Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-22-23

If you live in a city, you can see the moon and a few stars in the night sky. In suburbs on clear nights you can find Venus and Mars and maybe the famous constellations. In the Great Plains or on ocean cruises, look up at the night sky and you will never lose your wonderment at the blanket of planets and stars, twinkling like sparkles on a pretty date’s dress and shoes. If you are fortunate to have beheld the Milky Way, you know it more resembles a magical, glowing ribbon than a band of individual stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope is treating us to pictures of billions of stars; galaxies previously unknown; “events” in space calculated to have happened billions of light-years ago (or away, take your pick of terminology) – that actually might have “burned out” by now, despite their images traveling 187,000 miles per second and only coming close to our view now.

Whether you believe the universe is 6000 years old or sixty-skillion years old, your hair may start hurting now over such thoughts.

Speaking of stars. And hair. I got a chuckle this week from a review of a book called Observer by a “scientist,” Robert Lanza, co-written with a science-fiction writer. Not really a review; rather, a collection of quotations and self-congratulations on Lanza’s own website.

Breathless endorsements suggest that the authors have kissed the Face of Truth in their construction of themes – like the serious-sounding quantum-physics hoodoo – basically, that our thoughts can influence the physical universe. An MSNBC “Science Editor” claims that “special relativity and quantum mechanics have provided solid grounding for the idea that the act of observation has an effect on external phenomena.” (Why doesn’t he “visualize” better ratings? …but I digress.)

A few years ago Dr Jim Garlow and I co-authored The Secret Revealed in which book we took the New Age best-seller The Secret to task. Besides peeling back its absurd claims and century-old rostrums, we applied logic on one hand, and a little detective work on the other. For instance, the author’s blatant misquoting of supposed experts in “thinking and realization” like Winston Churchill. She quoted Martin Luther King, and we reached out to his niece Alveda who denied that Dr King ever meant, or said, the things attributed to him in that book.

Yet The Secret “spoke” to a million itching ears, promoted on Oprah and elsewhere. And today its author is working on a sequel, and, surprise, endorses Observer as a book of substantial import. She is cited as a “#1 New York Times bestselling author,” not a fabulist, but she says that Lanza “has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel…. Often-complex concepts are illuminated through a riveting and moving story.” She claims that Lanza’s previous work has “backed up everything I knew to be true on a spiritual level…. It is the leading-edge scientists such as Dr. Robert Lanza who will help take humanity out of the dark ages and into a new world.”

The authors say about themselves that “if life and consciousness are really central to everything else, then countless puzzling anomalies in science enjoy immediate clarification…. The simplest [?] explanation is that the laws and conditions of the universe allow for the observer because the observer generates them.”

Obviously this book and its proponents and its promotion do precisely what the contemporary world does – blurring lines between science and fiction; intelligence and “Artificial Intelligence”; and truth and lies. The phrase I used above, “itching ears,” is from the Bible, about people who crave unreality. A country-music song title captured the impulse well: “Lie To Me.”

The extensive review and promotion, just as with The Secret and myriad other manifestations of today’s culture, addresses the most serious matters and questions about reality – existence; the physical universe; our roles in life – but never utters one word about God.

How we got here… why we are here… who created the billions of stars… who created, well, us? Forget science fiction or this book specifically: those questions, and their answer, are seldom addressed seriously any more in media, in schoolrooms, in education… sadly, less and less in churches. Hint: The answer is God.

Authors and movie-makers and Oprah can speculate – and even believe – all their nonsense all they want, but I am still thrilled by quotations from another Book:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have ordained, what are mortals, that You should be mindful of them; mere human beings, that You should seek them out?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father seeing. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than sparrows!

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesmen to the world.

No two snowflakes are alike. We cannot survey the uncountable stars. We contemplate the numbers of grains of sand on the earth’s shores. And yet the Creator of all this, of the universe seen and unseen, has created us too… and knows everything about us.

More than that: He cares more about you and me than about everything else in His creation. That’s what He tells us. Is someone like Him going to lie? He cannot.

No fiction in His Book.

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Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

7-27-20

By suggesting that we revisit slavery, I do not mean to try it a second time. Of course not. I do mean the topic of slavery, a hot topic in America, as slavery and its legacy were the sparks that ignited the tinder of current, prolonged, anarchic, bloody riots throughout the land.

To revisit the facts, rather, about slavery requires a simultaneous confrontation with the implications and legacy of slavery, beyond facts, statistics, and numbers. Slavery over periods of history and various cultures; reflections of human nature; what it says about us.

Every era and every society in every land is stained with slavery of some sort. In ancient Egypt, the Jews were slaves for hundreds of years. In ancient China, entire ethnic groups were assumed to be inferior and therefore destined, or doomed, to slavery. In Central and South America slaves built mighty cities and temples. In Biblical times, slaves were written about matter-of-factly, just as they were considered in Athens and ancient Rome. The Irish of the 4^th century served almost naturally as slaves to Romans in Britain. Europe itself went through periods of slavery, feudalism, serfdom – only vague distinctions to the lowly. Many Irish who emigrated to the United States traveled as indentured servants, their liberties restricted, and virtually owned by masters until they labored their way to “freedom.”

The word-association of slavery to most Americans refers to Africans. Sold and then transported, mostly as field laborers, frequently assigned new names, separated from families, and physically bound. These conditions attended many slaves in many cultures through history. The majority of Africans in the “New World” were repopulated to the Caribbean and South American, actually only a percentage to North America.

Colonists and settlers, and later planters, seldom enslaved Native Americans, but Africans were in bondage, and that is why, despite the universal, and shameful, practice of slavery, Americans of all colors today associate “slavery” with Africans.

Did all European-Americans congenitally regard Africans as sub-humans? It is not borne out by the facts. Abraham Lincoln was appalled to his core when he encountered a slave market, and said “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” The thrust of his career and life – and death – was to eradicate slavery. Slavery was a burning topic at the founding of the United States, and all but a few of the Framers knew that they were compromising with evil to let it continue for a time. In one way or another the sin of slavery was an issue at both the highest and most local levels of American society for two generations – little comfort to those who still suffered under the lash – until a war was fought to free slaves.

I am something of a Civil War buff, and in my overflowing library I have a complete run of Harper’s Weekly, the landmark newspaper through which I get a sense of everyday realities and people’s feelings. The “Revisionist” historians contend that the Civil War was an economic conflict; agrarian vs. industrial; state sovereignty vs. a national system. These facts are true but insignificant compared to the reason Northern soldiers fought. Over and over soldiers agreed that slavery needed to be abolished, and this view was held by farmers from prairies and fields, farmers who had never seen a man with black skin; and by thousands of recent immigrants from Europe, who swore opposition to slavery. They too suffered and died, for four years.

With the same determination, of course, Southern soldiers died, sometimes to uphold slavery (although few of them owned slaves, or lived much better), sometimes for a fealty to their region’s traditions. Again, however, most of the bondsmen toiled in servitude as the war ground on.

Great Britain’s end to slavery was attended by little acrimony. As in many other countries, the legacy of slavery’s end was more benign than in America. Of course economic disparities endured with almost all freed slaves around the world in every situation; but the “racial divide” as well as economic and social stratification is more pronounced in the United States than almost anywhere else.

The descendants of slaves as a lot surely are better off by many standards than 150 years ago, when emancipated. But in the 50 years since the monumental array of programs first known as the War on Poverty, the same can hardly be said. The legacy, in contemporaries’ focus – not that of Booker T Washington or Martin Luther King – is disillusionment, bitterness, and resentment. At the moments its goals seem to range from reparations to impositions of new forms of segregation and preference.

We know these things if we have televisions or see newspapers, or leave our windows open a crack. It is a condition, not a theory, that presents itself as resentments find expression in fallen statues, looted stores, obscene graffiti, attacks on police, and, sometimes, murder. Long in the making, as I have limned, the angry violence has manifested itself, to the current degree, almost overnight… and will not recede overnight.

My purpose in “revisiting slavery” is not to roll out a history lesson; and as I said not to entertain an idea to return to its evil horrors. Of course not.

But I implore you to realize that slavery has not disappeared from this earth. There are more slaves today, studies say, than at any time in history. There are white slaves (prostitutes), sex slaves, child slaves. Arabs are involved in trafficking Africans. I was involved 20 years ago with the work of International Justice Mission, which fought slavery, mostly of children, in India – everything from sex to cigarette manufacturing. Just this month, leaked drone videos of Uighurs in China – rounded up by the thousands to work in fields and factories – in bondage. Slaves.

Finally, please consider the slave drivers, the masters, those who enable the system. It is you and me.

When you buy a range of products – we cannot hide behind ignorance – we often subsidize slave labor. What has made Walmart the biggest retailer in the country, and Apple the richest corporation, is products made cheaply in China and other Pacific and Latin countries; also along the Indian rim and in Africa. Shoes, shirts, electronics – you know.

Think of complicated ear bugs or calculators that sell for two dollars, or ten dollars; think of the many components, the plastics and wires, the making of them, the packaging, the shipping to the US, the distribution from ports to warehouses, the stocking of store shelves – and everyone making a profit along the way. You know that the women and children working 12-hour days back in those factories, “earning” perhaps 20 cents a day… are slaves by another name.

We are all complicit. Many people, confronted with these truths, hide behind excuses that “they probably are better off now than when…” No, that does not cut it. That is what Northern factory workers and purchasers of clothes said before the Civil War. “Oh, they are better off than in Africa.” Slavery is slavery is still is slavery.

American workers lost jobs because of foreign competition, and went to the Walmarts across the landscape for cheap goods – made by the foreigners who took their jobs. Suicidal insanity.

I am not arguing for a kinder sympathy for those who once profited from blatant field-slavery. No; of course not.

But I am arguing that we wake up to slavery in the world today. All of us. And whether tempted by radical politics, or deciding to tear down statues and destroy shops and set fire to police stations – let us instead direct our energies to eradicating modern-day slavery.

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Click: Softly and Tenderly

8-21-17

Do we need one more essay or column on the cultural/political divide in our country? When certain points of view have not been articulated, I think so.

Crowds gather to vent their spleen in Ferguson, Charlottesville, Boston, ready for fights. Itching – hence the ersatz riot gear, the homemade armor, the hoods, the intimidating costumes, and, sometimes, mace and sticks.

Any of us who watched coverage of the day in Charlottesville knew beforehand that protesters were there to dissent from Robert E Lee’s statue being torn down. The larger assembled group, armed and wearing hoods, were there to protest the protesters. The police were ordered to not keep the groups separated, for reasons still be to be explained.

Initial reports noted that the driver of the car had a stone thrown through his windshield, and protesters rocked his car. Whether out of fear and panic, or premeditated vehicular homicide… we saw what happened. Copycat of Nice and London? Precursor of Barcelona?

In coverage of the Boston protest, networks spent hours talking about “protesters” and “counter-protesters,” with no hint of which “side” was defined as free-speech advocates. Both? Neither? By the way, eventually the crowd estimates were released – about 100 conservatives; about 39,900 lefists.

It is a circus, but largely a media circus. Many people are merely sheep, feeling the need to be angry; expressing inchoate frustrations; and willing to test the limits of discourse… for the cameras.

A few years ago I had a meeting in the Summit Ministries office of Dr David Noebel at the Brannon Howze’s Worldview Weekend headquarters. These are people and organizations that do much good, but I was struck by pictures framed on the wall – large, vintage portraits of Stonewall Jackson and other Confederate leaders.

I am not a crusader on the slavery issue, mostly because it is, thankfully, dead and buried; or should be. There still is slavery in the world, but not of the “South will rise again” variety; on present-day slavery I am a crusader. Nobody in America dreams of its re-institution; however there are multitudes who profit from phony controversies and threats. I agree with Lincoln that “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” and I wish more people felt the same about abortion, our current social abomination.

I remarked on the portrait of Stonewall Jackson in Dr Noebel’s office and was reminded that he was a Christian who prayed every day with his troops. I replied, “He was also a ‘gentleman’ who defended slavery; and, after taking an oath to defend the United States, proved himself a traitor.”

Treason, vintage 1860s, does not bother some people. But neither does treason and anarchy today bother other people. Not “Antifa” protesters; not the slobbering media.

As a historian, and an artist, and a patriot, I am deeply disturbed by actions to pull down and destroy statues and paintings. I am Christian, yet I was aggrieved to see the demolition of ancient Buddha statues by the Taliban. ISIS has destroyed priceless religious artwork in Africa and the Middle East. The Nazis burned books. Good company of the Antifa movement and Black Lives Matter. Role models?

Even the French Revolutionaries let cathedrals stand. Bolsheviks did not destroy the Amber Room or the Winter Palace of the Czars (although the Palace was looted by Bolsheviks, especially its wine cellar, leading to the “longest hangover in history,” as it became known). Stalin, on the other hand, airbrushed his enemies from photographs. Futile, but it is what totalitarians attempt.

In the rush to eliminate immobile “vestiges” of history, self-appointed censors have climbed up statues like monkeys and defaced or toppled statuary, a few of which, ironically, have been artistic allegories having no relation to slavery.

There is a joke that goes: “Do you know how to save a drowning bigot?” “No.” “Good.” Bigotry, in whatever cause, and the crime of re-writing history, can never be allowed – at least by a society that needs to know where it has been, in order to know where it is going.

In another nod to good intentions, I suppose, the county executives of Lee County FL, reached an agreement this week to hire an artist to doctor a portrait of Robert E Lee in the county seat. Lee will remain, but soon he will be clad in a business suit, not a general’s uniform. Strange. Maybe his statue can be altered so he rides a Harley.

Where will it end? Will black people refuse to drink from Dixie Cups? Stop driving through the Lincoln Tunnel? Before white radicals move their next nihilistic cause (remember when the names of “Christian” cities like St Louis and Los Angeles were targets? They moved on from that) will they burn those portraits of Andrew Jackson in their wallets? Teachers are fired for saying positive things about Southern authors, but a Missouri state senator is praised for openly calling for Pres. Trump’s murder.

Statues are works of art (except when poorly executed, another matter) – but provide teachable moments. Talk to your children; don’t teach them to make paint balls. Live a life so your grandchildren will honor you, maybe hang a portrait in your honor, or theirs; not slash a painting of someone else. Martin Luther King denounced homosexual marriage; should his statue on the Mall be felled?
If you do not – if you cannot – learn from history, you will be its next victim.

I have a solution to the current furor: Stop shouting, and learn sign language. What do I mean by that?

I urge a variation of Marschall’s Solution to the Pete Rose controversy. Should he kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame because he gambled and lied? No, I say. His statistics earned him a place. But his plaque should include, alongside his dates and numbers, the facts that he gambled and lied and was banned for life. History.

In the same way, write new signs beneath or next to statues and paintings of “controversial” historical figures. Birth and death dates; training, accomplishments, failures; then the “negative” information. Numbers of slaves owned or people killed. If Civil War generals, the good (valor) and the bad (carnage) (both sides, sure; Trump was correct). And so forth.

History, laid out. The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. If future generations are too stupid to be informed and instructed by such signage, we are lost anyway. But let people glimpse history, and reflect.

And then they can yell at each other about the signs, instead of statues and paintings. Bad television, but good public policy.

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet,they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.” Isaiah 1:18
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Click: Iris DeMent’s Keep Me, God

5-8-17

I recently talked to a friend about the issue of bullying, which has become a big issue in our society and a major concern of contemporary life.

Whether bullying is more prevalent these days, or only more reported and discussed, is to me an open question. If incidents with kids are in fact more numerous, I ask the same questions I do about autism: Why now? Why so common? Does it merely have a new name? Is there something in the environment that precipitates these things?

There is a question, too, of whether the “bullying” issue among kids is a matter of rougher behavior and victimization; a culture of wimpiness that has fastened itself on American life, its children in particular; a predilection to raise fusses over things formerly overlooked… or is something in the middle of those triangular points.

Autism and the alphabet-soup of children’s emotional disorders, if caused by factors in the environment, will someday be discovered and solved. Bullying, such as we understand it, might also be blamed on the environment – but its case would be more in the moral environment. Insensitivity… video games… violent entertainment… dissolution of the nuclear family… lost values?

My friend and I decried a common response, especially among some Christians, to advise children to “turn the other cheek,” to love the bully until the offensive attitude adjusts itself. That is, to make these responses automatic, even autonomic. Ignore causes, outcomes, right, or wrong: just yield.

Every case is different, of course, but since Jesus was quoted here, His famous admonition should be seen in context. “Do not respond in kind,” a paraphrase, can be God’s will – no; we can agree it is God’s will – in certain situations. There are many, many times we need to show the world Christ’s love; how we are different; what new wine fills our old wineskins.

We are to be, in the words of Thomas à Kempis, imitators of Christ.

But, without composing a concordance of verses here, we recognize that sincere and observant Christians can both support and resist non-violence. There are biblical injunctions against anger, revenge, and unforgiveness. And scriptural admonitions – in fact, actions of our Holy Role Model – to strike back, put people in their place, overturn tables in temple courtyards.

Jesus scolded Peter to sheath his sword against Roman soldiers in the garden, yet also said in Luke 12: 34-36: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”

Is God intentionally ambiguous about rules for our lives? Does every commandment have a negation elsewhere in scripture? Is the Lord a God who hedges His bets?

No ambiguity in the word of God. No negations in scripture, but rather confirmations and supporting verses. The Lord does not bet; rather, we take a deadly chance when we ignore of deny His word.

When we reach times when we fall short of true understanding, even to matters that confound us or that have caused schisms in the past… I believe that God intends those junctures to be teachable moments, for us to search the scriptures, to pray and seek wisdom. Then, to pray more.

Short, perhaps, of those extreme spiritual questions, are matters whose exegesis seem easier. Context. Which also prompts us to “empty ourselves,” try to substitute God’s wisdom for our own prejudices – our own natures – and dig deep in the Word.

Back to bullying. And to transition, as my friend and I did, to larger challenges that face contemporary Christians. Kids often are bullied these days for their lunch money, their sneakers, or their faces – meaning, mindless hatred. Christians, the church at large, are being bullied too. It is not new, and was in fact foretold (one might say “promised”) often by prophets and Christ. Prejudice; opposition; persecution.

But it is different today – also a feature of the End Times – and it requires different responses by Christians and the church. In some instances there are no cheeks to turn. Believers must stand their ground, and even be aggressive when defending ourselves and the faith. And we must positively disciple and evangelize.

I argue that Mohatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King practiced non-violence as political acts as much as spiritual acts. In any event the results were political, surely consistent with their hopes and dreams. Properly so.

In the 19th century there was a term, Muscular Christianity. It did not mean punching non-believers in the face; it meant knowing Jesus and making Him known. It meant not being ashamed of the Gospel. It meant transferring one’s faith into action: being a Christian every day in every way. Representing Christ. And defending His church.

These qualities are in retreat today. Like recessive genes, the abandonment of such traits surely will lead to mutation and death. Not of God’s Truth, which is everlasting to everlasting, but of His body – the church on earth. And, no less, our nation, our families, our souls.

America is a Christian nation, settled by Christians, claimed for Christ. Affirmed in foundational documents. Called so by the Supreme Court (1892). Should we proscribe immigration by other faiths? No. Should we persecute other faiths? No.

However – like people who buy homes near airports and then file lawsuits seeking noise reduction – neither should people of other faiths proscribe, persecute, and exercise prejudice against Christians. Every week in the news we hear of government edicts, court orders, and media pogroms against Christians. Not “people of faith,” because Muslims and of course atheists routinely are coddled, but Christians.

The body of believers – the remnant? – in the Year of our Lord 2017 need to carry “swords”; to risk “variance” with family, friends, and neighbors; and not submit to being bullied.

Do we choose to defend ourselves? Pray for wisdom. Must we defend God, His people, His church? Yes. Push back against the cultural and spiritual bullies. Overturn some tables in the temple courtyard!

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Taped at the Wartburg Castle, Eisenach, Germany, where Luther translated the Bible from Latin; and the birthplace of J S Bach.

Click: Stand Up For Jesus

1-23-17

A quick, virtual GPS for some readers: this essay will be entre nous – between us, assuming some common ground; not arguing to change minds or convert anyone. Nor even to persuade; only some observations.

The title is a paraphrase of a description of Grover Cleveland when he was nominated for president in the 1884 Democrat convention. Gen Edward S Bragg of Wisconsin complimented the reform governor of New York with those words. Cleveland was little know nationally, having served as governor fewer than two years; and had been mayor of Buffalo just as briefly.

In an era of cesspool-corruption – in 1880, President James Abram Garfield was assassinated by a frustrated office-seeker from a different party faction – Cleveland was what supporters called “ugly honest.” Rock-ribbed integrity, and the sort of man who could, and did, hang convicted criminals himself when executioners were squeamish.

As a New York Democrat, it took courage and daring to buck the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine in New York City. But Cleveland did, and gained approval from more and more voters in his state and around the nation.

“We love him for the enemies he has made.”

My observations today are about President Trump, and very much about the status of faith in America; even, possibly, the politics of faith.

Early in the campaign season, I was skeptical of some of Trump’s pronouncements (if not testimonies) and expositions of his faith. Attempting to “judge not, lest I be judged,” believe me, it caught my attention when he spoke of “Two Corinthians” and thinking he never needed forgiveness, and not wanting to bother God with such things. And so forth.

But readers know that my opinions of Trump changed over the course of the campaign. He named Mike Pence, a sincere, consistent, and bold Christian public servant. He grew more sincere, forceful, and detailed about conservative policy positions… as, oddly, his opponents grew imprecise and rudderless. Toward the end of his campaign, and certainly since election day, he rebuilt his platform of solid oak, so to speak, and, one by one, incorporated the long-held goals of conservatives, nationalists, non-interventionists, libertarians, laborers, home-schoolers. And Christians.

Among many “surprising” voter groups who came as if from nowhere to support Trump was the so-called “evangelical” bloc. They did not, in fact, come from nowhere. They have been in the ideological heartland – not merely the geographical heartland – of America, a sleeping giant. We do not riot; we do not burn cars or smash windows. We do not scream obscenities at every opportunity. But we did launch, spontaneously, the Tea Party movement. A sleeping giant that stirred.

Well… fast-forward to Inauguration Week, just concluded. We awakened; we stopped caring what the elites called us; we are happy – wherever we came from – to have a leader who is willing, maybe eager, to break some china.

“We love him for the friends he has made.”

It is as dangerous to judge, even definitively assess, someone when you agree with them, as when you dissent. It is risky, and it is wrong. So I am not claiming that President Trump is a tongue-talking, snake-handling Fundamentalist. I do not know his soul, or how he is versed in scripture now or in his past.

But it is worthwhile for us to look at details of recent days, otherwise easy to overlook. The Trump inauguration featured more prayers and invocations than any in history. Many of the ministers were not “mainstream” clergy but strong Evangelicals, Pentecostal, some fundamentalist.

The same with the Saturday service at the National Cathedral. More dedicated, notable, evangelical and Pentecostal figures, many of them. As the National Cathedral requires a broad range of faiths at such services, over the two days the nation, and the President, heard from Franklin Graham and his daughter Cissie, Paula White, Greg Laurie, David Jeremiah, Alveda King (Dr MLK’s niece), Robert Jeffress, Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist, and Darrell Scott.

President Trump is a onetime disciple of Norman Vincent Peale, the famous pastor of New York’s Marble Collegiate Church, but an exponent of “Christianity Lite.” He could have invited fewer faith leaders, or ones blander in their faith expressions. But he did not. He did not have to form an Evangelical Advisory Board, with whom he meets and prays regularly. But he did; and does. And… watch for the nature, character, and, yes, “litmus test” of the person he will soon nominate as Supreme Court Justice.

Again, I am not presuming anything about the President’s faith, or his relationship with Jesus Christ. I do not believe he surrounds himself with people of faith out of superstition or artifice or camouflage. I am not inured to his evident, or manifest, flaws. But he could be presenting himself as a different man who has evolved in recent months. In certain ways, this man of huge ego is as transparent as could be.

And we can love him for the friends he has made.

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A few words of thanks, and a medical bulletin, for those friends who have been praying about the procedure performed this morning on my forehead. Yes, Suturday morning. My trusted doctor was pretty snippy with me, but he saw a little spot the other day, and advised that we take care of it right away. “We” is term that always makes me chuckle – “This won’t hurt us…” – but, no matter how you slice it, I followed his advice.

What was it? What was it? I didn’t take note of the medical term the other day, but friends demanded I give them a name. So I named it “Spot,” just like a pet in my childhood. I had so many friends talking about Basal, I thought I was in the Spice Market. No, it was the Slice Market.

Needles to say, I first received anesthesia. The whole procedure reminded me of when I walked into a baseball bat way back in my skull days, in third grade. Fortunately Doc has a great sense of humor – you know I will say he had me in stitches. Honestly, I could not tell how many stitches the old sew-and-sew used, but he did a head-count. Four.

The meat he excavated looks like a cherry Hershey’s mini-kiss, as I saw it floating in a vial ready for biopsy. What’s even more vile is the splitting headache I have now, probably to be expected. But if he had gouged an inch or two deeper, I would have a splitting-head ache now instead.

Seriously (?) all this was rather minor and Doc assured me that it likely was nothing for worry (there we go again: it wasn’t his forehead) but precautionary. Really minor… but these descriptions are easier fare for puns. I followed our Savior’s command to Render unto scissors the things that are scissors’. And very seriously, thanks to all for your concern and prayers.

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Click: Tell Me the Story of Jesus / I Love To Tell the Story

3-7-16

My good friend Cyndy Hack forwarded an internet message this week, the kind that make the rounds. It is a story behind the writing of a hymn. A book of such stories is something I wanted to write almost 20 years ago… before dozens of such books eventually were published! The amusing aspect of these stories, these books, is that (with all good intentions) some of the stories about the same hymns and gospel songs are quite different!

The story that Cyndy forwarded is about the writing of the great Gospel song “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.”

Rev Thomas A Dorsey wrote that song some 85 years ago. The circumstances as he later related: He left Chicago to visit a revival service in St Louis. His pregnant wife Nettie was due to give birth some time soon after his scheduled return. When he arrived in St Louis, however, he received a message that his wife had died in childbirth. He rushed home, where two days later his baby boy also died.

Disconsolate and bitter, he yelled at God and cried to God, and a friend, hearing how he addressed the Lord, remonstrated and told Dorsey to say, “Precious Lord.” Almost immediately the words and music of that great song, “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” came to his mind.

It has become a standard in hymnals of the Black church and evangelical White churches; and in recorded music, touching millions, in familiar versions by Mahalia Jackson to Johnny Cash, sung at the funerals of Martin Luther King, Jr., and US presidents. It is Dorsey’s most popular gospel song, except, possibly, for “Peace in Valley,” recorded by Elvis Presley, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and many others.

But Tom Dorsey began his career better known for blues, jazz, and “juke” music, raunchy songs that made him rich and famous. He was associated with blues legend Ma Rainey, and had one of the first best-selling records in 1928 with “Tight Like That.” In those days he was known as Georgia Tom and Barrelhouse Tom.

In 1930 his wife and son died. And his own soul was reborn.

The internet story I received was about the song, and the circumstances of its composition… but focused on the “little-known fact” that Big Band leader Tommy Dorsey had this story as part of his autobiography. Actually, all he had was the same name as Thomas A Dorsey. Never a Christian music-maker, Tommy Dorsey was already a famous jazz musician by 1930 in a big band with his brother Jimmy. But… sometimes “viral” stories are false-positives.

Also this week, millions of people learned of the death of Joey Martin Feek, the distaff member of Joey+Rory, the country/ gospel/ bluegrass duo. Millions of their fans were shocked by not surprised at the death of the 40-year-old singer, who fought a valiant battle with cervical cancer.

The performing couple had seemed to come out of nowhere. They won Grammy awards and attracted a following among fans of traditional music – and traditional lifestyles. Joey and Rory remained close to the land, raising food on their farm amidst growing demands of their musical lives. Around the time of her cancer diagnosis, Joey gave birth to a little girl, Indiana, with Down Syndrome.

The internet giveth: fans and strangers by the multitudes began following the careers; the anguish and joys of motherhood; the horrible diagnosis, prognosis, and defiance of cancer; and Joey’s last days… in the hospital, recording at home, holding Indie till the end.

Joey Feek lost her hair and her weight but she never lost her faith.

Her husband Rory posted this week: “My wife’s greatest dream came true today. She is in Heaven. The cancer is gone, the pain has ceased and all her tears are dry…. At 2:30 this afternoon, as we were gathered around her, holding hands and praying, my precious bride breathed her last. And a moment later took her first breath on the other side.

“When a person has been through as much pain and struggle as Joey’s been through, you just want it to be over. You want them to not have to hurt anymore, more that you want them to stay with you. And so, it makes the hard job of saying goodbye just a little easier.”

“Coincidentally,” when Cyndy forwarded the internet account of Tom Dorsey, it was the day that Joey Feek died… and I remembered that one of Joey+Rory’s favorite songs and biggest hits was their version of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord.” I share it here.

Two music makers, their stories united by the same Gospel song. Two stories of Christians’ trials, and triumphs, ironically motivated by grim death. Circumstances that could discourage… but, instead, they inspire!

Different versions, different stories, different life experiences… but the same Savior! The same hope! The same sweet fellowship.

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Click: Take My Hand, Precious Lord