Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-1-23

I am enamored of the hilarious BBC mockumentary series Philomena Cunk that has found its way onto American cable outlets and the internet. Comedian Diane Morgan plays a determined blockhead who conducts educational tours and interviews actual experts and professors about history, the arts, and culture.

She is relentlessly clueless, and manages to surprise and confuse her stuffy guests. Normal hosts begin their interviews with respectful introductions or a detailed resume of the person’s credentials, but Philomena routinely demands, “So, who are you?”

Don’t get whiplash, but I will pivot from her silliness to a legitimate thought: When we think about it – which we often should – life is always asking us, in effect, “Who are you?” To take stock, and to know where we’re going. We should ask it of ourselves, too. “The unexamined life,” Socrates said, possibly going overboard, “is not worth living.”

And then, of course, we must be aware that God is forever asking us, “Who are you?” – not waiting for Judgment Day. Who are you?

We evolve; and we should. It is the essence, after all, of the requirement to be “born again.”

Who are we? People different than we were yesterday. People whose tomorrows will be different than today. “Better”? That depends on the definition of “better,” and certainly it depends on choices we make, and our determination to draw closer to God.

The act of “drawing closer” was given a name in the early church and in church history: to be “Imitators of Christ.” It clearly means to walk in the footsteps of Jesus; to apply His teachings and His examples of love, forgiveness, humility, mercy, charity. To be Jesus to those who hurt or are lost. A few decades ago it was manifested in the WWJD wristbands – “What would Jesus do?”

The books of the Gospels and Epistles have numerous adjurations to be like Christ. St Augustine made a brilliant recommendation: Why art thou proud, O man? God for thee became low. Thou wouldst perhaps be ashamed to imitate a lowly man; then at least imitate the lowly God. St Francis; St Bernard of Clairvaux; St Thomas Aquinas, all sought ways to be Christ-followers best by “imitating” His ways, not only believing in Him.

The Imitation of Christ is a book by Thomas à Kempis written in 1418. It can be seen as Christendom’s first devotional manual. With Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress it probably is the most-printed book in the Western world, after the Bible itself. It still is a worthwhile “user’s manual,” so to speak, for being a Christian. It is not a 12-Step program or substitute for Salvation. It helps us be like Christ, subsequent to Salvation. Find it! Many translations and versions exist.

You will discover, when you ask “Who am I?” and determine to “imitate” Christ in every way, that you have great company! Imitation, that is, as a theological practice. We could do worse. The Bible overflows with examples of people who examined their lives… asked “Who am I, really?”… and then were changed. Discover “Before and After” examples of people who can inspire us.

David slew a giant (anthropologists, by the way, have discovered that there were races of giants) but was also the “sweet singer of Israel.” He could be such a rotten schemer that he arranged to have his lover’s husband killed… yet he ultimately was, after forgiveness, the king “anointed of God.”

Was there ever a better example of “Before and After” than Peter? An impulsive fool, sometimes, and one who denied Jesus three times… but after Pentecost he matured and became what Jesus promised, the leader of the Church.

Saul persecuted believers, even having some put to death. After his own “Who am I?” experience, he became Paul, the first and greatest evangelist; writer of half of the New Testament.

The examples are many. We think of Luther, we think of C S Lewis, we think of Billy Graham. We think of so many saints of history who found new lives by examining their old lives… and were transformed from the Old Selves to New Creations in Christ. Imitation may be the best form of theology!

Who are you?

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Click: Who Am I?

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

11-30-20

“What a year this has been.” This has been a common theme of all our conversations with friends these days.

Turn from the pandemic to, say, the economy, which is related (some areas of rebound are remarkable), yet lost jobs, ruined businesses, and shuttered schools because of the oppressive, overhanging shadow – the long-term implications of which we only see through a glass darkly. Meaning, it will get worse before it gets better; the world has changed. Turn from that and we recall, and still face, the rank bitterness of politics, and the lies and thievery so evident. Turn from that and we find ourselves in an America where vandalism, destruction, and riots are virtually condoned and widely accepted as a way of life. Turn from that situation and we shudder to realize that unseen forces, Big Tech and Mainstream Media and Big Brother and others, are spying on us, manipulating us, and censoring us.

In sports, a team has a bad season but applies the balm, “There’s always next year.” We cannot say that in 2020 – or, as it used to be known, 1984. Next year is no guarantee of much better times; probably worse.

We have done our work this year – and by “we” I am referring here to Christian Patriots and Cultural Traditionalists – aware of these things. Except perhaps for the insidious infection of Social Media’s villains, they suddenly have loomed up, and we have tested their spirits.

For us the challenge is not so much to see what is right and wrong… but what to do about it, how to fight, and (frankly) to choose what risks we need take to redeem our culture and save our families.

I invite you to recall the words of John Donne from his Meditation XVII:

Every human’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in humankind. And therefore never look far to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for you.

I have brought 1633’s language into the 21st century, but we all know these observations.
Do any of us disagree, that the death of someone, especially when it is heinous, when we could have intervened, has an impact on the world in general, the human family, and the future? And how we then shall live? Or, at the other end of that scale that thinks of the entire world… that we, individuals, our souls, are diminished too?

John Donne’s “involvement in humankind” did not suggest membership in some club. He says in a unique way that we are all one; no person is an island; we are bound together, interconnected – and should be, and should want to be.

Now more than ever. And if our inescapable fellowship in humanity compels us to react to “every human’s death” when and where and how we can… then we come face to face today with the genocidal impulse behind abortion.

And the terrifying numbers. Not that I run to numbers, in fact usually the opposite, like polls. But this is a question of reality, not charts and graphs; of blood, not ink. The numbers are so cold and so many that they deaden our minds. In recent years:
• One in five American pregnancies ended in abortion;
• Approximately 862,000 abortions performed in 2017 (the most recent stat I found);
• Now, more than 22,000 abortions performed each day in America;
• Since 1973, almost 65-million babies killed by abortion – are we “diminished” as a people 65-millions times? Yes.

I will not crusade here beyond this, attempting to be calm, wondering where in hell this is leading us. Excuse me, but I choose my words deliberately. I know the debates; I know the history; I know the horror stories that “justify” abortion; I myself once was comfortable with the whole idea. Of that, I repent daily; and I can empathize with women who seek it, to an extent. (Not, now, the monsters who perform it.)

My objections are moral; my reasons are spiritual; my reactions are many. Mechanistic – how can we operate and thrive and continue as a civilization when life is worse than cheap but very often contemptible? Why is this the litmus-test issue for half of society, where people who love the unborn are shunned, condemned, and threatened? How do pro-abortion crusaders ignore the fact that many churches, many ministries, many parents desire to adopt “unwanted” babies?

If we have objections, reasons, and reactions, as I just shared, there is another agenda item: we must have responses. If this moral, culture-of-death challenge is spiritual (and it is)… then we need spiritual responses. It is political (and it is)… then we need to get political. If this private angst is, one by one across this country, personal (and it is)… then we need to get personal.

I am tempted not to qualify one moral outrage, or one festering problem, over another, but at the root of the abortion issue – beyond America’s obvious drift from God and the secularization of society – is what I called here “Lazy Virtue.”

Not “easy virtue,” or really even “lack of virtue.” Dr Bill Bennett notwithstanding, “virtue” is a malleable term. Our problems are not because people figuratively smash the 10 Commandment tablets, or burn down churches. Yet.

No: lazy virtue is the worst, because people fool themselves, and are persuaded to fool others, that good is evil and evil is good. For instance, that:
• concern for baby animals is more sacred than saving human babies;
• Lazy Virtue forces those who oppose abortions to participate and even fund them;
• “convenience,” defined so many ways, is more important than others’ morality;
• “What’s right for me is OK, as long as nobody is harmed.”

… whoops, but it is OK to harm a baby close to birth. Even kill it. During the pandemic we hear people yammering about “trusting science.” Well, “science” is now discovering that those blobs and fetuses are (of course) humans; unborn babies can feel pain much earlier than previously thought; and they can survive outside the womb at ever younger ages.

The “tumult and the shouting” of the recent campaign has stopped… No. It hasn’t. But we are supposed to say that every four years. Candidates and presidents come and go. Parties change their appeals and profiles.

But our problems will not go away in America; not automatically. And not easily. As horrible as the sin of abortion is, it is a symptom, not our real disease.

Christian Patriots, Cultural Traditionalists: you might be looking ahead two years or four, and that is good. But start looking to tomorrow. Those bells toll for us, otherwise.

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We toil and look toward that City. Beulah Land, as sweet as it will be, is not Heaven but the border before we cross to the Promised Land which is our home eternal. But what does God require but that we, as believers in Christ, are good and faithful as His servants; do justice and walk humbly.

Music Vid: “Sweet Beulah Land” (For readers with hand-held devices, click or copy and paste: )
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=avntXsW6WhU

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Click: Sweet Beulah Land

2-3-14

I recently have re-read “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan (or re-re-re-read, actually forgetting the number of times I have read it). It is the most remarkable of books, once held to be the most printed book in the English language after the Bible. Despite our culture’s sudden and virtually total disassociation from it, that record might still hold.

Bunyan’s book is an allegory: the journey through life of the everyman hero, Mr Christian. It once was required reading in schools, beside the Bible – yes, in bygone times – but also for its masterful allusions, exquisite language, and impressive construction. The hero’s name, and those of myriad characters (Valiant-for-Truth; Worldly-Wiseman), were not crudely conceived of an impoverished imagination but to be clear about metaphors and symbols. Bunyan was teaching a lesson.

He wrote “The Pilgrim’s Progress” while he himself presumably was being taught a lesson. The Englishman Bunyan, who lived 1628 – 1688, had been a poor tradesman of relatively loose morals, but was converted to Christianity when he heard the voice of God. Like Martin Luther more than a century previous in Germany, he became conscious of his sinful nature, and grew to faith in fear of God. He was moved spontaneously to preach, and attracted a following. But at that time, in England, it was forbidden to preach unless ordained by the Crown’s church.

During two prison sojourns Bunyan wrote “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” The texts were received, the writer said, through visions, in the manner of St John transcribing the Book of Revelation on the Isle of Patmos.

Quotations from this great book strike us like lightning-bolts through the centuries. Its truths are still true. The nature of humankind – our needs and temptations and failures and hopes and triumphs? There have been no changes to our natures: we still need the message!

“What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.”

“A man there was, though some did count him mad, the more he cast away the more he had.”

“The man that takes up religion for the world will throw away religion for the world.”

“It is my duty to distrust mine own ability, that I may have reliance on Him that is stronger than all.”

But the most significant allegorical aspect of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” – in any event, the metaphor on which the narrative depends – is the Road. The Path. The Way. The journey’s channel; the Highway. Mr Christian proceeds amidst detours, roadblocks, false advice… toward the Destination, the Cross. To Heaven.

“Now I saw in my dream, that the Highway, up which Christian was to go, was fenced on either side with a wall, and that wall was called Salvation. Up this way, therefore, did burdened Christian run, but not without great difficulty, because of the load on his back. He ran thus till he came at a place somewhat ascending; and upon that place stood a cross, and a little below, in the bottom, a sepulchre. So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble, and so continued to do till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.”

The Highway to Heaven is an allegory easy to comprehend. But it is hard to travel! As hard as the poor, beleaguered Mr Christian found it. Bunyan likely was under no illusions that his book would turn the world upside-down. Indeed it had great impact – it is possible that millions have accepted Christ because of it through the centuries – yet it can only be expected to speak to readers one by one. One by one.

Despite books of old and mass-media today, the personal appeal of the gospel, which in fact was the mode of Jesus and the Apostles, is just that: a PERSONAL appeal. God’s plan… Christ’s Great Commission… the Holy Spirit’s ministry. “Go and make disciples.”

It is a temptation of human nature, and a specific spiritual malady of contemporary Western culture, to think that knowing ABOUT the “Highway,” being generally supportive, is enough. Or that wandering down detours at least corresponds to good intentions. Or that “other” Highways are efficacious, if the traveler, after all, means to arrive at a similar happy place to where the cross stands.

These relativistic lies and deadly heresies will result not only in others (and ourselves) walking aimlessly through life… but being “lost.” Fatally lost. Eternally lost. The Bible makes clear that all other roads lead to destruction. God is a guide; the Bible is our road map; and millions of sermons, songs, allegories, and books like “The Pilgrim’s Progress” graciously have been laid before us as spiritual MapQuests.

Even more, God allows U-Turns, as my friend Allison Bottke has called her ministry. However, He doesn’t allow short-cuts. He has not cancelled, nor even postponed, our journeys. And to use another Web-Age reference, it is Jesus’s voice we hear in the GPS, reminding us that there is no way to Heaven – no other way – but through Him.

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“Walking Up the King’s Highway” is a standard song in many hymnals. It is a favorite of the Black church, written by the great Thomas A Dorsey and Mary Gardner. Here it is performed in rousing fashion by more than a hundred “Gospel Legends,” giants of influential Spirituals of the past half-century. The late Rev Donald Vails leads the singers. Billy Preston is on the organ.

Click: Highway To Heaven