Two weeks ago, the church honored and celebrated Dave Hawkins’ musical gift both in church and afterwards by cutting loose with duets that highlighted the abilities of a couple other friends, Bo Emerson and David Flick, incredible musicians that we’re privileged to have among us. We will miss all the Hawkins but an event like that certainly sends them off in a fashion appropriate to our regard for them.
It’s through participation in choir that I know both Davids. As a matter of fact, most of my church interaction with Bo revolves around music too. Some of the best things that happen to me at church have to do with choir.
That started for me as a way to have an activity with my daughter, Ellen, who was raised here at Columbia. She sang in CPC’s choir her junior and senior year in high school and it worked out for her. She always marched to the tune of that distant drummer but she seemed to fit in at choir pretty well. She connected with several of the sopranos and—let me tell you—it doesn’t hurt a kid to have friends of all ages who root for you and expect of you. Dorothy Clark, our part-time church secretary and another child of the congregation, gave Ellen rides to voice competitions, which I thought truly went beyond the call of duty. Ellen also had fellowship with Alcie, Nancy, Mary Rose, and Jewel McGee. Between you and me, a kid can do worse than having examples of adulthood like that to grow up around. That’s grace, friend, found right here on the corner.
Choir has worked out for me too. In the beginning, they sat me next to Bill McGee who I always wished I could be more like both musically and in terms of character. A voice like mahogany, there were many times he carried the men’s parts. If not for choir, I don’t think I would’ve had the opportunity to hang with him, and I like to think character is contagious: you hang out with it, and some gets on you. Phew, when I think back at some of the things I’ve done, said, and thought, it kind of amazes me I found my way into the choir with all those “respectable” characters.
There have been many other examples for me, as well. For instance, I’ve gotten to know Jan. Before I joined choir I thought she was CPC’s version of “SNL’s church lady” for her apparent properness and pronounced vibrato. You know what? She enjoys a racy joke. Not kidding. There went my “church lady” caricature. And like the rest of those in the choir who’re musically more sophisticated than me, she’s taught me something about the power of music.
From 2003 through 2007, Jan lost four members of her family: first, a grandson (to addiction), then a sister-in-law, and finally, during a simply brutal and theologically- baffling three weeks in September 2007, a son and a husband.
Now leading up to that three-week period, during their concurrent illnesses, Jan missed a couple practices, but I don’t remember her missing a Sunday. FYI, she lives in Covington, Ga., without traffic a 40-minute drive. In choir, of course, we offered what help we could, and we prayed for and with her, but we were powerless. We’d look at each other and we didn’t have to say; “how could this be happening and how the heck could she keep on, let alone sing?”
David Flick told me that he finally said to her, “Jan, everyone would understand if you need to take some time off.” And she said, “No, I have to do this. It’s what keeps me going.”
What’d she mean? I can tell you what I think. Singing for Jan (and others) is not simply a way of expressing her faith (although it does); it is rather a means through which she connects to her faith. Like prayer or fellowship, meditation or AA meetings, or even, really hot preaching, it is a practice through which she seeks and glimpses the Lord’s face. And why wouldn’t she? It engages more than simply the mind like some disciplines: e.g., the first thing they talk about in vocal lessons is breathing. It engages the past; some of those songs she loves were sung sitting in church with her mom. And look at the subject matter of what is sung. Mostly, these songs are iterations of praise for the Lord and our hope in Him. Some groups seem to know this better than others, but there is great power in praise. In AA, we’re clear that a sure-fire cure for sorry moods and thoughts is a gratitude list. But praise (as a practice) goes one step beyond gratitude in its power. Do you recall the Lord questioning Job from out of the whirlwind? At the dawn of creation, the morning star sang, and the sons of God shouted for joy (See Job 38:4 ff in King James version for some of the most magnificent verses in the OT). Praise followed by joy, wondrously linked at the dawn of creation. Therefore, given all that, in her situation, how could she not sing? And watching—powerless—how could we not sing with her?
That’s what I think Jan meant. If you’re curious, you can ask her, because she is still here, and she happens to be singing. And if you want to check with someone regarding the power of praise, talk to Devon or Gordon. I think you’ll get an earful.
So Jan’s another good example for me. You know what I am. And you know how I doubt. But I can remember one grand Sunday singing with Dave Hawkins and Mike Lacy and the rest-all the folks who helped raise Ellen—about our destiny in Christ. “Will never die, will never die,” we sang, so loudly that it echoed in the sanctuary and hurt our ears. And I’ve never believed it better than that moment, right through to the marrow of my bones, singing as loud as I could.
Praise God. I really mean it. Try praise.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Picking the Right Bread
There were more teenagers in Sunday school today, back from vacation, all chatty and revved up about going back to school. Wendy was ready for them. Pursuant to the lesson she read from John 15:16, where Jesus tells his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” She went on, of course, but I wanted to stay there, right there, pull the shades, get a cup of black coffee, and really think about it, being chosen, that is.
I have a nephew, appropriately nicknamed Siege, who despite being raised in church and in an AA family just can’t seem to get recovery. He’s out again, using and cutting himself. And I just don’t get what he thinks is wrong with the program that he wouldn’t simply bury himself in it. I know the solution is there.
Have you noticed everybody is in John lately? This week Tom continued the “Bread of Life” series and discussed other breads that lure us from the true bread of life.
For me, the lure of drinking didn’t start with thirst like you might think. It started as dissatisfaction with myself; not smart enough, strong enough, popular enough, overall, simply not good enough in any way, in any fashion. It also started with displacement. I wasn’t comfortable in public, and certainly wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. Something was wrong, not just with me, but with life itself.
Well, I thought I solved that problem the first time I drank. The night of that epiphany, I drank a coke bottle full of Seagram’s and a six pack of Valley Forge beer. You know what happened. I threw up on my date, and blacked out, both for the first but not the last time. The next day, I was sick as a dog, grounded to boot and you know what? I couldn’t wait to do it again. Why? It made me feel the way I thought I was supposed to feel.
I am one of the fortunate few who received recovery. It seems to me that I was chosen then but some things in scripture indicate such choices were made long ago. Based on intelligence, will-power, character, level of effort or talent, I definitely am not one who deserved or earned it.
In AA, the word “grace” is almost always used to explain why some do, or some don’t get recovery. In AA, “grace” is used more semi-Pelagian than “radical/absolute,” and by that I mean there’s always counterpoint language about having to want recovery and being willing to go to any length for it. In this framework, the phrase “grace” refers to the unexplained variable in the equation, the juice from beyond that some don’t receive, despite program diligence of equal or greater degree than some who do recover. If the pivotal “higher power” idea was not central to the twelve steps, I believe we’d name the unexplained variable “luck.”
Now I did get recovery, but the underlying dissatisfaction and displacement had not been amortized as a result of my using. As a matter of fact, based on probable nerve-damage and the wreckage of those years, the world and my nature suited me even less than when I started drinking.
Here’s how the program changed my life: I am alive today because they told me my problem was spiritual and so was the solution. It was in AA that the dissatisfaction and displacement became hunger, but hunger of a different sort, one far different than the desire to believe I’m a good guy or that the world is not such a bad place after all.
This spiritual problem/solution concept is central to AA. Revealing to its history is the correspondence that occurred between Bill Wilson, a co-founder of AA, and Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist. Wilson had written Dr. Jung to thank him for the influence he had on the development of AA and the twelve steps. In discussing the particular person who had been treated by Dr. Jung and who thereby influenced Wilson, Dr. Jung wrote,
“His craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God…”(a)
But the craving, Dr. Jung continues, is not the problem,
“I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition, if it is not counteracted either by real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society, cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil.”
Provided below is the reference site for this letter if you’re interested. FYI, Dr. Jung quotes Psalms in the letter.
So the using, according to Jung, might simply be poor strategy. Like Tom said today, the lures of the world entice us from the lure set by Jesus. We think we want one kind of bread (relief) when what we really want is something else, something radically different which (at times) provides less rather than more relief. Unfortunately, what we mistake for the real thing is demonic, and frequently kills. As if to prove it’s demonic, the wrong bread frequently destroys our best and brightest. None of us are strangers to losses like this.
But now, having been chosen to live, I have received a degree of consolation in faith. I want more, and of course, at times, I doubt. Sometimes, when I fear I am only deluding myself into hope, I cling to that hunger as evidence that He really has called me. How is that? Because how can you hunger for something that you haven’t tasted?
Jesus was so clear regarding humankind and what we- being made in the image- really need. Despite what they say on TV, it’s not an economic plan, a self-improvement program, or yet another medication. He wants us back with our Father. That we miss Him confirms our origin and ultimate destiny in Him.
(a) http://silkworth.net/aahistory/carljung_billw013061.html
I have a nephew, appropriately nicknamed Siege, who despite being raised in church and in an AA family just can’t seem to get recovery. He’s out again, using and cutting himself. And I just don’t get what he thinks is wrong with the program that he wouldn’t simply bury himself in it. I know the solution is there.
Have you noticed everybody is in John lately? This week Tom continued the “Bread of Life” series and discussed other breads that lure us from the true bread of life.
For me, the lure of drinking didn’t start with thirst like you might think. It started as dissatisfaction with myself; not smart enough, strong enough, popular enough, overall, simply not good enough in any way, in any fashion. It also started with displacement. I wasn’t comfortable in public, and certainly wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. Something was wrong, not just with me, but with life itself.
Well, I thought I solved that problem the first time I drank. The night of that epiphany, I drank a coke bottle full of Seagram’s and a six pack of Valley Forge beer. You know what happened. I threw up on my date, and blacked out, both for the first but not the last time. The next day, I was sick as a dog, grounded to boot and you know what? I couldn’t wait to do it again. Why? It made me feel the way I thought I was supposed to feel.
I am one of the fortunate few who received recovery. It seems to me that I was chosen then but some things in scripture indicate such choices were made long ago. Based on intelligence, will-power, character, level of effort or talent, I definitely am not one who deserved or earned it.
In AA, the word “grace” is almost always used to explain why some do, or some don’t get recovery. In AA, “grace” is used more semi-Pelagian than “radical/absolute,” and by that I mean there’s always counterpoint language about having to want recovery and being willing to go to any length for it. In this framework, the phrase “grace” refers to the unexplained variable in the equation, the juice from beyond that some don’t receive, despite program diligence of equal or greater degree than some who do recover. If the pivotal “higher power” idea was not central to the twelve steps, I believe we’d name the unexplained variable “luck.”
Now I did get recovery, but the underlying dissatisfaction and displacement had not been amortized as a result of my using. As a matter of fact, based on probable nerve-damage and the wreckage of those years, the world and my nature suited me even less than when I started drinking.
Here’s how the program changed my life: I am alive today because they told me my problem was spiritual and so was the solution. It was in AA that the dissatisfaction and displacement became hunger, but hunger of a different sort, one far different than the desire to believe I’m a good guy or that the world is not such a bad place after all.
This spiritual problem/solution concept is central to AA. Revealing to its history is the correspondence that occurred between Bill Wilson, a co-founder of AA, and Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist. Wilson had written Dr. Jung to thank him for the influence he had on the development of AA and the twelve steps. In discussing the particular person who had been treated by Dr. Jung and who thereby influenced Wilson, Dr. Jung wrote,
“His craving for alcohol was the equivalent, on a low level, of the spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God…”(a)
But the craving, Dr. Jung continues, is not the problem,
“I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in this world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition, if it is not counteracted either by real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society, cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil.”
Provided below is the reference site for this letter if you’re interested. FYI, Dr. Jung quotes Psalms in the letter.
So the using, according to Jung, might simply be poor strategy. Like Tom said today, the lures of the world entice us from the lure set by Jesus. We think we want one kind of bread (relief) when what we really want is something else, something radically different which (at times) provides less rather than more relief. Unfortunately, what we mistake for the real thing is demonic, and frequently kills. As if to prove it’s demonic, the wrong bread frequently destroys our best and brightest. None of us are strangers to losses like this.
But now, having been chosen to live, I have received a degree of consolation in faith. I want more, and of course, at times, I doubt. Sometimes, when I fear I am only deluding myself into hope, I cling to that hunger as evidence that He really has called me. How is that? Because how can you hunger for something that you haven’t tasted?
Jesus was so clear regarding humankind and what we- being made in the image- really need. Despite what they say on TV, it’s not an economic plan, a self-improvement program, or yet another medication. He wants us back with our Father. That we miss Him confirms our origin and ultimate destiny in Him.
(a) http://silkworth.net/aahistory/carljung_billw013061.html
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Bread of Life
It’s a gas that I got schooled at church today. I need that. Heck, if I could do it myself— get schooled in the Way—I could sit around and clip coupons Sunday morning. I knew before coming the theme would be (and will be for the next two Sundays) the Bread of Life, and I knew it’d be communion, and I knew we were in John.
Now, John’s gospel isn’t my favorite. I’m a Mark guy and reading John I find myself second-guessing the text and asking, “Is this what Jesus said or is it what the early church wished Jesus said?” This type of thinking bothers me when I spend more time reading Crossan than the actual gospels.
To start with, in Sunday school Wendy referenced the story about the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”). Wendy mentioned in passing that this story is only found in the gospel of John, that some say this story was added after the original manuscript had been written, and that some scholars doubt it ever occurred at all. There’s that “John” thing again. Well, being afforded the opportunity to take a slow pass through it, two statements obverted for me. First, as the Scribes and Pharisees accused the woman, Jesus knelt down and wrote on the ground. I wanted to know what he wrote. Daniel suggested that carpenters at the time didn’t have paper upon which to figure measurements, and therefore they measured in the sand. So, maybe he was measuring the appropriate response. He certainly responded in a measured and non-accusatory manner, better than I could. Next, following Jesus’ statement regarding the first stone, it is noted in the text, “they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders.” Yes, that’s right, it makes sense. That the elders were clearest on this is a function of experience; that battle with sin, even then, even them.
In both these statements a bonus for me is this: if this is a contrived story, it is certainly well contrived, just as if someone actually saw it; the carpenter measuring in the sand, and the elders being the first to recognize Jesus’ point about sin and all of us. It doesn’t appear to be contrived. I believe the word used by literary gurus is “verisimilitude,” just like life. Thanks, John.
I’ll come back to the church service. I was also schooled in a meeting after church. I was corrected biblically over the way I interpreted what someone had said and I needed that too. The corrector didn’t accuse me; she simply said she thought the person might’ve been coming from the perspective of a couple of verses in I Corinthians. How cool is that? I didn’t get it back like I gave it, that’s for sure. Is that classy, or what? I am starting to trust these “meeting-things” as a place not so much for me to practice patience and restraint (which nearly kills me), but as places to learn something new about what can happen in conversation with other dirty rotten sinners like me.
Finally, worship played a part in the schooling. I don’t know how many times I’ve taken communion, but it seemed novel today. Tom had asked that people bring canned goods to replenish our pantry for those in need. He had the kids take that up during the children’s sermon and put those gifts on the communion table with the bread and the grape juice. Gosh, those kids were excited doing that. Me—I was kind of immersed in juxtaposed meaning; a sublime pool in which to wash.
It so easily could have been preached as “the gospel is us feeding the poor” and Tom certainly allowed that feeding the poor is an important part of it. But he went on further to talk about feeding “the Bread of Life” in addition to what we usually buy at the farmers market. And then he talked about the real treasure entrusted to us: Jesus as revealed Word, grace, faith, hope, eternal life, and community. Yeah, baby!
Last week I was talking to someone young in the 12-steps program, who is frustrated with his life, how he seemed stuck. I remember what I was told when I was young in the program: “It’s an inside job; when you change, your life will change.” I didn’t believe it then. I thought I needed degrees, a different job, a new place, a new girlfriend, etc. I thought my problems were outside of me. Experience taught me differently. And when I finally bought that I—rather than my situation—needed to change, I thought I could change myself. I wasted a lot of time there as well. Then someone turned me on to Luther’s commentary on Galatians and my struggles were obverted. In fairness, AA was telling me before I heard it in Galatians.
My take now is that even though the problem is inside me, the solution lies outside of me; in a power greater than myself. My focus should be on exposing myself to that power; making my 12-step meetings, being active in church, and reading the Word. If you want to get warm, stand next to the fire.
Now sometimes the problem can be solved by a bag of groceries. But if the problem is more, I do hope the folks who come here for the groceries stick around for the rest and the best. That includes transformation, the work of the Bread of Life.
Pax.
Now, John’s gospel isn’t my favorite. I’m a Mark guy and reading John I find myself second-guessing the text and asking, “Is this what Jesus said or is it what the early church wished Jesus said?” This type of thinking bothers me when I spend more time reading Crossan than the actual gospels.
To start with, in Sunday school Wendy referenced the story about the woman caught in adultery (John 8:3-11: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her”). Wendy mentioned in passing that this story is only found in the gospel of John, that some say this story was added after the original manuscript had been written, and that some scholars doubt it ever occurred at all. There’s that “John” thing again. Well, being afforded the opportunity to take a slow pass through it, two statements obverted for me. First, as the Scribes and Pharisees accused the woman, Jesus knelt down and wrote on the ground. I wanted to know what he wrote. Daniel suggested that carpenters at the time didn’t have paper upon which to figure measurements, and therefore they measured in the sand. So, maybe he was measuring the appropriate response. He certainly responded in a measured and non-accusatory manner, better than I could. Next, following Jesus’ statement regarding the first stone, it is noted in the text, “they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders.” Yes, that’s right, it makes sense. That the elders were clearest on this is a function of experience; that battle with sin, even then, even them.
In both these statements a bonus for me is this: if this is a contrived story, it is certainly well contrived, just as if someone actually saw it; the carpenter measuring in the sand, and the elders being the first to recognize Jesus’ point about sin and all of us. It doesn’t appear to be contrived. I believe the word used by literary gurus is “verisimilitude,” just like life. Thanks, John.
I’ll come back to the church service. I was also schooled in a meeting after church. I was corrected biblically over the way I interpreted what someone had said and I needed that too. The corrector didn’t accuse me; she simply said she thought the person might’ve been coming from the perspective of a couple of verses in I Corinthians. How cool is that? I didn’t get it back like I gave it, that’s for sure. Is that classy, or what? I am starting to trust these “meeting-things” as a place not so much for me to practice patience and restraint (which nearly kills me), but as places to learn something new about what can happen in conversation with other dirty rotten sinners like me.
Finally, worship played a part in the schooling. I don’t know how many times I’ve taken communion, but it seemed novel today. Tom had asked that people bring canned goods to replenish our pantry for those in need. He had the kids take that up during the children’s sermon and put those gifts on the communion table with the bread and the grape juice. Gosh, those kids were excited doing that. Me—I was kind of immersed in juxtaposed meaning; a sublime pool in which to wash.
It so easily could have been preached as “the gospel is us feeding the poor” and Tom certainly allowed that feeding the poor is an important part of it. But he went on further to talk about feeding “the Bread of Life” in addition to what we usually buy at the farmers market. And then he talked about the real treasure entrusted to us: Jesus as revealed Word, grace, faith, hope, eternal life, and community. Yeah, baby!
Last week I was talking to someone young in the 12-steps program, who is frustrated with his life, how he seemed stuck. I remember what I was told when I was young in the program: “It’s an inside job; when you change, your life will change.” I didn’t believe it then. I thought I needed degrees, a different job, a new place, a new girlfriend, etc. I thought my problems were outside of me. Experience taught me differently. And when I finally bought that I—rather than my situation—needed to change, I thought I could change myself. I wasted a lot of time there as well. Then someone turned me on to Luther’s commentary on Galatians and my struggles were obverted. In fairness, AA was telling me before I heard it in Galatians.
My take now is that even though the problem is inside me, the solution lies outside of me; in a power greater than myself. My focus should be on exposing myself to that power; making my 12-step meetings, being active in church, and reading the Word. If you want to get warm, stand next to the fire.
Now sometimes the problem can be solved by a bag of groceries. But if the problem is more, I do hope the folks who come here for the groceries stick around for the rest and the best. That includes transformation, the work of the Bread of Life.
Pax.
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