Bogus Bleak

there is a place where bleak meets wonder and pretends to win the day
for things that are more than things and we can never say

all that is there

but wonder wins or so I say and so I see within my soul
the knowing a thing so good as life could never go
into the doom
 
wonder wins for it did not rise of its own a layered response
rather it is real and speaks the lie to what is not
the bogus bleak

 

On Abiding the Contrary

A dear friend gently offered the counsel that I tend to posture myself in a way that "cannot abide the contrary." Perhaps preachers, those who often have a gift of 'forth-telling', are prone to this. We know what we know and we know it is right and pity the person not likewise enlightened! (I am thinking of signing all correspondence with the acronym moniker CAC.)

I know this can be annoying. OK, I know it can ruin dialogue and even friendship. As is our human wont, the things true of we ourselves are often the things of which we complain in others. Thus, when friends speak self-assuredly of things 'I know to be wrong' I tend to think they are guilty of CAC and need to be corrected and instructed. "If only they would tone down a bit they'd see the error of their ways. Why won't they listen for a change?"

Can I be free of such confidence in my outlook? Probably not, for thinking requires confidence in one's opinions. Yet, I long to be able to speak peaceably with those whose ideas I think are nuts; to listen well and dialogue without judging.

Here's my partial prescription, offered with the necessary dose of CAC:

• Offer ideas to think about, not conclusions ripe for attack. (Opinions are for sharing, not imposing.)
• In perfect Stephen Covey style: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."
• Attempt to disconnect ideas from feelings and personal identity.

There is more I suppose, all offered with the smiling caveat 'of course I know there is more -- don't imagine you knew it first!' Alas, CAC is omni-present, the blushing and stubborn pride born of painful insecurities.

But I am glad my friend is still my friend. He is able to overlook this flaw and love me anyway.

I'm learning!

CAC

"Freely you have received, freely give..."

 "Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. 
You open your safe and find ashes." 

(Annie Dillard, Write Till You Drop)

She is on to something.

"Channels only, blessed Master, but with all Thy wondrous pow'r
Flowing through us, Thou canst use us, every day and every hour.

This old lyric is only true in loving relationship with Christ. Channels, yes, but also friends, devoted servants, sons and daughters with our Elder Brother, redeemed Children of Light, "workers together with God."

Yet, if we hoard what we receive it rots like the secreted manna.

Lord, you are the Safe for our lives. Let me not fashion my own private safe, imagining I can keep something there, only to find ashes on that Final Day when all is opened.

IF [100WW]

“If I can,” we say: subjunctive, possible, contingent. The ever-present IF. “I will do” the toddler says. Years later the boundless energy of young adults never stops, never wonders. The chutzpa of youth has no “if” in its vocabulary. Contingent? “Contingent on me!” Until we learn there are rocks on which we break, reality bigger than us, people who care deeply and see differently. They mean no ill, but can't cooperate. So we add one of many “ifs” to our plans and learn to live in the world as it is, instead of how it is in our head.

Miracle of Life at the Airport [10""TU]

Ten minute Tuesday finds me in the airport. O'Hare, no less, not your country runway. I first remember an airport in Ulysses, Kansas. We could see airplanes come and go about a mile away from our house. These were small Cessnas and crop dusters and such. In later years we passed the small Clay Center airport nearly every day of the week.

As an adult I lived near many airports that were large enough for jets but small enough to enjoy: WPB (in the early days), Jackson (MS), Lexington (KY), Roanoke (VA) and now Fairbanks, Alaska.

But today I am in one of the world's largest and as always I am amazed at the people. I have always loved people: variety, languages, personality. Even with the triumph of tech – nearly all the people waiting at my gate are on their phones – the differences are overwhelming and beautiful. I scarcely know what to do with it, in my understanding I mean. Changing it is the definition of impossible.

I grew up in beloved rural Kansas in a beloved church context that emphasized fundamentals. Conservative fundamentals. Ways of life and details for living that have very little obvious expression in the mass of people I see at a olace like O'Hare. It is an eye-opener. And painfully wonderful in all the good, human ways.

There is the constant problem of substance and form and I am reminded we all err in different ways on this continuum. I sat next to a couple that in form seemed to violate all that many – not just a conservative fundamentalist – would find wrong. Yet they had a child they obviously loved, and they cared for one another in apparent old-fashioned ways of love and devotion. Form one way, substance tacking opposite. I decided not to ask them how that works. 

And as I think about all of this I pray with a joy that bursts forth in praise for all that God has made, and for the privilege of living in this marvelous world.

On Disagreement, Motive, and Dealing with the Issue at Hand

Charity can help avoid the mire of polarization

Amazing how readily we find fault. Steven Covey says we get our "emotional jollies" by pointing out fault in others. I always heard we put others down to lift ourselves up, but this never made sense to me. Not sure why. Likely because I wasn't asking why I found fault with others. I just did it. If I did ask why the answer would be sure and certain: "I found fault because there was fault to be found. Why need there be more explanation than that?"

Why indeed?! I'm trying to sort this out because so often it seems we try to explain an action based on motives instead of accepting it as an action. And this seems wrong, except it is not.

There's the old relational wisdom that says we tend to judge ourselves on intent and others on their actions. That is, we excuse ourselves because we mean well and disregard possible good intent when assessing the action of others.

But what can happen when we obsess over motive? We excuse the action and fail to hold the actor accountable. This is a two-edged sword in controversy. I'll take a public figure as an example and see if I can work this out.

James Dobson served the American public for many years, trying to help us all think better about family and the things that matter most. He had his faults, like all of us, one being his leaning more and more into politics. It made his work more difficult I think but I always assumed he did it because -- here comes motive to explain and justify -- he felt the political arena could help him further his mission.

During the Clinton Presidency a scandal erupted around Clinton's alleged 18-month sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. This sordid affair, mixed with any number of other misdeeds, gave major ammo to his opponents. In the mix of the 1996 Presidential election Dobson and others made the earnest case that this flaw in Clinton's personal character disqualified him for the presidency. Adultery, with the mitigating factors of doing so in office and with an intern no less, was an offense so egregious one could never vote for Clinton in good conscience. Character matters and we must not compromise.

Fast forward to June of 2015 and one Donald Trump declared himself a candidate for President. Easily half of the electorate couldn't believe he was serious. But he was serious and because -- I assign motive again -- he was Republican and at least ostensibly promoted traditional values, the Evangelical mainstream and right embraced him.

Now the fight was on. Trump's life openly ignored traditional values. Twice divorced, his various escapades in business and family put him in the same broad moral category as Clinton, some would say worse. Granted he did not violate said norms while in the White House, but that's a small detail in a political scrum.

So in 2016 we had that same voter base – largely Evangelical Christian and social conservatives – deciding they could overlook Trump's sullied personal life. Character matters, yes. But some things matter more.

Many in what we might call the evangelical left, saw red: “Dobson and the Evangelical right is just doing this because they want political power!” Or likely more to the point, and more charitably: “Dobson supports Trump because he thinks he is best for the country.” But both deal with motivation, not the fact in hand. Why, exactly, did Dobson go in for Trump? Not sure. Probably several reasons. Why must we assign motive?

Another axiom says something like this: “Never assign ill will or malice as an explanation when ignorance or a simple mistake may do.” This seems a minimum of charity. We can surmise motive, and it is deeply human to do so, often very charitable. But why always go there? Why not just observe the action and deal with it?

So how did much of the Evangelical world assess Dobson's support of Trump? They charged him with gross inconsistency; some even use that overplayed word hypocrisy. “He said character matters for Clinton, he doesn't think so with Trump. He's a hypocrite!” Or worse, “He's a liar!”

Really? Is it possible we just deal with the action and allow that maybe, just maybe, he simply changed his mind? Maybe he overplayed his hand in the mid-90's and since came to believe he can't let his scruples rule out a candidate with whom he agrees philosophically. Maybe his motive is good in a tortured situation, dealing with multi-layered hierarchy of values. Ya think?!

 
Maybe the comparison between the two candidates is not one-to-one in Dobson's view. Maybe we should just deal with the facts on the ground and quit assigning motives that allow us to disdain. We have enough trouble knowing our own motives in difficult matters; pray tell how we can know the motives of others? And besides, I thought the great mantra governing all of life was “judge not.”

Dobson was no fan of Clinton, and I can presume he liked Trump for some inverse reasons he disliked Clinton. And Dobson apparently decided he could live with Trump's character issues regardless of what he had said about Clinton in 1995. Was an explanation in order? Maybe. But I am not sure most would even care. They had already decided his motives were sullied and he was a hypocrite.

There's a lot of fault to be found: planks and specks and a cruel vortex of exchanging barbs. When we step in that arena we step in quicksand. So we should stop and remember: beside the plank in my eye that keeps me from really seeing the speck in yours, there is a mirror. Find fault if you must, but start with yourself and you'll find you have enough problems to keep you busy for a lifetime.

Finally, I'll admit this is about heroes and the desperate need for them. Dobson was a hero and like all heroes – and all persons alive – he had faults. Newsflash: he even made some serious mistakes. But in this world of shocking polarization and devastating loss of friendship due to these kinds of disagreements, I'm trying to hold on. Dobson was one of my heroes and if I can – if the analysis and charity and judgmental habits will stretch far enough – I am going to keep it that way.

 
I hope my dear friends on all sides can find the grace to do the same with me. And I'm not even a hero.

The Limits of Analytical Powers Portend

analysis finds its nemesis
in wayward streets of the soul
where reason lives
but cannot reign for reasons

the reasons clear
for mind beyond
and mere mortals know
but can't say

must it be said
the truth which lives
and shapes our living
though unknown

seducing soul this thing
that must know and say
being quashed somehow
until the soul is whole

Strolling, Stones, and a Better Way

Comes to mind the stroll I often took in my growing up years. We lived in Ulysses, a farming and light industrial town in far Southwest Kansas. Our house was on the corner, one block off of Main Street and the four stoplights that controlled it. In a town of 3,500 or so, that was no problem, except those who spent hours "dragging main" used the block adjacent as their turn-around. But that was a small inconvenience and my dad's patrol car was often parked in the back, giving an instinctive brake-check to the High School-age drivers.

Since the town was small I did a lot of walking. We could be to school in 8 blocks or so: to the bank, grocery, general store, library, hospital, and a local park in less. The main grocery store was a mere two blocks away and before it was a small lumber yard with long, low yard buildings parallel to the street. What brings this to mind is a lot of pleasant, and some not so much. Today I'll consider the not so much.

I remember walking along beside that low building, not two blocks from my house, heading home, early evening. Who knows why I was there -- perhaps an errand to get a grocery item for Mom. Or maybe walking home from hunter safety course at the Law Enforcement Center in Court House Square one block behind me.

Whatever the case, I saw rocks on the ground, picked them up, and tossed them over my head like a hook shot. I was aiming for the windows of that lumber yard shed. And I hit them. Several of them.

These were old single pane, glazing and grid and all. But windows. Someone had paid good money and worked hard to install them. Someone would have to replace them and soon, for broken windows are bad for many reasons.

Who held me to account? Only my conscience, and without good training it would fail me. Who would make it right? No one, unless authorities caught me and made me pay. A few years later I did send them some money. That's another story, and right, but I doubt I sent enough. In today's money the damages would be worth $100 per window at minimum. Today, the old building is long gone. Was it any big deal?

Of course it was. If we measure justice according to "whose ox is getting gored" we quickly know when there is a wrong. The lumberyard suffered wrong. It matters not any explanation. I took from them and owed.

This is as real as life but it came to mind as I thought how easy it is in this world to tear down. For my part I am sure I was "acting out" some kind of inner strife or anger, for such is the human lot, though it does not make my actions right. But in other matters we often tear things down out of frustration: "It ain't working right -- get rid of it!" And that is always easier than finding a solution.

"Anything is better than what we have now." 

"Really? What do you propose?"

And so dies the discussion. This is the French Revolution. This is most revolutions, I suggest. The miracle of the so-called "American Revolution" is that it broke the rules of revolutions and certainly was not tearing things down as an end in itself. Rooted in common folk and citizen-soldiers grounded in the land, we built something on an idea that amazed the world in time and gave us a treasured civilization.

Do we have problems? Is that even a serious question? 

Too easily we throw stones because of our own problems or perceived problems in the civilized order, such as it is. This is not noble of itself and is easily ignoble. Throwing stones is easy. Anyone can do it. Breaking those windows was a piece-of-cake, even made me feel triumphant. But it tore down. It did not build.

We can agree that all fault-finding is not destructive. But what can we do to build instead of tear down? What solution do we have to remedy that which we declare wrong?

And perhaps most of all, what real serious attention are we giving to repair and strengthen our own personal character? Any one can throw a stone. But as the old song would remind us, "It's me, it's me, it's me O Lord, standin' in the need of prayer." 

Fix yourself and you have a lifetime job that pays back in spades and blesses the world. Throw stones and you degrade yourself while hurting another. It is not a good strategy for the good life, for the neighborhood, or for a civilization that blesses the world.

The intersection near where I did the vandalism.
The lumberyard was in top left quadrant.

My beloved boyhood home.

Tinker Creek: You Don't Know What's There Until You Do

A view of Tinker Creek in Hollins, VA.

I am reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek this year, the 50^th year of its publishing. many lines are gold: “It snowed all day yesterday and never emptied the sky” or “the earth absorbs and releases heat slowly, like a Leviathan breathing.” And words like “quince” let me know Annie Dillard's vocabulary is vast.

I am in the first half and can't get away from the geography. Malcolm Muggeridge says exactness can hinder meaning, even truth. I find the same when I try to analyze and find exactly where Annie was as she wrote. The place has changed and it is not obvious where she perched to view the valley, though the wonder of google maps helps me get an idea.

The geography matters because I've been there. Tinker Creek bordered the home where we lived for 5 years. I had never read the book nor heard of it, but I spent a lot of time working near Dillard's vantage points. When I first realized this I wondered why it mattered. Is this mere fascination with the celebrity of a book and its author?

Maybe. But I've always loved books, and books about thinking and wondering and trying to see carry all the more value. Throw in a Pulitzer and you have my attention.

I can't spend this whole year reflecting on the geography, but the book is nothing without it, and I keep wondering what it means. Hundreds of families have lived along Tinker Creek. What did they see, what did they know? Did any of them think about – not just see – the starling flock that filled the sky. Odds are high they never watched a beatle eat a frog. For them – for the bulk of us – life and trees and birds and small islands are barely there.

Comes the old philosophy saw: “If I'm not there to hear it, was there actually a sound?” Or for non creek-dwellers like me and most others, “If I didn't stop to watch and listen, did it really happen? Was the Creek even there?”

We take life for granted and then we die. We cry for meaning and miss the clues all around us. Thinkers throughout time speak of something we call natural law: life reveals some fixed things if we give honest attention to how it is put together. Annie knew this better than most and is trying to tell us what the Creek taught.

“It's just one person's experience,” comes the worn rejoinder. “And why the worse for that?” one might reply. Besides, are you going to do the work of observation? Am I? As my best-ever teacher said about literary analysis: “You don't know what is there until you know what is there.” Annie was finding out what was there so she could share it with the rest of us.

So I'm left settling in to this book, thinking of existence, and the basic questions rise: What makes a person who they are instead of someone else? How is another's experience different, and do I share in it at all? Does our sharing transcend time? What has awareness to do with wisdom? Can wisdom be had without effort?

Annie's reflections can help us even though we are not her and had nothing of this experience. That much seems obvious. But for myself, I can't help being lost in the mystery as I remember trudging that same creek bank, busy with tasks at hand, missing the trees for the forest. As I think of the 'trees' Annie saw that most of us miss, I see frequent mention of shadows, shades, light ever-present and life-giving.

I wonder about the shades and the miracle of light the photographers, as opposed to logographers, rely upon for their magic. And I know Annie mimics their craft when she sees the light and speaks of its wonder. By my reckoning I'm a novice in trying to think like this book, but I'm leaning in, and I see something in the dim light. Take a moment to see, to really look, and you'll learn something. You'll see what is really there. You'll see things you had no idea were there at all.

Like Annie often does, I hear the echo of Scripture:”If you have ears, listen!” One might say “If you have eyes, look!” Few admonitions are more wise and Dillard took the advice. This book is an how to manual, a first-class “Watching for Dummies.” I'm looking forward to the rest of the journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chairs in 100 Words on Wednesday

A chair may serve well for 100 wordwednesday. Some, keeping sedentation at bay, avoid chairs. Most succumb, though stand-up desks are a thing. I even once tried reading while walking on a treadmill. Works ok. Requires diligence and being. Just like life, just like a chair. As philosophers fondly say, the chair has its “chairness.” And they describe the properties that make it a chair: stability, support, coherent structure, enduring in its being and purpose. We can learn from the chair. Stable, steadfast, integrated, supportive. Strength matters, design and visual appeal as well. Who knew what a chair could teach?

Re-visiting the Integrity Question [10'TU]

This "ten minute Tuesday" thing is constraining, for obvious reasons. Last week I had to say "see you next week" because I couldn't finish the thought in 10 minutes.

And we are dealing with integrity which means something like "if your words and action do not hold together then you lack integrity."

This is tough.

Ann Landers said somewhere, "Put a log chain on your tongue and if you say you will do something be absolutely sure you do it." She was speaking to this matter of integrity.

I closed last week with suggesting we engage with the Living God in this matter, based on a passing reference in Psalm 41: "You [God] uphold me in my integrity." (v.12) At base this seems to mean we are not alone in our integrity: we need others, most fundamentally, we need God. Is our role prior? That is, do we make earnest to "say as we do and do as we say" and then God will be there with us? Or is God prior?

Again, seems to me, "Yes."

But I'll not be coy if I can help it, striving in this very thing to have integrity, to speak that which is consistent with what I believe and say. I think the verse hints at the idea we can never be wholly whole without God, and He is the one who makes it possible.

Please bear a quick explanation before time is out. Integrity means integrated, which means it all holds together. It is more than being sure the jots and tittles align with the jots and tittles. It is the being of a person resigned to God, at peace with the Truth whatever it is.

The person of integrity relies on God to make him whole and rests in the Living God as the only one who can re-constitute him as such. This is the restoring of the image, without which our integrity is wholly up to us. And that is a losing proposition on all fronts.

Memory and Monday and Rest

Memory is a funny thing. "Who can know it?"

Just this morning I could not recall a very meaningful event from two days ago. Then as I thought about writing for today a memory from over 40 years ago came to mind.

“Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.” Yes, today is Monday, so there’s that for jogging the memory. But I’m not down. I do remember the Carpenters. What a story.

Did you know Karen was highly regarded for her skills on the drums? Drums! I’m sure she was good, but sure doesn’t fit the stereotype. Her voice was flowing gold, that’s for sure. A gifted person, gone too soon.

I’ve tried to learn about music. I read of so many musicians who are obvious artists, ordinary people in most respects but gifted in music in ways with which most of us find it hard to connect. One of those types helped correct me recently on a major conceptual error. In brief I had applied a dictum of Plato in a way, he explained, simply does not apply. Alas I can never retrieve all the mistaken pontifications, but I can go forward more humbly and that is a good thing.

As to rainy days and Mondays and the Carpenters, well, music is a serious thing, one of the most valuable realities of life. And today with taxes and all the other things, including rest, I remember the golden joy of hearing a choral performance yesterday of Mendelssohn’s “He, Watching Over Israel.” Salve for the soul.

And then last evening the late Dallas Willard spoke by the magic of recording into this very day as he reflected on that very text: “God does not doze off,” he said. And then, “We are always in His care, so it is safe to go to sleep.”

Rainy days, Mondays, music, joy exceeding wonder. God is in control and I am resting in Him.

Corners

deadlines are dread lines

stillborn hope elicit

“do it now” say counsel

time the exacting fraud

pressure makes things happen

examples abound

the soul seeks freedom

learning its secret unawares

or never as the case may be

for friends come in disguise

and grace abounds

in corners unknown

OJ, Tevye, and Dropping Stones

I remember where I was. No, I'm not old enough to remember the assassination of JFK, but I do have thin remembrance of a moon landing, and of listening to the results of the 1976 election on a little transistor radio well past bedtime. I remember when Hinkley shot Reagan and I watched my sister cry. And when I remember the Challenger I always feel the pain of being close enough to see the smoke trail in the distant blue sky.

But this day I remember found me in a farm store in Salem, Illinois, somewhere in the mid-90's, and I heard on the radio that OJ Simpson had been acquitted.

I'm not sure all it means that I remember such a thing. I was about 30, politically interested, serious enough I suppose but average-American in most respects. There was the celebrity of course. I enjoyed football a great deal and though I had never watched OJ play, I was taken with his obvious skill and charm.

As I read the news of OJ's death all of that came back in force. The trial gripped the nation. OJ's ex-wife and her friend had been stabbed to death on an LA street. Everyone wondered if the former football star might be guilty, but due process is a blessed right and in due time the jury found him innocent of the crime. I think the nation was divided on the question though, not unlike the larger Hiss-Chambers trial of a previous generation, I came to believe most felt at least a sense of un-settledness.

The news of Simpson's death brought many things to mind, some not to be spoken. We live in a world fractured in ways both deceptive and bold, and if we imagine we are immune we will suffer the effects all the more. The truth is captured in a well-known gospel story about throwing stones. There was a crime,with witnesses no less, and ample accusers ready to serve as judge, jury and executioner.

The story is worth re-telling. Jesus drew near the accused in her moment of doom and stopped the uproar with a word: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” As the story has it, the accusers dropped their stones and wandered away. There was the admonition to avoid sin going forward, and the accused went home alive and free.

But this isn't the last word. All relational affronts must be dealt with, and murder most of all. Justice has to be served in some human way and all systems find themselves somewhere on the continuum from vigilante wild West to heaven. Except heaven is no option here below so we settle for the best we can get.

On this question I often remember a line in the extraordinary film and musical, “Fiddler on the Roof.” The men of the village are discussing some public matter of justice. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth!” shouts the town newsman. Tevye replies, “Very good. That way the whole world will be blind and toothless.”

As much as I love Fiddler, I think Tevye got it wrong. “Eye for an eye” leaves everyone blind ONLY IF there is no system of justice to step in and stop the cycle. If I wrong you, the authorities must hold me to account so you or your relatives do not have to. It's the idea of blind-folded lady justice, someone outside of us within a system we dare to trust. And the collective polity says we agree to live with the results, agree or not.

The courts acquitted OJ and the murderer was never found. The murder victims and their families have no justice and we are all worse off for that. Many still think OJ was guilty, but we will never know for certain. The court seldom gets everything right, but it is the best we have in this fallen world.

In the mean-time I grieve: for the loss of innocence, for the loss of a broken man, for a justice system vulnerable and imperfect. And feel the weight of the stones I have been all to ready to take up. OJ's death helps me remember again that an earthly judge dealt with him, his Maker will do all things right, and I am neither of them.

So I feel the pain, drop the stone, and walk away to live and love and learn how to live justly in this wonderful, but broken, world.

Imagine there's no...

You've heard the song. Beautiful. Wildly famous musicians made it world-famous and its magic lingers on.

Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try,
No hell below us, Above us only sky;
Imagine all the people living for today...
Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too,
Imagine all the people living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will live as one.
Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us, And the world will live as one.

Those who know me may brace and cringe for the diatribe, the disgusted dismissal of the drivel. (Come to think of it, that sounded about right!)

But no, a song that has such appeal deserves thoughtful attention. A few bullets and I'm done:

• The music is beautiful and enchanting.
• The words are too, combining for magical aesthetic harmony and otherworldly power.
• The meaning expresses grand longings of the human spirit, coupled with impossibly obtuse philosophical awareness.
• The meaning mocks the reality we live with.
• While we dare not mock the desire for peace, the means by which such peace will be gained is cruelly naive.
• Peace will never happen this way, because people are fallen. Every. One. Of. Us.
• Christ brings the now and not yet. Real peace from the inside out now. That reality giving tangible hope for the 'yet-to-come' -- the new heavens and earth where the curse of sin is no more and peace rules.
• Proof? The mystery and glory of the cross.

So I find, in the end, the lyrics damnable and damning, as is anything that fundamentally denies reality. I understand the truly figurative meaning of the various words. By "religion" for example he can only mean organized religion as such; for to disallow the concept of religion would negate the song's message. He is doing nothing if not proposing a new religion of peace.

But in a world wildly afflicted with something badly wrong; and with a purview that disallows both sin and possible real personal savior, the song fails. Deeply sad, because so beautiful. And that makes it all the worse.

Talking or Being? [100WW]

Talking or being: which matters most? Talking is form, being is substance. Without substance, there is nothing. So being is prior to talking, like being is prior to doing. How does talk help our being? It helps us know what is within, for “out of the heart the mouth speaks.” Talking can help us figure out what is going on within. And it helps us engage with others so they see our heart expressed and hopefully will commend the good and condemn the not so much. So talk matters, but only insofar as it is servant and not pretend master.

Ten Minutes on Integrity [10'TU]

Psalm 46:12 And as for me, you uphold me in mine integrity, and set me before thy face for ever.

Years ago it fell my lot to oversee a significant decision in a college student life setting. There was the right and reasonable decision that everyone knew was all but "forgone." And there was the idea we should vote and stick with the vote. As the titular leader I said we would go with the results of the vote, even though nearly everyone knew the decision could only go one way.

For normal reasons the vote went against the forgone decision and I was stuck. I had read that morning about integrity -- a verse like this, if not this very one. I even quoted it aloud as I tried to pick up the pieces among my peers. I don't remember who or how, but in the end the vote was set aside and we did what was surely the right thing even though I had to break my word. Mercifully, it is likely I was over-ruled by someone higher up, meaning they were breaking it for me. It was a painful lesson.

As I read about integrity this morning it seemed one of those brilliant expressions in Scripture where two difficulties conjoin as only God can do it. Is our integrity up to us, or is it up to God? The answer is, "Yes."

Ten minute Tuesday is over. Back to this next week. We'll see if I can keep my word! :)

On Media, Home, and What Matters

Media is the in-between, like medium or median: that which comes between two things. Media is thus the means by which reality (thing ONE) is conveyed to distant persons who, ostensibly, need-to-know (thing TWO). 

Newspapers, talking heads, journalists -- these are the in-between ones that connect the rest of us with the reality they perceive, the reality they perceive to be important, the reality as they believe it to be true. Or too easily, the reality as they see it serves whatever greater purpose at hand.

An ancient dictum rings in the air: “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” This is the challenge for all, not just institutional forms of media. Each of us must face down the temptation to construe reality as we wish it were, to give it a meaning it may not evince, to witness something and tell it in a way that serves we ourselves rather than Truth.

If there is an argument to view news with great care, if not avoid it altogether, this is one. There is no way to avoid that which is between most reality and that which we read or hear. And that which is between will necessarily bear false – or incomplete -- witness. Not with malice, we hope, nor on purpose: but unavoidably. This happens most fundamentally in the choice of what to report and what to leave un-reported. And so we trust the media to give us what is worth knowing and leave off what is not.

This problem is as large as the whole, but it is often forgotten. When one realizes there is a world of knowledge unseen and that which is seen is selected by others, one may decide to avoid it altogether. For why should our understanding be shaped with such a filter, especially when the reality fed into the filter is, for the most part, absolutely beyond our reach and control?

I am asking (in an online newspaper, no less) if it really matters what we read of international affairs, for example. At the end of the day we will think and act with our primary principles in mind, and those are virtually impossible to change. If, as seems the case, news loses credibility in direct proposition to its breadth of proliferation, we cannot act or vote or think with a true understanding of the facts on the ground. It comes down to the extent to which news comports with reality as you believe it to be, said reality shaped by that very news. And so you are back to your own premises and the news you trust, faulty as that may be.

I cannot square this circle except with the most basic advice of my beloved Grandma: “tend to your own front porch.” This feels like alien language in a world saturated with information that calls to all things beyond, most of which we can do nothing about. Does it help to know about such things? Perhaps. How exactly? Certainly there are times action is prudent and we would never do the reasonable thing without information to justify it.

But tending to our own front porch is still primary, giving our heart to the things that make life worth living. We can see the importance of this in the most painful example of agitating for peace of countries when we can't manage peace in our own homes. 

Wisdom may reply we can have both. I suggest it is more simple yet. The only reason we can rightly fight for peace of nations is when we insist on it in our homes. Otherwise we walk with a broken foot, succumbing to the perennial temptation of imagining we will fix other's problems while ignoring our own. None of us live near as well as we know we should – what makes us think we will fix someone else?

I think my Grandma echoed the Pauline epistle with her comment. Paul says we should learn to live quiet lives, and work with our hands so we can help others.

I don't have the wisdom for all of this, but I believe Paul's instruction is the starting point, and maybe the end. Home is what matters, not information as such, and certainly not knowledge of things we can do nothing about. In a fundamental sense, home is what makes everything else worth it. If we neglect it, what exactly are we fighting for after all?

I started to write while knowing I myself was attempting to be a medium for truth, and this is always the case. We do not see clearly, we are muddled, and the desire to serve our selfish ways is ever at the door. Yet I dare to believe we can know what is right, what is bigger than us, and which we ignore to our peril. This is my best attempt to say so, and to pray for grace to live accordingly.

A Softy Watches Sport: How could a game bring tears?

I cry and wonder why, which is ok I guess. I often weep while watching stories, sometimes for reasons hard to explain. The right orchestral score can move a person when added to pictures, or something like that.

Today as I re-watched the ending of the Iowa vs. U-Conn game I wept. I felt for the skill of the players – so amazing. I saw how they yearned for mastery and winning, how they gave to one another with utmost interest to make the team all it could possibly be. I wept for youth – that sweet way only they can feel and know and be: they are unaware, I think, the life-gift that breathes through them.

I saw the stars, too, or rather the star, the Miss Clark from Iowa who bedazzles with long shots, poise, and competitive zeal. Seems a remarkable person. We too easily discount all that goes into these athletic endeavors. Yes, the best among us would remind us not to over-value such things. But the treasure in the human spirit comes forth in the best of sport, and this game displays it.

I think I felt most for the scene with 3.9 left when U-Conn could likely win with a 2 point basket but was called for an offensive foul instead. In this case one of U-Conn's “bigs” – Edwards – slid into a screen which small Iowa shooting guard – Marshall – tried to scramble around. The ref called it immediately as Marshall's being repelled by the mild shoulder lunge — or heavy lean — was convincing enough.

The ref's call was gutsy and when I watch in slow motion I think the call was deserved. Just hard with 3 seconds to go and the game on the line. It brought the tears for all involved: the ref, the whole U-Conn team, the jubilant Iowa team given a miraculous break. A simple layup would have likely won it for U-Conn. They came up short.

As the beloved ABC Wide World of Sports had it when I was a boy: “The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.”

Tears? The human spirit with all its wins and losses, surpassing joy and unspeakable sadness, evokes them. Sport supersedes life and tells us there's a secret in play that matters as much as other endeavors, maybe more.

Or so hint my tears.

Nothing Else

Each day brings wonder, options, finality.
Time offers finality, one moment gone for the next,
and forever so.

What does the day bring? Everything I will receive 

with gladness and unknowing.
I do many things and miss many others.
“Sufficient unto the day” said the wisest and best,
meaning, I think, to live with what you have.
For indeed that very moment is all we ever have.

I wish I had something meaningful to say but if I try
I am left saying simply, “Be grateful for the gift of life
and pray for grace to do what should be done.”

I do not have that wisdom, but I have now
and I will enjoy that, content.

“Our reach exceeds our grasp” and so we kneel and worship. What else?

There is nothing else.

Of Learning and Lasting and Living

He who notices the falling sparrow, also notices me, and makes meaning of naught.

You can only do well what you spend time with, and then only if it connects with spirit, calling, native instinct, talent. Try to do everything that strikes your fancy and life becomes like the frayed end of a rope: too many pieces, all short, none much use. Frustrating, not satisfying.

I rather dislike this summation. Like all generalities it bears exception, though it seems true on the whole. But I thought of it as I read Mark Spragg's account of the ranch farrier shoeing a horse. What I know of horseshoes is not worth telling, and I quite literally don't know the first thing about putting one on a horse's foot. I could stubbornly learn, sure enough, but without coaching it would be a long ordeal.

Shot through all of this is the longing to do what matters, and will matter. And in this the mystery of time bears in. There is never time to see for yourself the outcome, good or ill, of all the seeds planted in your life. And the fruit we do see we either hopefully construe as good, perhaps more than justified; or we cast it as regrettable and worse, also no doubt more-so than common mercy would allow. And of course there is the endless terrain of what can seem meaningless, of no account either way.

And then we talk about it, as I do now, and very few, ever, anywhere, will read it. Or if they do, imagining it had interest to a distant relative who read for sheer affection or duty to heritage, it would be years or lifetimes after the writer is seen only on a tombstone, if at all.

This is not somber or morbid. It is plain life. Youth cannot handle it: nothing terrified me more as a young man than the possibility of my own death. Old age, on the other hand, had better handle it for it is the reality. And if there is nothing beyond, well, nothing can be done about it.

Yet, I believe, and I hope in Christ who said.... Well, you know. He dared to believe His Father, our Heavenly Father, was redeeming the world and would make all things new. And so He did, and is doing. And with joy I hope for that endless day, ever learning, slow upon slowness, the daily tasks of life: healing of the heart, renewed day by day, knowing the One who holds my life will see to it that “all the ways of goodness are not stopped.”

So I live another day, a gift from God, with this reminder: "I never know how thought or word: action, random though it seems, within God's vast compendium has weight and import." He who notices the falling sparrow, also notices me, and makes meaning of naught. This is Alleluia.

- - - - - - -

A Sketch on the Hope of Marriage

“Marriage is not something you do. Marriage is something you enter in to.”

I wonder at the hope of marriage. It is large as the world. Villages the world over, cities, town, and hovel bear witness. There are, of course, marriages barely worthy of the name: hope a joke, intention wrong, a scary sight if all were laid bare. And there is naivete' enough for all mankind, shocking dimness of wit while longing for the promise that is life. Yet we follow the primal call that would lead us upward. Marriage is this, and more.

I remember the first wedding I attended, somewhere in Western Kansas. The wind was blowing, as always, and there were peanuts and those pastel-colored sweets, a treat for my five-year old palate. I think of it now for the feigned sanctity. Or was it real? I did not know, being such a young boy. But now I know all such occasions participate in a mystery beyond us, though few have the wisdom to know the true goodness that beckons.

Marriage touches all the world, earthy and divine at once. It calls forth everything – everything. No wonder the ancient vow includes, “with my body I thee worship.” It is sensual to be sure, and not wrong for that. But it is more. It requires a man to declare the ultimate earthly value of his life, dare to receive her into his care, and begin to learn that they are, together, the greatest possible clue to something beyond.

Marriage proclaims there is something real in the world, something worth all the dance and food and reveling. It makes possible and sensible the jubilant toast to life, and echoes a parable claimed of secondary things: “Every time someone gets married we know God wants the world to go on.” Or better, “Getting married declares life is worth living, and we are going to make it so.”

Sadly the marriage I witnessed on the Kansas prairie did not last. Who knows why. They found reason to leave, to break the vow, the trust, the hope. Every time that happens we all die in part, for a declared union of supreme value falls away and we became lesser than we know we can be. And we may even toy with the devilish idea that says marriage is bad.

Nay. Marriage is an eternal good. Full stop.

Someone said it this way: “Marriage is not something you do. Marriage is something you enter in to.” Marriage is bigger than you. It is the making of you, the making of a home, of a life: a jubilant hope declaring, “Life is worth living and we will prove it!” 

That's the hope marriage makes possible in this wonderful life, and it will save us if we let it.

 

But if we continue to disparage it, we will be undone.

Time Piece [100wordwednesday]

Clocks construe time. Metered arms intersect numbers. Who knew 60 this and 60 that by strange alchemy can become one of something else? This layering is a process with obscure nomenclature I'm sure. Name or no, it gives order to time. Who said each turn of earth equals 24 of something, each of the somethings is equal to 60 of something else, and so on? The school men could tell me. But there is still why, or to what effect. Could we be better if our being were not so defined, atomized, truncated by turning hands, pretending to be life?

The Axe at the Root of the Tree of False Pursuit

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in a man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words, by God himself.

"God alone is man's true good.”

Pascal puts the axe at the root. Fell, great Woodsman!

Happy Birthday to my brother Ron

Somewhere along the way I learned life gifts are lavish. The small farm, a creek winding near my boyhood home, raking leaves for a neighbor, coming home to Mom, loving my big, strong Dad. One could write for days of remembering and reveling, the silent joyful sighs constant in the heart. Comes to mind the basketball games too late, supper in haste before homework, passing beloved siblings on basement stairs, mowing the yard and washing the car on otherwise lazy Saturdays. There is no end to the lavish, and it includes an unfinished treehouse in the old Cottonwood, helping Dad paint the barn, hunting quail and rabbits and squirrels, visiting Grandma in Manhattan.

In the midst of this endless list are my brothers, a tome of their own overwhelmed with love and gladness. And today I remember one of the three who has a birthday. Not just any birthday, mind you, but one that comes on the 40th April after that happy day in Kansas. I was 18 and away in Florida for another lavish gift, Bible College. And Dad called -- or Mom, I don't recall -- with the news our baby brother was here. They came to visit that May and what joy it was, a life memory and treasure.

I'll not go long, or at least don't mean to. I wrote another time of this one-of-three brother, all of whom are life-gifts to me. But on Ron's birthday, this special one, I want to say how very much I have loved him across the years, and more now in the great grace of life God gives. I am often overwhelmed at the goodness we can know in family love, and Ron has been that for all of us.

I will remember a bit, briefly. There was the walk/run 5K last year in Fairbanks, the road trip to Valdez and the unplanned hike on same trip; the countless discussions of great variety; KU graduation and tech questions answered without effort; exquisite humor shared without words; coffee and projects and talking and games. Most of all, perhaps, the simple joy of being-with, when it can be.

The gift of together is lavish, and when we have it we know. "We pick up where we left off" except there's no picking up -- we just talk again, and feel the pain of distance eclipsed by the joy of together. And if this seems "too much" it is because I can't say it well enough. There really is a joy beyond knowing in brotherly love, and I know nothing else but to give God thanks for it. Only he could make possible something so good.

So I finish by saying again how much I love my brother, Ron; how glad I am our folks were gifted with him and in turn gifted the rest of us. I could brag on him for awhile, for there is plenty of 'material' there! But I will just say again how much I love him and miss him and look forward to being together once again when life allows.