Out Walking

What People Said

Hey, how was your vacation?

Incredible. Difficult.

What’d you do?

We went to Uganda on a missions trip.

That’s nice.

That word “nice,” the epitome of innocuousity (I know, that’s probably not a word, but you know what I mean), should be excised from the English language. Here it likely means “that sounds awful,” or “I’m not interested in hearing about it,” or even “end of conversation because I don’t want you telling me that I should go.” I want to say our trip to Uganda was a lot of things but it wasn’t just nice, but that wouldn’t have been. . . well. . . nice.

How was your trip to Uganda?

Great.

What did you do?

Srape, paint, put in a library, feed 800 people, and play with kids. Lots of kids. We’re hoping we can start an agricultural co-op or something so that they can become more self-sufficient.

They’ll just end up taking each other’s stuff.

No, these people work really hard and really seem honest.

I’m sure they do, but if one gets ahead, that’ll change. They’re always fighting over there.

I was prepared for that kind of conversation. Paige said she was angry for three months after she first came back. And yet it’s still frustrating. I’m well aware that our Ugandan friends are sinners just like us, but I reject the hopeless kind of thinking this person exemplifies, the sense that there’s really no sense helping these people because nothing will change.

Whenever I leave for some significant period of time, and particularly when I come back from often life-changing experiences like our trip to Uganda (I’ve had two or three), I’m reminded again of several things: some people don’t know I ever left, I am not indispensable (that is, nothing fell apart while I was gone), and many people, while polite, are not really interested in hearing about your life-changing experience. Besides, Africa is far, far away and the intense feelings you have cannot easily be communicated. Actually, you may sound a little nutty. I know, because I’ve heard people like me before.

And yet others do care. In my place of work, many of my co-workers read everything on the blog and want me to show pictures and talk about my experience at lunch one day. They may even make Kaihura, Uganda a Christmas project. Then there is the African-American woman who I talked with who, only a minute into the conversation, had tears in her eyes and told me she had always wanted to go to Africa. We can only testify and tell our stories and let God do the rest. He has to open hearts.

The most surprising reaction? That’s easy. Wednesday I’m negotiating a settlement with an attorney, normally a give-and-take process, and surprisingly he accepts my price right away, saying “I’m not going to argue with anyone who’s been in Uganda for two weeks doing what you did.” Now that’s miraculous and undeserved. (And right then I knew I should have started with a higher price!)

I don’t have to convince anyone. I don’t need to change the world. We’re all of us storytellers, that’s all, and we can’t help ourselves. It doesn’t matter so much what they said. It matters what we say. Just tell the truth and someone might just surprise you.

Steve West

Coming Home to Joy (Notes from Kaihura)

[I wrote these recollections of our recent mission trip to Uganda while on the long plane trip coming home. They are by no means all I have to say about the wonderful people of Kaihura, but they begin to tell about what it is like there, and what it is like to leave. Please continue to read the Embrace Uganda blog to hear more.]

When I walked down the loading bridge to the plane in Entebbe, a blast of cold air hit me. Air conditioning. Settling into my seat, I realized that I had suddenly crossed over, from a mostly pre-modern world to a very modern world. It made me sad.

I am still trying to hold in my mind specific images of Kaihura, particularly the faces of our friends. Saturday morning they met us at Faith’s home, the orphan children from Home Again and the children from the Dorcas Vocational School, as well as pastors and adults who had welcomed and assisted us, and we walked the quarter mile down dirt roads to the tiny business district of Kaihura, the children insisting on carrying our luggage.

Our bus came. We boarded. As we looked out the window of the bus, our Ugandan friends were weeping. My friend Sam, a gifted 18 year-old young man, was standing in the back, wiping tears from behind his sunglasses. Joanne, with whom I played many games at Home Again, was her usual placid self, but tears were in her eyes. Daniel did not cry but stood right in front looking at me. He wrote me a letter, and drew a picture of flowers for me, but at 15 was too concerned at becoming emotional to deliver it himself. Stephen, who has broken his arm, was looking on. I pointed to each of them and waved, wanting them to know that I was saying good bye to them as individuals, that I would miss them, that there were no little people in Kaihura. When you look out and see 400 kids looking intently at you, it’s sometimes overwhelming to realize that each one is made in God’s image, that each one is a soul in need of redemption, that each one has dreams and troubles of their own.

Behind me I hear the uncharacteristic sobbing of my 13-year old daughter Anna. In front of me, my 16-year old son Stephen was crying. And so was I. Not only because I would miss them but because unlike us they could not leave behind the relentless hardship of life, a life they lived, however, with faith, hope, and love. But then as sad as it was to say goodbye to them, just as sad were those faces of the countless other adults and many children of the community who stood outside their homes and shops and alongside dirt streets and the main road and sadly watched us leave, most of whom I had not been able to get to know, leaving them to substandard, often unaffordable health care, poor education (despite the dedication of some teachers), and with neither running water nor electricity. We were leaving.

During the course of the two weeks, Stephen and I interviewed all 25 teenagers that went on the trip, in addition to some others. These kids raised their own support and often more in order to come. Some were curious. Some felt called by God. None were prepared for the overwhelming love they experienced and the work God did in them and through them in a relatively short time --- exposing self-centeredness, teaching them how to worship freely, and meeting their need for phileo love, the deep love of authentic friendship that the children and adults here gave to them. They also grew in their love for one another --- helping, loving, and sharing with each other. Practically all of them wanted to stay. Several of them cried at the mention of leaving or when they began to talk of how being there had affected them.

We adults have said many goodbyes. We forget what it is to be a teenager, where goodbyes seem for a time to be the end of life as we know it and we cannot imagine a world without whatever it is we leave behind. We have also had mountaintop experiences only to return to the mundane plain of life. We know that life will go on, that we will return to the familiar patterns of life on the other side. We say we have perspective. And yet we too easily guard our emotions, steeling ourselves against disappointment. Maybe deep down we are tainted by a cultural cynicism. And yet what these young people give us is a sense of the intensity of experience because they are less guarded, more engaged emotionally, and more in touch with the present moment. Can you remember that time in your life? It’s worth trying to remember, worth letting go of talk of perspective and letting the intensity of the moment, whether of sadness or happiness, wash over you. Then you will go on, but you will not be the same.

I don’t want to be the same. Perspective tells me that I live in a different world than my Ugandan friends, and yet my heart tells me we are the same. I find myself already adapting my conversation and attitudes to the world I live in, and yet I feel a bit estranged. I am home, and yet ill at ease, aware that something is amiss. Something is. To use scriptural words, being an “alien and stranger” on the earth takes on new meaning. I’m feeling alienated. It feels strange. And yet it feels better. I have a better sense that this world is not my home, that my citizenship is not here.

I don’t want to be the same. I don’t want to forget. I plan on surrounding myself with pictures of my Ugandan friends, visible reminders of faith, hope, and love, and talking about what I heard, saw, and learned. If I can remember the faces of my friends standing on that roadside in Kaihura, I can change. God can do a work in me too. We may have had tears, but God promises that “those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy,” shall “come home with shouts of joy” (Ps. 126:5-6). I’m not happy about leaving. I’m not completely happy about being home. But there is joy knowing that God is at work in Kaihura. . . and in me.

For Prayer (Embrace Uganda)

Well, we are almost ready to leave, and today my attention turns outward from home to travel.  We're all a bit excited about what is upcoming in our trip to Uganda.  Please continue to check the blog for updates on our team.  But there's another thing you can do as well.  You can pray for us.  Here are some good prayers:

• That will have safe travel.  We go by van to Washington Dulles, and then 7 hours by plane to Amsterdam, and then after a 4-hour layover, another 7 hours to Uganda.  No bed in between!
• That we will all have good health while we are there.  We have all the necessary immunizations, will be on anti-malaria medication, and have the usual over the counter medicines with us, but pray for our health. 
• That we would think not of ourselves and our inconveniences but of those we are there to serve.  Pray we might serve them joyfully.
• That God would change us all while we are there, making us more aware and grateful for his provision for us and more aware of the needs of others.
• That, as we are able, we would have opportunity to share the hope of the Gospel with others.

Today's post on the blog, by Dirk Hamp, is both encouraging and sobering, about the promise and peril in Uganda.  I think some of the folks already there are overcome at times with the needs.  We do what we can, and we rely on God to ultimately carry all of the suffering.

Thank you for your prayers.  Enjoy the blog.  And come back here after June 30th to hear more about my perspective on the trip.

On Leaving (Embrace Uganda)

I am going far away.  On Monday my family and I join 30 other parents, students, and teachers for a two-week mission trip to the village of Kaihura, Uganda.  You can imagine what getting ready for this trip has been like, and what a week of anticipation, packing, and last-minute details this has been.

But mostly, like the eve of every long trip I have ever taken, today has not been about that far away place, largely unknown to me, unexplored, full of uncertainty, but about this place, about home, about the familiar and certain places and sounds that are as second nature to me as breathing.  Today I've been walking through this place and saying goodbye.

I don't think we were meant to be wanderers.  I cannot imagine a person or a people who do not want a home and homeland, who move through life as transients.  We're meant to put down roots, to find our promised land, a place and life that in its best moments anticipates a true Home and Homeland to come.  When I'm leaving, I'm reminded of this.

Today, I said goodbye to the still water of the lake, to the geese with their young, to pine trees and gray squirrels that inhabit my yard.  I said goodbye to the robin, the goldfinch, and the two deer that have been munching grass in the unclaimed woods behind my home.  I leave behind the music of this place, like Claire Holley's "Visit Me," a song that carries the sound of home, with its country sound and pedal steel, just a little wistful, just a little longing.  I will miss every comfortable chair, every quiet corner, every footfall of my children in our home, and the purr from contented cats.  I'm homesick for it all!

You might accuse be of being sentimental, but I don't think of it that way.  I love home.  I think the more I love home the more I know of my eternal Home.  My duty now is to love His world, to love a particular place, a particular home.  And when I go away, far away, it's in part to have my own love for home nurtured.

We're going far away.  We need to go.  We'll make new friends, have our eyes opened, be given new visions.  But I can't wait to come home.

[You can follow our trip on our blog.  Everyone is posting.  You might even see a post from me.]

Hush

When I first discovered Claire Holley in 1999, it was because I was smitten with her then second album, Sanctuary, a tribute to old-time music.  The traditional hymns and other songs, as well as the originals, hearkened back to my life as a child, sitting at the feet of my father and friends on Friday nights, playing just such music until the wee hours of morning enlivened by cup after cup of black coffee.  It conjured up another time, another place, as well it might have for Claire Holley, as she was inspired to do the album by her own father.

Claire's newest recording, Hush, is not like Sanctuary, not filled with hymns or an old-time sound, and yet it still reminds me of those simple, sweet songs and arrangements.  Part of the album has the sound of lullabies, not surprising in that Claire is now a mother.  And yet that's not all of it.  The songs on the record, uniformly well-crafted, are presented in an understated and yet powerful way, testifying not to deep angst or political headlines but to normal, everyday life  ---- missing someone you love ("Visit Me"), leaving someone you love ("Leaving This Town"), a nighttime walk under the moon ("Under the Moon"), a wedding ("Wedding Day"), or the several songs that are no doubt inspired by her child, from shooing away monsters ("Go Away Now") to bath time ("Another Day") to bedtime ("Say Goodnight").  They're not lyrics to knock you over. . . and yet they do, simply by their testimony to the beauty of the ordinary times and events of life.

Musically, the album maintains a low-key acoustic feel, and there is a good variety in tempo, sufficient to keep the record interesting. My favorite tracks are "Visit Me" which, with the pedal steel, gives off a wistful sense of longing, much like Gram Parson's classic "Hickory Wind," and the feel-good vibe of "Leaving This Town."  But really, I like it all.  It may not be Sanctuary, but there's more Claire Holley in Hush, and it's all good.

God's Parallelism

One of the distinctive features of the Hebrew Psalms is a literary device known as parallelism.  While less rich a device in the translated English, it nonetheless remains a feature of most of the Psalms, a curious or perhaps sometimes irritating tendency to always be telling us the same thing twice, as if we didn't get it the first time.  The Psalmist tends to repeat himself, as if we need to hear a second time so we understand.  See what I mean?  It can be irritating to be told the same thing twice.

And yet it's not so in the context of poetry because phrases are not being repeated so much as to teach, to emphasize a point, as they are to produce beauty in their cadence, in their appearance as words on a page, in their sound.  C.S Lewis, in his book Reflections on the Psalms, declined to ascribe the Psalter a purely didactic function, noting that it seemed "appropriate, almost inevitable, that when that great Imagination [Who]. . . had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry.  For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible."

When I hear the parallelism of the Psalms I don't hear the nagging voice of a mother saying "Clean your room.  Clean your room.  Clean your room. . . NOW," each phrasing louder and more emphatic, but I hear the chorus of a great song of which you never tire, like "I've got a ticket to ride.  I said "I've got a ticket to ride."  Better than that, you can ride the roads of your city all day, pound the pavement, scratch away at life from your cubicle, and then look out the window and smile, humming "his love endures forever."  "His love endures forever."  That song never grows old but resonates in the fabric of creation, in the breeze blowing the maple tree outside your open window, in the heat rising from the sidewalks, and in the smile on a cat's face when she greets you at the end of a long day --- that is, that song has parallels in human experience.  When we hear that assuring phrase, we instinctively say "Say it again.  Tell me again."  Just like when we see a great sunset, we still want to see another, and another, and another.  In fact, there is such abundant parallelism in Nature, in human relationships, and in our own day-to-day activities that we can see the poetic nature of life itself --- the repetition of putting children to bed at night, almost but not quite the same way every night, or the regularity of meals, sleep, day and night, and so on, all repetitive and yet each not precisely repeatable.  (I could be accused here of making a lot of nothing, but I don't think anything in life is insignificant.)

I encourage reading the Psalms aloud and appreciating them as poetry, as audible expressions of the sometimes inarticulable longings of the human heart.  The parallelism is there by providential design to heighten the beauty of the form God used to express his truth through very fallible wordsmiths.  It's only a visible expression of a godly parallelism in all of life, the repetition of the good, every day.  There's great assurance in that, a good rhythm of life, so enjoy the parallelisms of life.  Enjoy them.

Now, let me say all that again in a slightly different way. . . .

Very, Very Short Stories: Brian Doyle's "Epiphanies & Elegies"

At the recent Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing, I attended a workshop led by Brian Doyle.  Though the precise topic of the workshop is lost to me now, the experience is not.  Doyle told story after story, became emotional, and in general was one of the most animated of writers I have ever experienced.  So, I was hooked.  I bought his latest book, Epiphanies & Elegies, a collection of, as he says, "very short stories," which, naturally, they are, although they present as free verse poems, most barely taking up a page of the book.  Perhaps they best qualify as "prose-poems," though once you read a few it hardly matters what you call them.

Certainly these are not inaccessible poems or stories.  Like Doyle himself, they are rich in color and emotion, with language easily understandable and descriptions of events to which most can relate.  There are poems about animals and children, war poems, Irish poems (Doyle is of Irish-Catholic background), and prayers.  While he doesn't shrink from darker subjects (try "Death of a Phoebe," where a deceased bird leads him to contemplate his own mortality), his humor is remains intact, with poems like "Instructions for the New Puppy" and "Wiping Paul."  There's soccer games, confession (the Catholic kind), sitting in church, children crawling in bed with parents, and all other kinds of ordinary, everyday life experiences --- all presented honestly, artfully, and with emotion.  Bottom line:  You want Brian Doyle as your friend, as someone to hang out with, or failing that, you want him at your party.  But enough generalizing.  Try a Doyle poem for yourself:

Things I Know About
Children I Don't Know
As Told To Me By My Twin Sons
Sprawled Like Trout In The Bathtub

Randall loves rocks and is a liar.
Jack can blow bubbles with bubble gum
And can make the bubble go in and out
Of his mouth without popping it.
Ian is the fastest runner.
Kate is the best reader in the class.
Laura is the best writer, though.
She can even write in cursive.
Anthony will only play with John.
John steps on people's feet on purpose
And he'll kick you when he's angry.
Joe's brother died last year in his sleep.
Amy's dad died this year. He was a doctor.
Alex wears the same shirt every day.
Zachary is mean to Cole all the time.
Cole is funny but no one plays with him.
Kevin says he smoked a cigarette once
But no one believes him, not even a little bit.
Victoria has really cool sunglasses.
Elizabeth's mom and dad are divorced.
Justin's mom is very fat.
Robert's dad yells at him in front of everybody.
He even yelled at the principal once.
Melissa's sister kisses boys in the sixth grade.
Allison is allowed to walk home alone from school.
Corey says he can do things that he can't,
Like ride a bike and do tricks on a skateboard.
Carl wears glasses and loses his temper.
Ariadne likes to draw rabbits.
We don't know anything about Molly.

Doyle is the Editor of Portland Magazine, author of some seven books, and a contributing essayist and poet to magazines such as Harpers and The Atlantic Monthly (which, alas, is no more.)  But honestly, he's just like us, really.  Sometimes he cries when he reads stories.  Or he yells for joy and laughs out loud.  He has kids that do crazy things.  He worries about things, prays a lot, and loves animals dearly.  He's passionate about life.  And he'd make a good friend. . . in small doses.

Go West, for Grace: A Review of Leif Enger's "So Brave, Young, and Handsome"

Since one of my favorite books of all time is Leif Enger's Peace Like a River, I was eager to read his second and just-published novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome, to see if the story lived up to the that first novel, a New York Times bestseller.  I'm happy to say that it largely succeeds, even though there isn't a character quite as compelling as either of the children in that first novel.  But in a sense, it's unfair to compare.  It is, after all, a different story.

In this novel, Enger tells the story of an aging train robber who, having retired from a life of crime, decides to seek out the forgiveness of a young wife he abandoned many years before.  Writer Monet Becket, who somehow managed to write a successful first novel, is struggling, not able to write a follow-up, with success long behind him.  Monte and his wife and his young son, Redstart (who immediately makes you think of the kids in Peace Like a River), live simply in 1915 Minnesota, where he befriends the aging outlaw, Glendon Hale, and then decides to accompany him on his quest.  Much happens as they seek to escape the ex-Pinkerton, Charles Siringo, a man who is relentless in pursuit even as his own health is failing.  Along the way there are many adventures and just as many characters, none completely bad and none completely good.  In the end, both Monte and Glendon come to terms with life, understanding what they need to do and who they are.  Both encounter grace.

Enger writes prose that is lyrical and yet very accessible.  Characters and scenes are richly drawn, and the story is one I did not want to lay down until the end, even then wondering how their lives continued.  There's a bit of irony here in the writing of the story, with Enger perhaps telling us about himself, about the difficulty of writing a second novel when your first was hailed as a great success.  And yet Enger is not Monte Becket; he does succeed.  The other surprise about the novel: there is no coarse language or sexual situations presented.  They are not missed, of course.  Good novels do not need them, and yet given the prevalence of such writing, it is a welcome surprise.

I recommend So Brave, Young, and Handsome.  Don't compare.  Read it for the story that it is.  Maybe you'll just take your own quest.

Glory (On Reading Psalm 8)

[Pastor Andy is doing a series of sermons this Summer on the various types of psalms.  Today, the sermon was on Psalm 8, a "psalm of creation."  It's a favorite of mine, and hearing it made me remember how several years ago I "re-imagined" (for lack of a better word), several psalms, trying to write highly truthful (but quite errant) "new" psalms that followed the train of thought in the inerrant psalm of scripture.  It's a way of making the truth your own, and this rewriting was, I felt, one of my better attempts.]

Glory
    after reading Psalm 8

Glory, glory, glory.

Rocks sing their mineral hearts
crystallize
magma-tize
buckle & warp & cry a
raucous, rocking praise.

I listen to cicada skies
drink moon-shine
smell silhouetted trees, the
hum of homes so kind,
so kind.

Stooping
I see infinity in the eyes of my
seventeen-something cat (“Someone’s
home,” I tell her with a pat),
feel the feathered nap of night,
the promise-purr of
starry light.

Your work. Great work.
Great play, in just six
somehow days. Even these
pines creak Your praise, making
darkness slide away.

Then me.
Only me.
You care
for
me.

By the nape of my neck, You
stood me up, said
I had a life-lease, a
dignified but qualified
reign and rule. . .

So --- this is
my land
my grass
my trees,
my birds, buildings, bumblebees.

My cactus
corn
cat
ah, my cucumber
     (how I love cucumber.)

My wind, willow, wisp,
moon, music, mist ---
All mine, mine, mine!
All grace to this broken
king of man.

Glory, glory, glory.
To Giver be all glory.

In the Company of Darkness

As strange as it may sound, we can all be thankful that Psalm 88 was included in the Psalter.  This psalm is unbroken distress from beginning to end with nary a word of affirmation of trust or hope in God.  The Psalmist says his "soul is full of troubles," that he is "like the slain that lie in the grave," that God's "wrath lies heavy upon me," and so on and so on, billowing clouds of blackness lingering above his words.  Finally, in the end, he accuses God of having "caused my beloved and my friend to shun me" and says that "darkness has become my only companion."  It is the voice of one who has faced lifelong trouble and suffering, without relief.

Although I cannot stand in the writer's shoes, I can identify with his sense of unrequited loss, as I suspect anyone who has lived a while can.  I was lamenting today the apparent loss of the ability to any longer sleep an unbroken eight hours without awaking, a small loss in the context of the universe of loss.  And yet even small losses are real and lamented at times.  And at times, like the writer of Psalm 88, I am not prepared to immediately make great affirmations of trust in God, of hope that this will change.  There is some wrestling to be done, some being in the moment of loss.  Psalm 88 says that's OK.  That's part of the reason that the psalm is likely there for us.

There is a difference between grief, our human reaction to loss, and self-pity.  True Christian grief says, "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. … Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men" (Lam. 3:19-33).  On the other hand, self pity turns our gaze inward.  It is a morbid self-introspection and, ultimately, if it persists, can turn to bitterness and even unbelief.  It's a "Lord, do you not care. . . ?" (Lk. 10:40) that grows exponentially if it's not nipped in the bud.  But note, though there are no affirmations of hope and trust, the writer of Psalm 88 is engaged in a dialog with God.  He is praying to the One who has answers for his grief.  Maybe he can't make the positive affirmations that other psalms of lament come around to, yet, nevertheless, he's still talking to God.  And that is hopeful.

Let's face it.  Sometimes loss is so acutely felt that you can't say the words you know are true, or hope are true.  You can only cry out to God, argue with God, even accuse God.  That He condescends to allow us that fearsome privilege, that He even gives us this psalm as a pattern for doing just that, only demonstrates how great a condescension He has made for us (Phil. 2:5-8).  Eventually, once we have said our piece and shut up, we'll hear something like "let not your hearts be troubled," "fear not," or "rejoice." And for me, the one who cannot sleep the sleep of a child, there is the promise that He will give me "rest" (Mt. 11:28), if not now, then soon.  Very soon.

Things of the World, Grow Strangely Bright

Whenever I walk in a place, I begin to take dominion over it, to make the place my own.  Habitual paths create a familiarity that is settling.  The maple tree at that bend in the path is the one with the squirrel's nest about 20 feet up, with the bent trunk testifying to some past storm; the boulder, just there, retaining the warmth of the Spring sun even at dusk; that robin could just be the same that walked across my path yesterday, just here; the cooler breeze in this dip in the trail a familiar change, one I've felt before.  You see, I know this path, this lake, these birds, trees and breezes, the rise and fall of topography, the winter sun and summer sun, the cacophonous sound of the geese, just in from other parts, the distant sound of traffic, of the world waking up, the smell of breakfast through an open window, that woman who never looks up as she passes, the gossiping women who can be heard clear across the lake.

In this place, in my neighborhood, I can put names to what I see.  Street names like Godfrey, Gainsbororugh, Winthrop, and Redmond, or family names like Vaughn, Mangum, and Parker, or a love-sloppy dog named Sandy or a matronly cat named Rachel.  Deer crossing the neighbors back yard.  A racoon climbing a pine tree.  A pink ribbon on a mailbox and a just married sign on my neighbors' front door.  The dappled light of early morning sun on my terrace.  A chipmunk hurriedly chewing and storing seeds before diving back into his den under my steps.  A male cardinal slinging birdseed to the dove below the feeder.  A barking dog.  A hoot owl? Green leaves against azure blue sky.  Trucks passing on.  The newspaper waiting on the driveway.   The long sigh of my still sleeping child.  All familiar, all deeply settling.

In Psalm 1 we are told that the blessed life is one "like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season. . . ."  The simile is one of settling in, of being rooted, of drawing sustenance from being in one place, of being in the right place.  The blessed man is described as one who finds "his delight in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."  Reading the Psalms this side of Christ's coming, of God's revelation of Himself in the perfect man, we understand that the psalm commends settling into the full revelation of God, the perfect expression of which is found in Christ.  Matthew Henry says that "[t]o meditate in God's word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, until we are suitably affected with those things and experience the savour and power of them in our hearts."  In other words, we settle into God's revelation.  We roll around in it, if you will. 

Conversely, when the psalm speaks of the wicked, it plainly portrays them us unsettled, unfixed, as "chaff that the wind drives away," lacking roots.  In fact, Henry says that the word wicked "means such as are unsettled, aim at no certain end and walk by no certain rule, but are at the command of every lust and at the beck and call of every temptation."  The wicked, the unblessed, the unsettled and uprooted, pass through life like wind, blown about, never really knowing God nor His world.

If being blessed is being settled in the full revelation of God, then it means first being settled in God's Word, in His special revelation about Himself.  And yet as paramount as knowing God's Word is, there is more to it than this.  Part of God's revelation, part of what I am settling into, is His world.  Psalm 19 aptly links the law of God, his special revelation, with Creation, His general revelation.  The sense you have in reading this psalm is of a person who not only meditated on God's law but on God's world.  This writer can move easily from "[t]he heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. . . ." to "[t]he law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. . . ."  The Psalmist meditates on Word and World.  Love for Word is inseparable from love of World.

What does the psalm say about Creation?  It says "[d]ay to day [it] pours out speech, and night to night [it] reveals knowledge."  If I listen, I can hear two melodies ---- one in a major key that tells me what is right, good, and true; one in a minor key that tells me what is bent, gone wrong, and untrue.  Part of the deep settledness of the Christian life is learning to love the things of the World, to see in their luminous particularity God's revelation of all that is true, good, and beautiful, to see the things of the world (to invert the words of the song) grow strangely bright, as we turn our eyes upon Jesus, as we settle into, sink roots into, the fullness of His revelation to us.

Think about that, next time you're out walking.  Settle in.

Pacific Ocean Blue: Long Lost Gem Uncovered

At long last, Dennis Wilson's long out of print solo recording, Pacific Ocean Blue, will be released by Sony in a two-disc legacy edition on June 17th.  I have long thought Dennis, brother to Beach Boy Brian Wilson, was second only to Brian in talent, and it shows on this disc.  The first disc appears to have four unreleased tracks, and the second a full 17 additional tracks, a treasure trove for collectors.  It appears that these bonus tracks are in part drawn from Dennis's uncompleted and unreleased Bamboo project, some rumored to be collaborations with brother Brian.  Others could be collaborations with his then Fleetwood Mac girlfriend Christine McVie.  Sadly, Bamboo was never completed due to Dennis's many personal problems.  He died in 1983 in a drowning accident and whatever genius he possessed was lost.  You can find all you ever wanted to know about Dennis on Dan Addington's website.  And much, more more on the reissue (along with quotes from the producers, video clips, and reviews (uniformly good) here.

For Rumination

While on occasion I find it helpful when blogs I read cite other blogs, usually I prefer something more substantive from the blogs I read.  But then, on occasion I violate that rule.  I'm doing that now, and yet I hope that it's more than just a collection of cites, as I give it some content.

• In light of my recent trilogy of posts paying tribute to vinyl records (see Vinyl Pleasures Parts 1, 2, and 3), Kristin Chapman cites a recent Pew study that says that 82% of consumers still prefer old-fashioned CDs.  Her own post indicates that she prefers downloading because "it’s fast, easy, and I only have to purchase the songs I like rather than getting stuck with all the songs on a CD."  Just my point!  How do you know what you like unless you listen more deeply and patiently?  Songs in major keys with bright, sunny chorus are ear candy --- they immediately captivate us.  Other songs that are denser, more complex, or in minor keys do not usually have such immediate magnetism and yet may hold greater treasure.  Technology is shaping our listening habits and not for the better.  She's asking for comments, so give her one here.
• In "Creative Collaboration," Jill Carattini gives us a meditation on the communal nature of the creative process, noting that "creativity in all its forms--even in the simplest acts of living and acting--is inherently an interactive process."  She links that observed truth to the doctrine of the trinity, in that the act of creation was, for God, a communal project --- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  For more on this, read Dorothy Sayers' Mind of the Maker, and consider the great songwriting partnerships which have existed, like Rogers and Hammerstein, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Lennon and McCartney, and the Sherman Brothers.  The Sherman Brothers?  Yes.  Two very funny guys who wrote the memorable songs from Mary Poppins and other Disney movies.  A very funny and enlightening insight into their creative process is contained in an interview at the end of the soundtrack for the movie, in its 2004 enhanced, special edition reissue.  Wouldn't you like to know how they came up with "Supercalifragilisticexpealidotious?"  It's like listening to the Car Talk brothers.  I will say that the most creative times I have enjoyed when writing have been when I had a nice balance of reflection and interaction, of being alone and of being with people.  But this just isn't for creative people (for artists) but is an idea that carries over to all of life.  We need both solitude and community.  And by the latter I mean face time, not virtual interaction.  Somehow, in these times, we have ended up with a dearth of both.
• Max McLean writes about how much fun it was to play the devil in the dramatic adaptation of C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, which has played in both Washington, DC and New York.  The inverted world of the book takes some getting used to, but this literary strategy helps, us does all good art, in telling the truth in a subtle, indirect way and thereby sharpening our understanding of it.  As McLean summarizes: "The Screwtape Letters is a metaphor for one of Lewis’s basic theological ideas. As described in Mere Christianity, this world is “enemy-occupied territory.” Screwtape may be the ruling demon in one district. He has ruled effectively for many centuries with “unbroken success.” By exposing him, Lewis hopes to free other would-be patients from his grasp by escaping into the loving arms of the demon’s “Enemy.” The most recent run of the play was sold out, but you can see a video segment of the performance.  Let's hope it has another run.
• It's Bob Dylan's 67th birthday today, and Craig Burrell offers a little tribute here with a video of his 1964 performance of "Chimes of Freedom" at the Newport Folk Festival.  This reminds me that I have bootleg recordings of a concert he did in Toronto during his "gospel period," with gospel singers, preaching, and more.  Wow.  Can you imagine how fans would have felt?  They often booed him.  Listen to what he said about that: "Years ago they... said I was a prophet. I used to say, 'No I'm not a prophet' and they'd say 'Yes you are, you're a prophet.' I said, 'No it's not me.' They used to say 'You sure are a prophet.' They used to convince me I was a prophet. Now I come out and say 'Jesus Christ is the answer.' And they say, 'Bob Dylan's no prophet.' They just can't handle it.^"  By the way, I'm not one to question whether he is still a Christian.  I think the "gospel period," when his songs were more blatantly spiritual, was just a confessional phase he passed through.  He's never disavowed his faith.  Perhaps the second volume of his autobiography, Chronicles, to be released later this year, will enlighten us.  But don't count on it.
• In a recent post, I told you about an upcoming missions trip I am taking with my family to Kaihura, Uganda.  The mission, called Embrace Uganda, now has a blog.  I'm not sure how active the blog will be, as I did not create it, but at least it will provide some basic information about the trip.  You can access the website or blog to keep up with planning for our trip.  And you can (please) pray for us!

Well, enough ruminations!  Maybe some of the above will give you food for thought or action.  Enjoy the Memorial Day weekend, and yet remember that the day is a memorial.  Perhaps these words of Abraham Lincoln, part of his Gettsburg Address, will help you: 

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

What's Happening to Us

"God is not concerned about our plans; He does not say --- Do you want to go through this bereavement; this upset?  He allows these things for His own purpose.  The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, nobler men and women; or they are making us more captious and fault-finding, more insistent upon our own way.  The things that happen either make us fiends, or they make us saints; it depends entirely upon the relationship we are in to God."

Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest (May 22nd)

"You don't look 49," he said.

"And you don't look 70," I said.  I added "we must be living right," a quip that I know isn't entirely or even mostly true.

" I don't think living right has anything to do with it.  My wife lived right all her life, did good to everyone, helped everyone, and we just found out she has cervical cancer.  That's not much of a reward for living right, is it?"

Of course not, and of course such aphorisms, while having a semblance of truth, aren't really very useful, aren't even very true.  There is utility in living right.  Perhaps we're less likely to contract lung cancer if we don't smoke or have a heart attack if we eat well and exercise or  escape divorce and its repercussions if we avoid infidelity --- and yet the most fit sometimes have heart attacks, children die young, and generous and kind old ladies get cervical cancer.  We all know that.

I don't want trial and suffering to come to me or mine or even friends.  Who would?  And yet the older I get the less I pray against such things as I pray about what happens to me and mine while enduring such things.  For after all, didn't James say to "[c]ount it all joy, brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness," (Ja. 1:2)?  Am I becoming "sweeter, better, nobler" as a man?  I hope so.

Visit the elderly in nursing homes and assisted living facilities and you can see the result of lives lived unto God or without Him.  One person has suffered much, and yet is sweet in spirit, full of grace, living in gratitude, counting it all joy.  Another has suffered much less, perhaps, yet is embittered and angry, arguing about petty grievances, fixated on some regret or some perceived wrong.  The difference is the relationship to God.  When we have that right, then what's happening is an inward transformation even despite (or because of) an outside trial.  Otherwise, I waste away, eaten up by the sins of resentment and anger that trial produces apart from God.

Today I heard that CCM musician Steven Curtis Chapman's five-year old child was killed in their driveway in a tragic accident, run over by his teenage child.  Can you imagine the weight of this suffering?  And yet I don't doubt that this family will not become embittered but will be strengthened in faith, in the end.  Lots of bad things happen.  God uses them in our lives for good, ultimately.  That's what's happening to us.  I hope I can remember that and live from that truth when (and not if) I face my next trial.

[As an odd addendum to this, I should add that my cat has chosen Oswald Chamber's classic devotional for me to read the last two days.  She has pulled it off the bookshelf twice, leaving it there for me to find.  Perhaps, despite the nature of her race, she is a pious cat.  Or is it just a fascination with the tasseled page-marker that playfully dangles from the book?]

[The image reproduced above is of a painting by my friend, Carol Bomer, entitled "Weep for the Wiping of Grace."  You can read more about the painting and Carol's other work here.]

Vinyl Pleasure (Part Three): Concept Albums

The heyday of the concept album is long past, and I miss it greatly.  In the late Sixties and early Seventies, such themed albums were all the rage, artists working from a large palette, able to choose and sequence their songs and have input into cover design and liner notes, something unheard of in the music business before that time. 

It's likely that the first person to be given such artistic control was a young twenty-something Brian Wilson, who used it to full effect on 1966's Pet Sounds, selecting songs, commanding a studio full of the best L.A. session musicians, and overseeing the entire concept of the record.  It isn't that such concept albums did not persist after the demise of vinyl, but it became more difficult to pull off.  Compact discs offered less room for artistic choice.  But the whole idea of the album is falling by the wayside with digital music.  Sure, there may still be album releases, but many of these albums are no more than collections of songs, musicians well aware that the individual song is all that matters, that consumers will generally download a song that "pops" for them in the first 30 seconds, that patient listening to a whole planned sequence of songs, whether organized around a theme or simply organized for effect and mood, is not rewarded.  What's happening is a dumming down of artistic expression, a shrinking palette, and a focus on a song rather than a body of work.

This concept of an album as a work of art is becoming so foreign to some that it helps to turn back the clock and use an example, and I choose one of my favorite concept albums, The Kinks' 1969 release of Arthur, or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire.  Arthur is the kind of album that folks who download might zip through, listening to a minute or two of each song, and then downloading a couple that are immediately memorable, like "Victoria," or "Australia," or the beautiful "Shangri-La," and yet completely miss the story told in the other songs or the narrative that streams throughout.

Arthur was a collaboration between Kinks frontman Ray Davies and novelist and playwright Juliana Mitchell, a story and soundtrack of sorts originally planned as a TV musical drama --- only the budget was pulled.  It tells the story of a working class man's love of and then disillusionment with Britain, his flight to Australia, and his ultimate regrets at a life of innocence lost.  In the end,  Arthur's questions about life are best put by Mitchell as "What's it all about then?  Is this what I've lived for (a suburban home, car, job)?  It's been a good life, hasn't it?  Well, hasn't it?"  You're left with that gnawing sense that there must be more, that Arthur somehow missed the point of life, the real meaning.

The songs tell a cohesive story.  "Victoria" kicks off the album in a rocking way, Arthur paying tribute to the "land that I love," the "land of hope and gloria/ Land of my Victoria."  In "Yes Sir, No Sir," he goes to war, ready to do his duty, and yet despite his sacrifice realizes that he can never rise above his class, will always be on the outside: "So you think you've got ambition/ Stop your dreaming and your idle wishing/ You're outside and their ain't no admission/ To our play."  Though Arthur survives, many others don't, the mother in "Some Mother's Son" waiting for a son "who ain't coming home today."  And yet it's not all dark, "Drivin'" providing a light note, with Arthur packing the boys in the car for a drive, telling then to "Drop all your work/ Leave it all behind/ Forget all your problems/ And get in my car/ And take a drive with me."

"Australia," which almost turns psychedelic at the end, is a rocking end to the first side, sounding like a promo for utopia, promising that "everyone walks around with a perpetual smile on their face in Australia," a place where "you get what you work for" and there's "no class distinction" and "we'll surf like they do in the U.S.A."  Flip the album and you realize that Australia is no "Shangri-La," that when you've got what you thought you needed to be happy, you're really "too scared to think about how insecure you are/ Life ain't so happy in your little Shangri-la, Shangri-la."  Lurking underneath the upbeat musical tone of the song is a fair amount of angst, of latent anger at how life's turned out.

Finally, an old, gray-haired Arthur looks back on his life with some nostalgia and regret, as in "Young and Innocent Days," saying: "I see the lines across your face/ Time has gone and nothing ever can replace/ Those great, so great/ Young and innocent days."  The title cut brings a summary conclusion to the story:

Arthur was born just a plain simple man
In a plain simple working class position
Though the world was hard and its ways were set
He was young and he had so much ambition

All the way he was overtaken
By the people who make the big decisions
But he tried and he tried for a better life
And a way to improve his own condition
 
Arthur we like you and want to help you
Somebody loves you don't you know it
How is your life and your Shangri-la
And your long lost land of Hallelujah
And your hope and glory has passed you by
Can't you see what the world is doing to ya

And now we see your children
Sailing off in the setting sun
To a new horizon
Where there's plenty for everyone
Arthur, could be
That the world was wrong

Empire, status, position --- could it be that the world was wrong?  The album asks a great question, planting the truth that there must be something more to life.  It was a question asked a lot in the Sixties, but it's every bit as relevant now.  A great song can ask this question.  But a great album does it far better.  It puts a story in your head that's difficult to shake off.

Davies uses music well in the telling of the story, letting the pace of the song, the temp0, and the mood fit the lyric.  Also (and you would never know this from the compact disc), each side of the album begins and ends with a strong, memorable song, the last song on Side One, "Australia," setting the stage for Side Two, where we find that "Shangri-La" is not what it was cracked up to be.  The album begins strongly with the Arthur of youthful innocence, believing in Britain ("Victoria"), and ends with the title cut, "Arthur,' him wondering if he missed something along the way.  There's something in that pause, that getting up to turn the record, that worked well as an artistic device.  Finally, listening, I'm holding a large gatefold album in my hands, perusing the art, poring over lyrics, and asking myself the question "what am I living for?"  That's a great piece of art: it puts me in the story.  Folks, one song just can't as easily do that.  One song promises but doesn't quite endure.

So that's another reason I like the album, particularly the concept album.  You should try it while it's still possible.  Maybe start with Arthur.