Just wondering. . .

(Another old post from the Multiply days, but the initial question is one I still ponder from time to time.  Now, though, I realize that a big part of the problem is interpretation and authority.  We need the Church to guide us in that reading of scripture and living out its precepts.)

 

 What if all follower's of Christ read the Bible and sincerely tried to live out its precepts?  

I read 1 Peter on the bus today and different verses just really stood out like: "[Have] your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation."  Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between some labeled Christians and labeled others in ordinary conversation. In simpler terms, I am sometimes a bit shocked by the amount of profanity and vulgarity of some who profess to be Christians. 
"Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king."  What if we did make a regular practice of honoring everyone else?  Showing God's love? Loving our fellow Christians? wow, that would be amazing.  Gossip wouldn't go far. What about giving God the proper reverence and honour? I think that would create in me a greater love for the rest of humanity, also.  I wouldn't think so much about little personal sacrifices as I would His glory.
What if we gave authorities the respect due to them? "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward."  You people, respectfully obey your authorities even if you think they are unnecessarily mean and harsh.  That would be pretty amazing.
Look at our example, Jesus Christ, himself: "Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously:"
We are to bless, not to return evil for evil "but overcome evil with good"
So if we suffer, Christ suffered before us. We have no cause to be ashamed when we suffer though not guilty.
Part of all this is humility. I could use some more of that. 
"the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.  To Him be glory and dominion forever. Amen."

catchy tune, but what does it say?

    (Originally posted on Multiply.  This is from a long time ago, back when I was at Lindenwood University.  The lesson was memorable and definitely influenced the way I listen to music to this day.)

       

     I had previously pretty much gave a brief on the LCF lesson by the same title (but it was stolen by evil computer gnomes) but now instead I will tell about it with only a few particulars and –well, you will see.

            The discussion was about the messages that songs tell.  We listened to a variety of music, “secular” and “Christian” and discussed what the song said and what the Bible had to say concerning what it said. 

            It was interesting to note that even in secular music there can be found “echoes of the truth” (the world’s in trouble, something wrong with our eyes, we cannot save ourselves) while there are some “Christian” songs with a less than scriptural message (Everything is fine because God believes in you, everything matters if anything matters because you). 

    Point: consider the messages that you allow to be in your head.  What are you listening to?  What are they saying?  On the note of what are they saying–The two songs that were hardest to understand were perhaps the most strikingly dissimilar in word.  The first was bitter and vengeful (not a Christian song even in pretense) the last told how nothing mattered compared to knowing God, and asked Him to purify and renew the heart.  

            So I wonder, what am I listening to?  I can’t control what they play in the office, but what do I listen to on my computer or when I turn on a(n internet) radio?  Most of it actually lacks words, but not all the time.  What am I putting into my head?

 

(Right now, “Who I am Hates Who I’ve Been”   I’m sorry for who I was, I’m ready to change,)

Is it akin to Nostalgia?

What is it, when you find yourself in a place unfamiliar yet it feels like home? It is as though one was to go to the other side of the world and discover a path that feels oddly familiar, like you had been there before somehow, perhaps in a dream. It is like hearing a song of which you know the tune before you ever heard it.

The first time I remember this sort of experience was when I attended mass for the first time. From the first moment of walking in I noticed an utter difference to what was familiar in “going to church”. It was quiet. There was an awe-inspiring austerity and beauty. 

Instead of painted walls and industrial lights in a building that used to be a wellness center there were cinder-block walls, stained glass windows, and great wooden beams to a pointed wooden ceiling for a building built for the worship of God. Instead of a band around a stage with the drums center back was a place for the altar and a crucifix in the center back. Where the drums had been flanked by guitarists and bassist and fiddle off to the left, the crucifix was flanked by statues of the Virgin Mary and Joseph the Carpenter. Off to the left was a tall, small wooden table on which was a round metal case with a cross up top; the cross being the only visible part usually, as it was covered with a cloth. Instead of a long time of singing, a little scripture, and a long sermon, that might also be a long prayer service with lots of singing, was a structured service of prayer and scripture with a short sermon and the focal point obviously being Holy Communion.

Almost none of the songs were familiar, and yet, when the psalm was being chanted (as it was that first mass), it just fit. That first time, I don’t know that there was any choir or organ, but when I did become aware of it, I noticed that the choir loft was out of sight up and behind the congregation. This instantly made sense to me, to have the choir out of sight. The notes of the organ hovered above us inviting us to join in the song, but the eyes were left free to contemplate our crucified Lord.

I mentioned the quiet. People would talk about church being a house of prayer, I remember being prayed over to receive the Holy Spirit in a prayer meeting. The person praying was obviously trying to effect something, but it felt hollow. A friend of mine spoke in tongues at one such event. It was a common occurrence to hear the babble of tongues whether during “praise & worship” or during a prayer event. In contrast, when I walked into St. Catherine’s for the first time and it was quiet, it was obviously an actual house of prayer.

There was also this sense of questions being answered without words. The praise team up front had been a familiar feature of churches that I attended while growing up, but when I was asked at the previous place about playing my instrument with them, it suddenly seemed very questionable. Why were they up front? Why did they often seem to overshadow the preacher in a way? They might leave when he was preaching, but the instruments would remain in place; the drum kit in the center particularly stood out. The comparison between a concert and “Sunday morning worship” was too apt. So, when we went to St. Catherine’s and the organist and choir were all hidden away, it just seemed so obviously right. Here, the choir was serving as an aid to something higher and more important than themselves. Whether the individuals were personally modest or not is irrelevant, the placement of the choir was modest.

One would have to verbally ask and get a response to know what was the focus of the congregation in the former wellness center. As soon as I walked into St. Catherine’s, the crucifix proclaimed this central mystery of the gospel in one striking image—the incarnation and suffering of God. I would learn the messages of the windows later.

Going to mass was like nothing I had ever experienced, and yet I knew that it was good to be here, that it, in a manner of speaking, felt like home.

I am more accustomed to feeling like a “stranger in a strange land” wherever I am. Even so, when I go to mass, now more than ever, I know that in point of fact I am home; I am am where heaven and earth meet in the sacrifice of Christ. I am in the midst of the communion of saints adoring our Eucharistic Lord.

Pollyanna Grows Up: a very American tale

I listened to the conclusion of Pollyanna Grows Up. It is very much of its era, not entirely in a bad way. It is also understandably an American classic. I do want to go back and reread or listen to Pollyanna. I say it is “of its era” because it betrays the worries of that time, the beginning of the twentieth century, of blood, genetics, and poverty. It does so in the most natural sort of way—attitudes and conversations rather than narration of the concerns. For example, in Ivanhoe, the author observes things in the “in those days people thought this or that” sort of mode.  That is not the case here.

In Pollyanna Grows Up, it is simply noted that surely that person has good blood. It is also an objection to getting married that nothing is known of the family, they could be anyone and what of hereditary disease or such? Pollyanna herself as a girl of twelve first encountering poverty in the city, wonders how some can be so rich while others are so poor? She is jokingly called a little socialist by an adult. The way the conversation goes kind of makes me wonder if the author had socialist sympathies?

Early on and throughout is expressed the opinion of many that “you could not understand, because you never experienced it” or the corollary, “she understands, because she has experienced”. The assumption is a little belied by one of the proponents of the belief in that he knows the stories of Arthur’s Knights and feels the need for heroic deeds and glory, though they seem unobtainable in his current circumstances and he is able to relate the stories and some of his own with such vividness and detail that it is described in at least one point like weaving a spell on his listeners. Nevertheless, the assumption is made throughout—if you have not experienced it, you cannot understand it. I have heard this assumption expressed throughout my life. I disagree. Much can be learned through reading and observation and imagination. I grant that observation is not identical to experience, but I also observe that experience can blind a person to the fullness of what a thing is. For example, a man and a woman may be very much enamored of each other and inclined to act upon their passions. An observer might sympathize with the feeling, but nonetheless be able to see that in no wise should they act upon their passions because one of them is married, so no matter how they feel, that would simply be adultery and betrayal, which they have already begun to enter into by letting their passions—lust—go so far. Someone else who has experienced adultery by participation may have a harder time seeing the error, unless he had already repented and worked towards reconciliation if possible. Of course, now our whole moral landscape is so corrupted that no one seems to accurately the gravity of most any sin. I guess they had to experience them for themselves in order to understand? Just had to take a bite of the fruit...Anyway.

Going to Church is treated as customary, but for most of the story you would have no idea that these people believe in God or an after-life. They are all oriented to earthly, material happiness. This is especially evident in the attitudes towards poverty and death.  As for poverty, Pollyanna cannot figure out anything to be glad about it other than, she doesn’t have that poverty, which makes her sorry for those who do, or she could be glad to help them materially, except that at first she can’t. Aunt Polly is a striking exemplar of their reactions towards death. It is all grief, pride, bitterness, and anger. No one speaks of heaven. No one speaks of God connected to this loss. It is just-he died. Now, how are we going to pay for this and that? How are we to live?  It does not seem that any know how to deal well with the pain of loss.

There is a focus on being happy, but the happiness is material. This leads to a moral dilemma which should not have been a dilemma in the way that it was. Some of the story focuses on the question of a missing boy Jamie Kent. His father was not approved of by the mother’s family, and when she died, father and son had disappeared. There is a Jamie and a Jimmy who are about the right age, one of them adopted by the aunt of the lost boy. He believes he is Jamie, or at least desires to be him in point of fact. When conclusive proof of who Jamie Kent is surfaces, it is decided not to tell Jamie, others may know, but not Jamie, because that would kill him, or something. His emotional belief or desire is more important than the truth. They would rather lie to him and let him believe a lie, but so would he. This is vicious. I cannot approve of such a moral. It darkened the end of the book for me.

All of these attitudes have only metastasized in American culture. We are obsessed with indicators of worldly success and comfort. We push away thoughts of death except to give respect to those who take death into their own hands or deal out death for their own perceived good.  We value lived experience more than truth.

I say “we” but it is a culture that has never felt like home to me. Is it that I loved hearing and reading Aesop, Grimm, & Anderson? Is it that we read the Bible regularly at home and I read it personally before I could understand much beyond the broadest strokes? Is it that I read more British literature than American? Is it that my melancholy disposition inclined me to relate more to Jeremiah and love books like Ecclesiastes? Is it that in traveling across the country to a place I knew not before I was ten prompted me to look more earnestly at Abram’s wanderings and apply that to the Christian life? Who knows. But at least since we traveled across the states when I was a child, I have had the sense of being a stranger in a strange land.

It still takes me by surprise when I hear the same tones of disdain towards religion in newspapers from a century ago that can be heard even today. It still catches me a bit off guard when I hear of people worried about bloodlines today as they did at the heights of the eugenics movement. It shouldn’t; I know well enough that there is nothing new under the sun, what has been will be and every new thing has already happened, still, I would have thought we could have learned from our past.