A brief post mid-vacation.

I’m struck, here in the Great Smokey’s, with the symbiosis of creation. I simply see cycles, circles and endless connections everywhere, from trees to seasons to insects below and birds above. This place has held much pain and joy for us through the years, but it seems this year all that I can see is the utter interlinking, interlocking of all that is in air and soil and flesh.

We are all connected, though human beings stand as stewards, or users at present, of this treasure we share. To see ourselves as part of this magical whole, while recognizing our unique role, lineage and portion; this is caring for creation’s gift.

We’re off to Pennsylvania (my home) and North Carolina (Anita’s home) for some vacation, so my posting may be sporadic for a few weeks. I’ll do what I can though. No shortage of opinions, perspectives or passions here!

Besides some kid wrestling, fly fishing and general family seeing, I hope to take in a hammered dulcimer fest in Black Mountain, NC, about an hour from my wife’s homestead in the Great Smokey Mountains. The dose of beauty is usually pretty high there; I hope I don’t go into BeautyShock.

Then again….

Beauty in the soul, bubbling in someone’s passion, hidden from site until a window is opened.

This would also breed an interesting discussion on genre and context. Just because his voice is beautiful in one genre, doesn’t mean that it is beautiful or right in another genre or context. Beauty itself, Lewis contended, is relative. To a male frog, someone once said, a fat green blob with big eyes is beautiful.

And yet, as far as the human species goes, it seems that some aspects of beauty are shared, and when we see someone who has honed an area of gifting (a humanizing gift), no matter their culture, something strikes us deep within. It may not draw us to their art form, but it inevitably calls us toward greatness in our own.

This comes to me from great friend and fellow blogger, Shelley Maw.

I’m Like You

I’ve seen through the years,
This gift of fatherhood,
Played out in
Our relationship,
Our friendship,
Your leadership,
My followership,
My childlike hope that someday I could be like you.

I’m like you, and I’m grateful.

Yesterday, our small town engaged in the Love Your City experience, as churches all over our town took to acts of generosity that celebrated the goodness of God toward people in our little hamlet.

Carnivals, BBQ’s, car washes, playground painting, chocolate giving and many more activities led us through the day, and last evening we concluded with a worship concert in the town square.

While I can’t speak for everyone, for me it was a rich day. For twenty years I’ve participated fully and frequently in what I call “church mouse” activities - activities where everyone gathers their greatest enthusiasm to set up, tear down, advertise, play, work, sweat, laugh and generally give their all to the next event that will change life as we know it.

I admit, that I feel I’m a bit jaded in comparison to the enthusiasm of young and old that often surrounds me in these events. My Christian worldview in constant shift, the endless years of “big events” and the artist in me always clamoring to be more completely “outed,” all play a part in diminishing my exhuberance at events that are expected to trigger the dawn of a new era.

And yet, I always know that its good to participate, and good for my family and community, so I do it. God works with our innocence, and our acts of goodness. I believe that. In the end, after reading and creating improvisational stories with kids for a few hours (a favorite book gets 3 reads - Horton Hears A Who), then leading worship with our band in the evening, I can honestly say that I think the whole experience was a good thing. I’m tired, but it was good.

So, to give generously, to express care in small ways, to do so with others who share your confidence in Jesus, is a good thing. One little girl, her face smeared with red freezie and cookie crumbs said it this way at the end of a story I read to her:

“That was some good.”

For those who know me, my fascination with origins narratives, and my sense of their importance to vibrant faith and enduring love, is obvious. I gained a taste for this as a young boy, and pursued the ideas in my first degree studies in Philosophy and Religion back in the day. My encounters with God through the years have only reinforced an essential worldview, but scattered some of my more “cultural” thoughts about God and faith.

This summer, I’ve taken to reading (skimming in some cases) a number of books Christian, spiritual, anthropological, historical (religion and civilization), and even the more aggressive atheist challenges to religious faith - which they view as toxic to both human mutual care and the endurance of the human species.

In later posts, I’ll reflect a bit more on these ideas, but all tend to reinforce the notion for me that a Story has been finding its way through humankind, as it did into the Genesis narrative in a more refined way than the other origins narratives of the ancient near east. I believe that story is more than a conjuring of a species personifying nature to compensate for its ignorances. I believe that God is revealed in the wrestlings of man.

However, I also welcome the scientific work of ages into that Story. However, again, I abhor scientific pride and absolutisms as much as I do the more extreme versions of Christian faith that leave little room for more beautiful questions to be asked. Answers, in my estimation, should primarily be fertile progenitors of OverQuestions that should lead us all to a loving, living faith in a Person at the centre of the cosmos.

I came across this old Carl Sagan episode of Cosmos on YouTube, giving a brief on the origins narrative according to basic evolutionary theory. It’s reasoned approach would be contested (my understanding is), by even the best evolutionary scholarship of the past decade (an interesting task taken on, in part, by The Language Of God - written by the theist who led the team that cracked the human genome). However, it’s simplicity and drawings give the basic origins narrative. (Note: Scientists have sought to replicate primordial earth conditions, and to run “lightning” through elemental soup to get to the substiantial building blocks of life, but without success to date).

Without brushing off the sequential/rational thinking of science, and the strange and seeming constant human need to explore our purpose and source (which is my essential argument for theism, the themes of genesis 1-11, and the new Adam linkage to Jesus) watch these vids and see how you respond. Does your faith have answers that are other than “well, I just know that I know.” While this has merit, there is more behind the curtain of the evolutionist’s questions that may reveal to us more about God’s wiring of the human heart.

Secondarily, this next rough (and old) clip suggests the importance of human care for one another based on the evolutionary theory. Interesting how a loving conclusion is derived from the theory, and it is seen as “beneficial” that the species continue to save itself, and perpetuate itself - where does this will to survive come from? What is hidden inside the heart? What twists it into self-preservation and self-aggrandizement, or enables it to self-sacrifice and give itself away for others?

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; it is the glory of kings to seek it out.”
Proverbs 25:2

The diner was clattering with the usual din of conversations, dishes clinking and droning radio in the background. As we sat, young son and father, eating our breakfast, you could hear the dialogue at a table a few yards away.

“Gonna hafta take that tree right on out of there,” said one weathered older man. “Yep, those honeysuckles are out of hand, too. Gonna hafta get them out of there, too.”

I began to reminisce, with my captive audience furiously eating his breakfast. “You know,” I said. “I remember the day your great grandma Wilt died.” The sounds and smells of our small town diner were recalling my growing up years, sitting across from my grandmother at a tabletop much like the one we were leaning on this morning.

When we were finished with our breakfast, Grandma and young grandson, Grandma would always stash away a few extra butters, jellies and peanut butters into her purse. “You never know when you’ll need these,” she would quip.

The day I heard that my Grandma had passed away, I remember that it was raining. She was out mowing her lawn that morning, and light rain was beginning to fall. She simply fell over, and died, right in the backyard where I had played all my life. My father went to her after a phone call alerted him, and there he was, bent over his mother on the lawn, weeping and loving her more than he ever had.

When I got the news, I was just sad. I went on with my life. Little bits of legacy keep rearing their heads in my memory, triggered by an olfactory moment, a visual cue or a light sound.

As for today, an old man’s voice, the clinking of cutlery and plates, the smell of a small town diner and the banter of friends, brings it all back.

Having studied in this amazing city, this is a wonderful project that will give some sense of scope to Rome and its place in the foundations of western civilization.

RomeReborn1.0

Dot is the crossing guard at my son’s elementary school.

She’s been the crossing guard for our elementary school children for decades, and knows the birthday and name of every one of the children who have ever crossed the main street where she works. Dot is originally from Newfoundland, and her playful roots are betrayed by her infectious hugs, exuberant laughter and always-interested eyes. Dot has captured the affections of both the children and parents in our small Maritime hamlet for many a moon.

On any given day you will see Dot standing in the middle of the street, arms stretched wide like a suffering but smiling messiah, and little cherubs bounding in front of her like baby chicks gleaming their mother as they pass by. They are unaware of the dangers she protects them from daily, but their confident strides give testimony to her able handling of her task.

As one line of children finishes their sojourn across the raging street, Dot hurries back toward the curb waving her sincere thanks to any drivers who are watching. She is grateful that we’ve paused in the midst of our busy mornings to honor her cherished ones. She takes no one for granted, nor encroaches on one’s time any more than she must.

Dot is town-famous for remembering the children’s names as they go through their school years, and finally graduate from high school. She asks parents on the street how their children are doing, and listens closely to their answers. If she feels as though an encouragement and attaboy is due, she offers it freely. If she has a bit of advice, though, she will offer it with all the kindness a grandmother could give.

One day, on another street in our small town, I was in a hurry. I looked both ways at a very small and lonely intersection, and began to cross the street. Dot happened to be coming up the other side of the street, but I didn’t see her there. Midway through my tiny journey, I looked up to see that the little red hand was still lit on the crosswalk sign. I hustled my way to the adjacent corner, and looked down into Dot’s curious eyes. I knew that I was in for a whole can of pure, homegrown, Newfoundland whatfor.

“Why did you cross the street when the sign was red?” Dot asked me with an innocent smile. I stumbled for words, as they caught in my throat and found their way to the surface with th same tone they used to in the presence of my querying mother.

“There were no cars coming, Dot,” I exclaimed, half speaking with playful knowingness, and half intoned with embarrassed shame. She had caught me with my hand in the cookie jar. Her face grew serious, and her eyes grew thin. She leaned toward me as if tell me a secret, and I intuitively leaned down to listen - turning my eyes from her strong look.

“If you do it, your children will do it. They don’t know any better; they’re too young.” She leaned back, and I straightened up. We exchanged smiles - hers the fiesty grin of a mother who feels no need to remedy that you are embarrassed, and mine the shy grin of a child who just got off a big hook with only a slight punishment.

Then, just the other day, I was driving with my wife, and needed to turn left into a parking lot to turn around. Dot happened to be crossing where I was needing to turn, and I tried to wave her through first. She wouldn’t budge. She waved me in, with her telltale smile. We passed by her, with more smiles and waves. She looked both ways, and began to cross behind us.

Then, I realized that I was in a one-way lane. For me to turn around the way I had intended would mean that I would have to continue in my illegal journey, and upon my successful about-face, to then face Dot again, crossing the other lane toward which she was now walking.

I looked at my wife. “I’m backing up and turning around, Hon.” “Why?” my wife said. “Just keep going. There’s no one coming.” “You don’t understand,” I said. “Dot will see me going the wrong way in this lane.” She gave me a knowing look, kind of like my hand was caught again in the jar of sweet carbohydrates.

“I just can’t let Dot see me doing the wrong thing,” I said. “In fact, I’d rather not do the wrong thing at all. The children might see me, and they don’t know any better.”

I was walking down the street toward my office, when I saw an older gentleman in our small town approaching me. He walks at a pace that must rival the slowest land turtle in North America, carefully digs his cane into the concrete sidewalk with every step, and usually only raises his head when someone gets near him.

As I came close he stopped. He looked up, and I stopped. Then I turned my gaze to look into his deep gray eyes.

“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” he said. “It is,” I replied, “and it looks like its getting warmer every day.” He smiled at me, and I smiled back. We could both tell that the other was happy for the interchange and yet was needing to get on our way.

As I walked away, I noticed that my pace was slowed. I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t in a rush. I just needed to get where I was going. Eventually.

It’s time for the worship artisan to take his and her place in both the Kingdom and in the culture. No longer are we able to simply lead great grooves and good songs. We must become creative-orators, artisan-thinkers and cultural-shapers – if we are to influence the coming centuries of worship in the Church and in the culture.

I just wanted to say that again.

www.TheWorshipArtisan.com

Holy-slight-amount-of-tension-Batman. Unless its feigned….

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs | D5 | AllThingsD

I am simply thinking this morning that:

My wife is like the silent dew of morning blanketing wide green fields,

My friends are like the warming sun of summer on a face turned upward.