the overwhelming understanding that the gulf between a Holy God and us, lowly sinners, is enormous.

The consciousness of sin, and the awareness that we cannot save ourselves, is essential in our walk. Likewise the full knowledge of God’s awesome holiness. But…

… these steps come during our journey, not after we are assured of Heaven and the security of forgiveness and acceptance. When we achieve Heaven there will be no shadow of turning, no doubts, no anxiety about past transgressions, no nervous feelings that we have sins yet to be dealt with.

In fact we can know that peace now. No Pearly Gates, no giant book with ledger-sheets of good and bad.

When we are saved, we are saved. The Bible speaks of judgments, yes, and also crowns and treasures delivered after we are in Heaven. Whether we can “lose” our salvation before Heaven is occasionally debated by theologians… but not that we can lose it in Heaven. These are all mysteries that fill us with joy, but not with dread or even insecurity. God does not issue counterfeit entrance passes. There will be no U-Turns once you get to Glory.

The Joy Unspeakable we can know now is because of a simple fact. When we invite Jesus into our hearts, where He lives and reigns after our happy surrender to Him, God looks at us and… sees Jesus. He sees the “new” us. And the Bible tells us that when we receive Him, and receive the forgiveness He promises, we are forgiven indeed.

He casts our sins over His shoulder into a sea of forgetfulness. God can do anything, but in that mystery He forgets our sins: He chooses not to remember them. Not only in Heaven, but now, He remembers our transgressions no more. A neat trick. Thank God. Literally.

And that means those prayers couched in abject humility as a sinner, groveling in guilt and unworthiness, are out of place in the life of a born-again, saved and redeemed believer. Once upon a time, appropriate – even necessary – but no more! We stand on our feet, washed and covered by Jesus’s Atonement, and approach the Throne of Grace! He looks at us, and sees the Blood.

There is another side to the coin. Just as we tend, unnecessarily, to remind God of sins that He has forgotten, how often do we forget our prayers that He has answered? How often do we neglect the Source of gifts and good things? How often do we fail to thank Him for uncountable blessings?

In my case, I’m afraid the answer is “often.” Probably with you, too.

Those items of Neglect are sins. God is the author of all good things, and whether we rudely fail to acknowledge His move in our lives, or simply (?) ignore the grateful responses due Him, we horribly fall short. Salvation is not free – the sacrifice paid by Jesus made God cry, not only Mary – but it is easy, and it is eternal.

Surely, after He has forgotten our sins forever, we can occasionally remember His forgiveness, His blessings, His love.

We have traded our dirty clothes for shining robes, and a crown, and diamonds in that crown. Remember what awaits. We have foretastes even now. Let us act like we know it!

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Click: A Diamond in My Crown

8-3-15

Hard Times. A relative term. Not only within our own situations, but compared to others… America, compared to other nations… our days, compared to the past. Truly, materially at least, we are blessed.

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. Right?

Hard Times happen in America, but somehow many of the crises have the lengths of TV mini-series, and when not, the public grows impatient for the next one. Our culture 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. The Bible paints a picture of awful distress in earth in the End Times, and we are not prepared for that.

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 Traveler,” 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. A young Abraham Lincoln had 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, I’d say.

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. It is clear that the “cabin,” and its door, in the song are metaphors, endowing a spiritual subtext to the song.

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. We have a haunting melody, but a clear truth: Hard Times will be endured and become things of the past. We must keep them in perspective. Trust in Him. God provides a joyful relief from life’s disappointments when they come. By and by, they will “come no more.”

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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.)

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.

Chorus:
‘Tis the song, the sigh, of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
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.

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.

3-2-15

In a recent visit here we discussed Bad Things that inevitably dot the path of our life’s walk. Sometimes more like speed bumps, roadblocks, or outright broken bridges, that we encounter when we have no alternative but to proceed. The reality of bad things, versus the sometimes-illusory mantra about the “God thing,” if you remember our thoughts.

There have been many reactions to that theme, with suggestions to broaden our discussion to Hard Times – those moments in a nation’s history, or our own, when events conspire to beat us down. Distract us. Threaten to demoralize us. But, Christians, this is for you: …never to defeat us. We can only do that to ourselves.

Stephen Foster was a songwriter, perhaps America’s greatest. He lived from 1826 to 1864. He was born on July 4, on the exact 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; and he died, penniless and fraught with care, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the middle of the Civil War. During his short life, he wrote some of the most popular music ever listened to and sung in these United States.

Many of his songs live today. For a while they were considered moldy or politically incorrect or merely light-weight, but they endure because of their solid, not diaphanous, sentimentality; and their hauntingly beautiful melodies. You know many. They were generally of three categories: Parlor Songs (popular music of many themes); minstrel songs (sympathetic songs inspired by black folk tunes, although Foster never lived in the South); and gospel songs —

Oh! Susanna; Nelly Bly; Camptown Races; Old Folks at Home (Way Down Upon the Swanee River); Old Dog Tray; My Old Kentucky Home, Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair; Hard Times Come Again No More; and Old Black Joe. Foster wrote more than a hundred songs, maybe hundreds; he gave many away. Or he sold the rights for a few dollars. Or he let other people take credit for his compositions. His was a life of penury. He battled alcohol addiction in his last years, after his wife left him. He died of a fall in his tenement bathroom, much loved but much beset.

He experienced hard times yet by all accounts never despaired, always of a cheery and trusting disposition. Hard times didn’t get him down – or not for long – and one of his most enduring songs, if not most famous, is “Hard Times Come Again No More.” It is extremely popular in Ireland, so much so that some people think Foster was Irish. Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Mavis Staples, and Nanci Griffith have made it part of their standard playlists.

Its lyrics are more descriptive than pessimistic, and more resigned than hopeful. Yet the prayerful “come again no more” weakly shakes a fist at the hard times we all encounter:

“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.

“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.

“‘Tis the song, the sigh, of the weary: Hard Times, hard times, come again no more. Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; Oh! Hard times come again no more.”

These lyrics are at the beginning, not the conclusion, of our meditation on hard times. America is going through Hard Times right now.

I do not refer specifically to the wave of terrorism filling our headlines and TV screens… and maybe, many think, on our doorsteps soon. I do not refer specifically to the fragility of a high-unemployment economy, of the many families living paycheck-to-paycheck. I do not refer to the social cancers of crime, addiction, illegitimacy, illiteracy, abuse – I do not refer to these specifically or even in a group. But I DO refer to all these things as part of our national crisis.

America has been fond, or full of pride, in pointing to statistics that tell us, despite stagnant wages or numbers of people on welfare, that we are better off than many nations around the world. And that our poorest and least educated are still living well, compared to previous eras, other cultures.

These statistics are delusional, self-swindling nonsense. Many nations are racing past the United States in measures of comfort, literacy, proficiency in science and math, health, safety, security, and contentment. These criteria are important, but not essential, yardsticks of a society’s value; or an individual’s.

The United States of America has squandered its inheritance. What once made us rich in these areas, in themselves, and relative to history and other countries – the spiritual values – have been wasted. They are more than unfashionable: our government, our establishment, our media, our educational and legal systems maintain that they are somewhere between irrelevant and despicable.

And those of us who have predicted a social breakdown if we surrender our standards and coddle the enemies of our heritage… we have been proven correct. But that is no comfort.

When people hear the phrase “Hard Times,” they often think of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Indeed times were tough; life was miserable for years for multiple millions. Yet I believe the nation was stronger, morally, and more content overall, than in our recent “prosperous” times. Does anyone disagree?

A world war immediately followed the Great Depression, and virtually every citizen mobilized at home or in uniform, and made unbelievable sacrifices. Do we “have it in ourselves” to respond in that way if another true world war were thrust upon us? Or would selfishness, disagreements, indolence, jealousies, illusory “rights,” and such factors interfere with national unity?

Surely our erstwhile unity has evaporated in these times when it should have been easier to achieve, replaced by the institutionalization of that socially centrifugal force, “diversity.”

Attributed to Georges Clemenceau – but so correct that many vie for authorship – is the observation that America is the only nation in history that miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

There was an in-between period, of course. When lands and communities were established in the name of Christ, and operated according to biblical principles. When constitutions and laws codified the basic ideas of responsibility and personal liberty. When immigrants were welcomed, according to rules; and immigrants willingly abided by those rules. When horrible flaws like slavery were corrected despite the blood and angst to see it through. When the population was able to find common cause in confronting the contradictions of social and industrial progress; and fighting common enemies.

But we lost our way. We have lost our way. We lost our faith, after losing our faiths by the wayside. We lost self-confidence. We became more concerned with gaining dubious friends than defeating real enemies. We became happier to compromise than to convince. Our priority has become not to offend those who are determined to be offended, instead of standing for something – anything. We pretend that our hypocrisy and weakness will bring security, all the while knowing, deep down, that we are only buying a nervous, temporary security for ourselves… and certain, miserable destruction upon our children.

We can sing the beautiful, haunting Stephen Foster song from the 1850s, “Hard Times, Come Again No More,” knowing that it brought comfort in those troubled times. But for us, in the 21st century, I have the feeling we can hear it only as a musty museum-piece, and nothing more.

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Click: Hard Times, Come Again No More
Another version, if you, like me, cannot get enough of this great parlor song:

Hard Times

8-11-14

Old and new. Up or down. Happy or sad. Passive or aggressive. Fast or slow. Liberal or conservative. Hot or cold. Yin and yang. Life is a story of extremes, and our choices between them. Can’t everything, basically, be understood through such a view?

Black or white? Right or wrong? … Good and evil? Not all things that seem like opposites ends of the spectrum are even on the same spectrum. Even mother-daughter relationships can seem, or be, at times anyway, like oil and water. But the bonds are hard to break. And, they are not opposites, really.

Aristotle thought so, that there were the extremes of thesis and antithesis, and the truth, or best formula for living, lay in the center: the “Golden Mean.” His friend Plato disagreed, sensing that there were abstract principles of right, and justice, and truth; and that humans should strive toward that truth, ennobling themselves by the quest for truth, and the fidelity to certain standards. Even before Christ, Platonists recognized Abstract Truth. Aristotelians claimed Relative Truth. The early church fathers were neo-Platonists.

In a civic sense we can say that the Founding Fathers of the United States proclaimed the “pursuit of happiness” as a right. Later politicians elevated “happiness” alone as a right — bestowed by government, since government would define the meaning of happiness every so often, and re-calibrate the Happiness Meter for its citizens.

In the spiritual realm, in religion, the question (and answer!) about two extremes is essential to our existence, not just our happiness or moral equilibrium. Many otherwise serious people secretly subscribe to the cartoon portrayal of good and evil as two silly characters sitting on our shoulders: the cartoon angel, and the cartoon devil. Yes or no; do it or don’t; speak up or shut up.

Many people believe that the figures, silly as they are, represent God and Satan. Of course. Our consciences roil. Whom shall we let persuade us?
But in this life-view of good and evil, such a view is fatally flawed. The opposite of God is not the devil. Neither is Satan’s counterpart Jesus. The Bible tells us that Satan is a fallen angel. In the heavenly realms, Satan’s counterpart is St. Michael, the Archangel… about whom many Christians neither know nor care much, and do not have to, really.

God is above all. Before all, and pre-existent. God is all-powerful, not co-powerful. All-knowing, not a partaker of certain knowledge. Creator, not co-worker. Judge, not jury.

God, not partner.

There is no counterpart to God. The spirit of evil, the devil whom we know, is so far beneath God that if we only realized that true relationship, we could better understand that sin has no power over us. Jesus confirmed this by the Resurrection and Ascension, which should ever remind us of God’s pre-eminent position in the universe, and in our lives, whether we fully comprehend it or not.

The opposite of God is not the devil, but the ABSENCE of God. He is so all-present that the only way we can find an opposite extreme is to shut him out completely from our hearts. This we are free to try, and result is not a variety of things we call sin, but worse: a coldness, a total isolation, a frightening awareness of separation that is horrifying.

Attempted suicide victims, despairing of God, have spoken of that coldness. Listen, by the way, to many atheists, such as the late Christopher Hitchens, who, in spite of themselves, often argued against God as unfair or demanding or confusing. But NOT non-existent. Such positions place them somewhere on the road to belief, not non-belief. Hitchen’s famous book, after all, was called “God Is Not Good,” not “There Is No God, So Why Are We Even Talking?”

Fortified with such understanding — whose points are posited hundreds of times in hundreds of ways in the Bible — we can stand stronger when we face moral dilemmas and ethical challenges. Jesus reigns in our hearts, and that funny character with a tail and a red suit never really sat on our shoulder at all. And if Satan’s jewel crown (sung about in those terms in an old and profound gospel song) is on your head, you placed it there once when you thought false choices were real. Let God reach down and cast it away.

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Many singers have sung the amazing gospel song of the obscure past by the forgotten composer Edgar L. Eden. One was Bruce Springsteen, of all people, in a stirring version:

Click: Satan’s Jewel Crown

10-7-13

Many popular sayings that are regarded as embodying folk wisdom are, in fact, as crumbly as the fortune cookies where they should stay. I have always been struck by how almost every handy, traditional capsule of folk wisdom is cancelled by another such time-honored saying. “Look before you leap”? But… “He who hesitates is lost.” You can “roll with the punches” OR “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” And so forth.

I recently thought the oft-quoted Thomas Wolfe aphorism “You can’t go home again” when I did in fact visit the home in New York City where I was born, and the address in the New Jersey suburbs where I was reared. I drove from the Philadelphia Christian Writer’s Conference with my friend Shawn Kuhn, who was born in a different neighborhood of Queens. We were each a little surprised that our neighborhoods were clean, appeared safe, and had not fallen prey to real or clichéd urban blight: just the opposite.

Later in the week, with my sister Barbara, we visited the address of our adolescent years – I call it such because it was recently razed and replaced with what regretful “natives” like me are calling “McMansions,” ridiculous mini-estates on half acres. Most of the new owners likely suffer from the affliction common to parvenus, the Edifice Complex.

It was sad to see my home no longer there; our Village School boarded up; the town’s Swim Club closed and overgrown; and the church of our youth condemned, doors chained closed, neglected.

However. Paging Thomas Wolfe: “You CAN go home again.” I understand that I am supposed to understand that the past is past, a rose is a rose, and all those other syllogisms. The more important facts relate not to whether our parents have died, or our homes have been demolished, but what value they had in our development. The important corners of our memories. Then, the question is not whether we can “go home,” but whether those “homes,” our foundational values, can, or should, ever leave us.

I will call someone else, George Santayana, into the discussion, and mangle his own famous aphorism: “Those who forget the past are not only in danger of repeating it, but of having no past at all.”

I recently quoted Theodore Roosevelt in this space: “Both life and death are parts of the same great adventure.” And we should be reminded that Wolfe’s adage refers to the emotions and our intellectual growth, as much as nostalgic real-estate tours. My childhood is not a house; it was spent in a home that stood there. What I am, or have achieved, as a man is no less real because my parents died after my formative years. The chapel of my affectionate memories is gone, all the more bitter because it stands as a skeleton; but my faith was not diminished because the doors are chained shut.

Indeed, the pasts we miss and the futures we distrust are seldom pieces of real estate or schoolrooms or, say, battlefields. They are of the mind, the intellect, of life-choices, emotions… in fact, the spiritual realm.

Even when we know this fact, whether we are filled with joy or anxiety, it is easy to forget: a most human part of our humanity. My heart currently grieves for the director of the writer’s conference Shawn and I attended, because she is beset by personal problems, health trials facing herself and family members, business challenges galore… (Please look for the website of Write His Answer Ministries and see the wonderful things Marlene Bagnull has done and is doing)

Christians know the Author all good things, and know who is the enemy of our souls, who comes to seek, and kill, and destroy. Words are cheap (if I can cite another old cliché) but, being a frequent victim of discouragement myself, I feel qualified to remind anyone who will listen that there is a Larger Story. We cannot always see it. But we need to remember it.

“I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee,” Joshua 1: 5.

We call to our memories: we should summon the best of them. They call to us. And, whether our children live near or far, we should always be in the mode of calling them home too. Just as our Heavenly Father does to us.

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We can visit our old houses, or not. But we remember our homes. When parts of our past remember us, so to speak – “call to us” – it doesn’t mean we look backward, either to change course or to summon regrets. We are reminded, properly, that life is a continuity of traditions and values. Memories of homes, schools and churches are represented by parents, calling; just as we will be calling our children “home.” The classic song by Doyle Lawson, sung by Emmylou Harris.

Click: Calling Our Children Home

9-23-13

A theme song of cynics – there are many; many cynics and many are their themes – is the famous sentiment written by Shakespeare: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones” (Julius Caesar, Act 3, i). But the hopeful among us must see that this is honored in the breach, that the exception proves the rule. We must not merely be convinced that fights for righteousness and honor and creative expression are worth the fight in this difficult life… but that the fight ITSELF, not only the goal, is worthy.

Cynicism is challenged by uncountable examples of service and sacrifice by kind souls, by acts of charity, a word whose original meaning is “love.” Challenged in the over-arching sense by the work of weary toilers in the fields who sometimes are bent but never broken. And in the very personal examples of artists who die without ever knowing the effect their work eventually has on other people. There are stories we all know from history.

We think of van Gogh; of Poe; of the composer Schubert and the novelist John Kennedy Toole… and of Eva Cassidy.

Some serious critics have called Eva the greatest American vocalist. Do you ask, “Who?” Her relatively sparse playlist has swept record charts around the world. Some of the era’s greatest singers and producers have attested to her uniqueness. The acclaim and sales have all come years after she died. Eva was born in Washington DC in 1963. Self- (and dad-) taught on several instruments, she listened to the great performers of several genres she rapidly mastered herself: blues, jazz, gospel, country, pop standards.

Eva played in several clubs in the Washington area. A college town, DC is replete with jazz clubs, music venues, performance clubs. As a student there myself in ancient times, I was privileged to enjoy, in places like the Cellar Door, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Randy Scruggs before they were nationally famous. Later, Eva Cassidy attracted a local following and made a few CDs, but her fame was fairly restricted to the District. Pros and record execs who heard her music were astonished, but many of them simply did not know in which category to place her. All of them later regretted their short-sightedness. Her voice was angelic (if angels were to sing the blues); her interpretations were miraculously emotional; her guitar style was unique.

When she was 30 she had a malignant tumor removed from her neck. Three years later she was dead, the melanoma having survived within her body, spread to bones and lungs. After her diagnosis (three to five months to live, no hope of survival) she returned once more to her stage of choice, DC’s Blues Alley, and sang “What a Wonderful World.” That choice, as much as hearing her music, confirms what a wonderful person, not merely a musical talent, Eva Cassidy was.

But it was five full years after her death before the world really heard about her, and heard her. A stray CD made its way the BBC Radio studios in London. Airplay on a morning show lit up the proverbial switchboard. Fast-forward this story to Number One on British record charts; five CDs in the Top 150; continuing presence in England and Ireland, especially, but also Germany, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Australia… and, finally, America; and sales exceeding 10-million CDs.

It is easy to lapse (thusly) into numbers and statistics. But it was Eva Cassidy’s astonishing talent, and her effect on listeners, that is the story. She had a gift for making mundane lyrics special, for discovering spiritual nuances in standard love songs, for making happy tunes blues-y and turning sad ballads hopeful.

That her “success” is posthumous is ironic at least. Yet once we take account of life’s vicissitudes, we should take heart. The good that we may do DOES live on “after our bones are interred.” When we do the Lord’s work, sharing hope and sunshine, we are eager to see the “seeds” we plant take root and bloom. But we don’t always know if, or when, it will happen. Mostly, we cannot know. As servants of the Word, it really is the Holy Spirit’s job to “close the deals,” and we should resist the temptation of pride if we are too concerned with the seeds we plant. We can plant those seeds; we can even cultivate; but only God can make life grow.

In fact there is a legitimate spiritual satisfaction in not knowing these details. When writers, artists, singers, songwriters, poets, and all people graced with God’s creativity set their works out (as it were) like baby Moses in a basket, among the reeds and into unknown waters, we don’t know who will discover them. But, trusting the God whom we serve by serving our fellow men and women, untold numbers of people, and their families after them, may be profoundly touched. Even if one person’s spirit responds, we have done our jobs.

If we, any of us, exercise the talents wherewith we have been graced, if we see our lives as parts of the cultural continuum of civilization, just as we are woven with the scarlet threads of redemption, then some of us might be the next van Goghs, Poes, Schuberts, Tooles, and Eva Cassidys. And be content that the value is in the working and the works, not the accolades of the world. And the rest of us? We can feel blessed that we are witnesses of these great talents.

Remember the Yogi Berra quotation, “It ain’t over till it’s over”? Memo to Yogi: sometimes it only BEGINS when it’s “over.” The theme song of THAT truth is sung by Eva Cassidy.

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One of the only videos of Eva Cassidy singing is an amateur camcorder capture of her and her guitar at Blues Alley. It often brings tears to viewers’ eyes for the unique interpretation and commonly untapped meanings from a pop standard previously considered without spiritual depth. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was recorded the year of Eva’s death, 1996. I commend this performance to you, and its compelling whisper to your soul: “Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true. … If happy little bluebirds fly above the rainbow, why, oh why, can’t I?” When Eva sang, she made it a spiritually rhetorical question: We can.

Click: Somewhere Over the Rainbow

4-15-13

One of the very tantalizing aspects of Bible scholarship is when you come upon different versions of the same events. Professional skeptics pounce upon “different facts,” ready to assert that Scripture contradicts itself, and therefore cannot be true. But I said “different versions,” not “different facts.” In fact it is more than tantalizing to see how the Bible is full of nuance and shades of meaning and diverse descriptions – all bringing a richness to believers in its message.

Similarities in God’s word, His message, are pathways leading to the same goal. Besides, any seeming contradictions are not really anomalies at all, and never involve important points of doctrine. Skeptics huff and puff about unimportant matters.

Sometimes Christians do, too.

There are reasons for the existence of hundreds of denominations, sometimes very good reasons. From the days of the Apostles, heresies and false doctrines emerged. It would be a logical goal of Satan to destroy the Church. But there are bad reasons for the existence of hundreds of denominations, also; sometimes very bad reasons. Corruption, pride, jealousy, ignorance, flawed traditions, all are elements of false doctrines and tragic schisms.

Religionists can be obsessed with How many angels can dance on the head of a pin… and skeptics crowd at their elbows, debating loudly why angels cannot dance on the heads of no stinkin’ pins. Accusers and apologists, renegades and religionists, can drown out everything, and every one, around them, sometimes.

Meanwhile, humble and quiet, is the Truth of God. It really needs no army to enforce its views. And it is impervious to the attacks of those who hate it. It was bequeathed modestly, offered to God’s children for their instruction, and, along the way, their unspeakable joy and eternal security. On the other side, it savagely has been attacked by brutal governments, fanatical leaders, seductive intellectuals, and physical persecution during every moment of humankind’s existence… and it stands, pure and strong and unassailable as ever.

Some of the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples, after Resurrection, are recorded with slight nuances by the gospel writers. Again, whether we take away Jesus referring to Jews and gentiles, or Jews THEN gentiles; or “authority to teach” or “authority including healing”… are perhaps deliberately open to phantasms of opportunity. To those who seek the full import, and not those who love disputes. Listen to what has come to be known as the Great Commission:

“The… disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

I am going to suggest that even the broader points, not just the nuances, of the Great Commission, are sometimes lost on Christians. This was the Great Commission, not the Great Suggestion; so, we can agree on its importance. The to-do list, such as it was, is little more than 1) going; 2) making disciples; 3) baptizing people; and 4) teaching them to obey.

The story of the church for two millennia has played out through point Number 2. Religion has been at its most innovative, and least consistent. It has produced its softest individuals (saintly missionaries) and harshest hordes (Crusaders and Inquisitors), all in the name of “making disciples.”

Discipling means “coming alongside,” or inviting people to come alongside you. Then, in this broad swath of establishing emotional connections, we can imitate the Christ. Therein lies the way to make disciples.

We can be so serene that troubled souls desire “what we have.” We can know the Commands of God and the Words of Christ so that people want to learn what is hidden in our hearts. We can live changed lives so that folks who are hurting want to walk our new walk. Discipleship probably is evanescent unless we exhibit these types of “witness,” as Jesus did – quiet, modest, truthful, secure.

Modern pastors bleat about the “power of story” in their preaching (forgetting that Jesus relied on parables… but let them have their fun) – and often wind up telling stories about themselves, not the Savior. Postmodern theologians prattle about meta-narratives and relational truth, hopefully impressing people with words, words, words, to quote Hamlet.

But there is wisdom for the humblest friend of a troubled friend, or the most prominent evangelist: Tell them the story of Jesus. Nothing more. And nothing less. And all things will be added to it. It has all the elements that will draw people to Him.

Tell them the story of Jesus, Write on their hearts every word;
Tell them the story most precious, Sweetest that ever was heard.
Tell how the angels in chorus, Sang as they welcomed His birth,
“Glory to God in the highest! Peace and good tidings to earth.”

Tell of the years of His labor, Tell of the sorrow He bore;
He was despised and afflicted, Homeless, rejected and poor.
Tell of the cross where they nailed Him, Writhing in anguish and pain;
Tell of the grave where they laid Him, Tell how He liveth again.

Love in that story so tender, Clearer than ever I see;
Stay, let me weep while you whisper, “Love paid the ransom for me.”
Tell them the story of Jesus, Write on their hearts every word;
Tell them the story most precious, Sweetest that ever was heard.

Your assignment for the Great, Great, Great Commission? Tell them the story of Jesus.

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That poem is by Fanny Crosby, the blind poet who started writing hymns and lyrics in her forties, and wrote more than 8000 creations like this before she died fifty years later. Another beautiful and powerful song on the same theme is one that we all should want to sing, “I Love to Tell the Story”! Two such people, in this video, are Emmylou Harris and the actor Robert Duvall. It was written by Katherine Hankey, a pioneer of sorts – a young girl of the late 1800s who evangelized on London street corners and factories. She became fatally sick and confined to bed, and voiced her biggest regret: that she could not go out in the world and “tell the story.” But she did… through this classic hymn.

Click: I Love To Tell the Story

10-1-12

Old and new. Up or down. Happy or sad. Passive or aggressive. Fast or slow. Liberal or conservative. Hot or cold. Yin and yang. Life is a story of extremes, and our choices between them. Can’t everything, basically, be understood through such a view?

Black or white? Right or wrong? … Good and evil? Not all things that seem like opposites ends of the spectrum are even on the same spectrum.

Aristotle thought so, that there were the extremes of thesis and antithesis, and the truth, or best formula for living, lay in the center: the “Golden Mean.” His friend Plato disagreed, sensing that there were abstract principles of right, and justice, and truth; and that humans should strive toward that truth, ennobling themselves by the quest for truth, and the fidelity to certain standards. Even before Christ, Platonists recognized Abstract Truth. Aristotelians claimed Relative Truth. The early church fathers were neo-Platonists.

In a civic sense we can say that the Founding Fathers of the United States proclaimed the “pursuit of happiness” as a right. Later politicians elevated “happiness” alone as a right — bestowed by government, since government would define the meaning of happiness every so often, and re-calibrate the Happiness Meter for its citizens.

In the spiritual realm, in religion, the question (and answer!) about two extremes is essential to our existence, not just our happiness or moral equilibrium. Many otherwise serious people secretly subscribe to the cartoon portrayal of good and evil as two silly characters sitting on our shoulders: the cartoon angel, and the cartoon devil. Yes or no; do it or don’t; speak up or shut up.

Many people believe that the figures, silly as they are, represent God and Satan. Of course. Our consciences roil. Whom shall we let persuade us?
But in this life-view of good and evil, such a view is fatally flawed. The opposite of God is not the devil. Neither is Satan’s counterpart Jesus. The Bible tells us that Satan is a fallen angel. In the heavenly realms, Satan’s counterpart is St. Michael, the Archangel… about whom many Christians neither know nor care much, and do not have to, really.

God is above all. Before all, and pre-existent. God is all-powerful, not co-powerful. All-knowing, not a partaker of certain knowledge. Creator, not co-worker. Judge, not jury.

God, not partner.

There is no counterpart to God. The spirit of evil, the devil whom we know, is so far beneath God that if we only realized that true relationship, we could better understand that sin has no power over us. Jesus confirmed this by the Resurrection and Ascension, which should ever remind us of God’s pre-eminent position in the universe, and in our lives, whether we fully comprehend it or not.

The opposite of God is not the devil, but the ABSENCE of God. He is so all-present that the only way we can find an opposite extreme is to shut him out completely from our hearts. This we are free to try, and result is not a variety of things we call sin, but worse: a coldness, a total isolation, a frightening awareness of separation that is horrifying.

Suicide victims, despairing of God, have spoken of that coldness. Listen, by the way, to many atheists, such as the late Christopher Hitchens, who, in spite of themselves, often argued against God as unfair or demanding or confusing. But NOT non-existent. Such positions place them somewhere on the road to belief, not non-belief. Hitchen’s famous book, after all, was called “God Is Not Good,” not “There Is No God, So Why Are We Even Talking?”

Fortified with such understanding — whose points are posited hundreds of times in hundreds of ways in the Bible — we can stand stronger when we face moral dilemmas and ethical challenges. Jesus reigns in our hearts, and that funny character with a tail and a red suit never really sat on our shoulder at all. And if Satan’s jewel crown (sung about in those terms in an old and profound gospel song) is on your head, you placed it there once when you thought false choices were real. Let God reach down and cast it away.

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Many singers have sung the amazing gospel song of the obscure past by the forgotten composer Edgar L. Eden. One was Bruce Springsteen, of all people, in a stirring version:

Click: Satan’s Jewel Crown

5-21-2012

On the heels from a week at the Christian Writers Conference in beautiful Estes Park CO, I come away with a heart exultant from fellowship, encouragement, and creative interaction with creative geniuses (some of them not yet published, but surely to be, soon). We also had reports and prayerful consideration of the cultural and spiritual crises facing Christians in this broken world. Human trafficking, persecution of believers, orphans in desperate situations… these “we will always have with us,” but as followers of Christ we cannot fail to respond.

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 do 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 Traveler,” 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 a kidney disease) died on the same day in the same house. Hard Times? Close enough, we would agree.

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 Swannee 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. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, 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.

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.”

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The singers 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 the late Kate McGarrigle, and her sister Anna McGarrigle on the button accordion, 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.

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.

Chorus:
‘Tis the song, the sigh, of the weary,
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
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)

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)

12-12-11

Heaven awaits those who believe in their hearts that Jesus is the Son of God, and share the news that He overcame death. That should be enough, more than enough, to encourage sinners whose rebellion against a just and holy God would otherwise condemn us to eternal separation from Him.

Yet the Bible occasionally talks of “treasures” in Heaven, and “crowns.” We already have mansions awaiting us – “if it were not so,” Jesus asked, “would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you ?” – but treasures? crowns? Will there be a hierarchy in Heaven? If so, that is God’s business, but my guess is that we won’t care. God’s children will want to be gathered shoulder-to-shoulder around the throne, singing Holy, Holy, Holy for eternity.

But let us think for a moment, as we always should once we are assured of a room in our Father’s house, of this side of Heaven’s line. James 1:12 tells us that “God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.” But for some who endure testing and temptation – and so much more – in this life, there is also the promise of virtual diamonds in that crown.

That is to say: like a diamond in the diadem, to use an ancient word for crown. The repeated word is for emphasis, like “sacrosanct,” which literally means holy and sanctified besides.

A crown with diamonds! The promise that awaits the faithful serves as a blessing beforehand. Sweet security, unearned, and Christ besides. Some day we will understand this fully, and rejoice with each other. I’ll look for you around the Heavenly throne. God willing, you’ll be one of those with the diamonds in your crown.

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A beautiful song about this mystery and beautiful promise is highlighted by image-montage by the Beanscot Channel: “There’ll Be a Diamond in My Crown.” Written by Emmylou Harris, who sings harmony here with Patty Loveless – two of the most beautiful voices on this side of Heaven’s line. The lyrics are sensitive and encouraging to those who are resisting life’s testing and temptations.

Click: There’ll Be a Diamond in My Crown

3-28-11

Let us think more about Lent. The 40 days are here to to prepare people — to prepare ourselves — for the meaning wrapped up in the “Easter Story.” In fact we should think on those things all year, and we do, but Lenten observances provide spiritual power-boosts.

The ancient contemplation of the Stations of the Cross, even reenacting Jesus’ walk, is something I have done, and enriches one’s faith. Deeply.

But before Christ’s betrayal and arrest… He was still Jesus, the Son of Man who walked amongst us. What I mean is this: if it is efficacious to contemplate the Cross and Resurrection outside of Lent’s parameters, so is it helpful to our belief if we remember the everyday ministry of Jesus, even during Lent.

For instance, Jesus walked on water, on the Sea of Galilee. This is recorded in Scripture, and we should know therefore that God intends a message for us. At the very least, this is one of the miracles that Jesus performed to confirm His divinity — for the sake of His disciples, and of unbelievers in the area, and for the sake of us today.

Alert: I do not pretend to any learned theology here. This is just spiritual speculation. But, to me, miracles like healing and raising from the dead and feeding multitudes were for the immediate benefit of those who were touched, as well providing as larger lessons. Miracles like walking on water and calming troubled seas might be more in the category of “Who say you that I am? Here’s a hint…”

If so, take that a step further. How often is Peter the disciple called out to trust Jesus, to act on the dare of faith? And how often does Peter — impetuous, presumptuous, boastful Peter — fail in the moment? He sinks into the water; he denies knowing Jesus at crunch time. (And how many of us identify more with Peter than with other disciples…? I do.)

Jesus did tell the disciples that many more, even “greater,” miracles would they do, that the Holy Ghost would come to be Christ-in-us. Now, I have seen miracles, I have witnessed healings, I know that Jesus’ words are true. Yet we cannot fail to confront the fact that when Peter looked down and sank into the water, Jesus did not turn to any of the other disciples and say, “Now, ye of greater faith…” after which they all strolled on the surface of the Sea. And we don’t see it today; I haven’t.

Insecure Christians are afraid that people will conclude that Jesus’ promises might not be true. But I believe the real lesson of such miracle-stories, up through the Lenten season to the greatest miracle of all, is not that Jesus was only teasing and therefore not God, but that… people are human. And all that this fact implies.

Peter sank because he looked down, when he should have kept his eyes upon Jesus. And I just have the feeling that if we could perform many of the miracles that Jesus did, we all would start trusting in ourselves, and stop looking at the Christ. I hate to admit it, but I know that I would.

When Christ lives in us, we are empowered to look to Him more than to ourselves… and that is the essence of the spiritual battle. We are better equipped, ironically, in order to be less self-reliant.

Less of us, more of Him. Walking on water… we can view it as one of the unique spiritual paths Jesus took, in effect, on the way to Jerusalem to give His life for us. Was Jesus holding out a spiritual means of taking a shortcut in the Galilean neighborhood? Hardly; of course not. Was He providing an astounding illustration that He is God, so we might more easily trust Him without any reservation in our hearts?

If that reaches our souls, during Lent or any time — if we poor sinners can understand and act on that — truly, that would be a miracle right there.

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Click: On the Sea of Galilee

This Gospel song was written by the Carter Family and is performed simply and compellingly by Emmylou Harris and the amazing harmonies of the young Peasall Sisters. The images — Jesus walking on water; Jesus reaching out to you and me; the Sea of Galilee — are from the excellent Beanscot Channel on YouTube.