Be Careful about Threatening, Part One

"Rebel, for two cents, I would whip you right now!" _____________________ You are going to threaten someone? Think about it first. Then think about it again. Consider the other hand, or maybe even another. You never know how your threat will be received or what response it might draw. _____________________ Their disagreement was getting shorter, temperatures rising. It was James who said: "Rebel, for two cents I would whip you right now." Does that sound like a threat to you? Rebel, James, Karcher, Jesse, and I were "barn boys." We were college students who worked at the college livestock barns. We lived in the barns. That was a way to insure that we would not be late for chores at 5:00 a.m. James, who was majoring in campusology, didn’t show up for chores one cold October morning, The beef herdsman, a no-nonsense man of few words, asked where James was. James had come in too late too many nights and had been too sound asleep for the rest of us to get him up. Someone answered: "James is still in the sack." Mr. Dehay filled a bucket with water, walked in to James’ bunk, emptied a five-gallon bucket of cold water on James, from toe to head, then simply said: "Time for chores, James." Mr. Dehay didn’t threaten. It was this same James who told our Arkansas "Rebel," that for two cents he would whip him then and there. Hot-tempered Rebel turned around, walked across the room to his desk drawer, found a dollar bill, and walked back across the room. He extended the bill to Jams and with a fiery voice announced: "You owe me ninety-eight cents change!" Their conflict had been over something relatively trivial. James was so struck by humor of Rebel’s overreaction that he burst out laughing. Poor Reb didn’t know what to do now that James had defused the threatened explanation. You never know how someone will respond to your threat. You may wind up looking like a fool. Think before you threaten. Part two will follow.

The Good Life

In Leider and Shapiro’s, Repacking Your Bags, they suggest that we write, in a single sentence, our own description what would constitute The Good Life. I thought it sounded like a good idea, so I made the following attempt. I acknowledge that I have written a long and complex sentence and used some abstract concepts and terms. I saw no other way to get it into one sentence. The good life--as I see it and can, in one sentence, express it–is one that is: “The good life--as I see it and can, in one sentence, express it–is one led by the Holy Spirit, at peace with God, the world, and themselves, and is melodiously, harmoniously, and with dynamic rhythm loving those whom and working with that which they have found to be their appropriate others.” What follows is a brief commentary on the statement. • led by the Holy Spirit, Apart from attunement with the creator of the universe, and following his–the conductor’s–lead, a truly good life cannot be found. • at peace with God, the world, and our self, and is The good life never comes until we actually accept–heart, mind, body, and soul–God’s ways; that the world is like it is; that we are who and how we are. • melodiously, harmoniously, and with dynamic rhythm Our life must develop and follow a line that has meaning; it must blend appropriately with all we touch; it must have a pulse: systole/diastole, ebb and flow, activity and dormancy, something that gives it a measure of regularity, but flexible enough to modulate the music of our life in the evolving ways our love and work calls for. • loving those whom and working with that which Freud correctly said that the good life consists of love and work. We must have both. • the person has found to be their appropriate others. We actively love everyone. Love takes time and makes demands. Led by the Spirit, and patiently allowing time for development, we will come to see that those we can and should truly love will be clearly disclosed to us. Similarly, we must have tasks that have meaning, that bring joy, and that are fitted to our ability to perform them. Here again, the work that is ours to do will sort itself out only as we patiently adjust to life’s change. Our appropriate others are long-term commitments, but some will find fulfilment and completion and be followed, sometimes surprisingly, by new appropriate others. Some of our others will be appropriate for the remainder of our good life. ________________________________ Such would be a life of peace and joy. Stated differently, it would be a most satisfying and enjoyable way to live.

College Education

Yesterday, a friend told me that one of my former students had called me the most irresponsible teacher he had ever known, perhaps even the most irresponsible person--but that he thanked God for my irresponsibility because it made my students think. Along another line, he emailed me later in the day, asking what I thought about the purpose of a college education. After emailing my response, I decided to post in on this blog. Whether I am a responsible person, citizen, consumer, or whatever, is an interesting question. To whom are we responsible, for what, and who is to determine these things. Shortly after a new man came on our faculty some years ago, he said to me that propriety was very important to him. My first response was that propriety was not one of my major concerns. Then I got to thinking. Propriety is cognate with appropriate. Most of the time, I say and do that which I think appropriate. That which I think appropriate, right, fitting. Much of the time I believe that socially correctness–propriety–is more concerned with maintaining a simple harmony in the status quo. Much of the time I think the status quo is not anything to quo about. Much of the time I believe that “status quo” is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” [I apologize for not translating the following. The man to whom I was responding is a professional musician, so I used some of his language.] So, it seems to me, it often is time to change the music from a I, V, IV, and back to I harmony, and interject some sevenths, elevenths, seconds, and other seeming dissonances. Some elements of social correctness need to be diminished, others augmented. Sometimes I think the occasion calls for modulation to another key: perhaps minor, Aeolian, Lydian, Dorian, Phrygian, . . .. Maybe pentatonic, blues, or some other kind of gapped scale is more appropriate at times. Propriety is relative to culture, situation, issue, assignment, etc. Responsibility is relative. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." None of this is written as personal defense, nor a rebuttal to any of what my former student told you. Rather, it is a line of thought stimulated by your remarks of yesterday, and part of the ongoing effort to understand myself. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– . . .” Now, as to your question about the purpose of a college education, who is authorized to give the definitive answer? We have many divergent judgments and opinions. Mine follows. The purpose of a college education is: • To learn how to read. (Most of those who come can do it only after a fashion. A college education should be an advanced study of how to read) • To learn how to write. (Most of those who come can do it only after a fashion. A college education should be an advanced study of how to read.) • To learn how to think. (I’m not sure how many of them can do this at all. If so, they don’t often engage in the practice. A college education should be an ongoing provocation to thought.) • To do a lot of the above. • To learn life’s issues, and the highlights of the past and ongoing conversation about these issues. • To give them the requisite vocabulary, categories, and skills, then the encouragement to join the conversation. • To bring them in touch with standards of excellence, to put them in contact with true excellence. • To let them know that all formal education is merely a course of studies called, “Introduction to Life,” thus, the necessity of lifelong learning if they are to live a good life. • To give them models who are passionate and rigorous about all this.

Grandma Was Churched

Grandma was churched, voted out, kicked out of her church. This was back in the 1920s. My father was then a young fellow in his upper teens, a self-proclaimed atheist. The next day, Uncle Charley, one of Daddy’s older brothers, looked up from his barnyard chores only to see his younger brother walking down the dirt road toward the church, a mile away. He was carrying a pearl-handled revolver. Uncle Charley caught up with his hot-tempered brother and asked: “Harry, where are you going with that gun?” “I’m going to kill that preacher that kicked Mom out of the church.” I don’t know the details of what happened next, but Daddy and the pistol went back to the house rather than to church. A few years later, when I was eighteen-months-old, Daddy left the farm he was sharecropping, and became a preacher himself. For the next sixty years his ministry blessed untold numbers in small churches, a World War II chaplaincy, and in large churches. The last forty of those years brought him great respect and much love. I’ve known the story of Grandma’s being churched and Daddy’s intent to kill the man responsible, but only in recent years have I learned, from one of his sisters, the rest of the story. My grandma, an active and outspoken member of the church, had learned that her pastor was having an affair with a woman in the community. Grandma intended, at the next church business meeting, to inform the church and call for the pastor’s dismissal. However, the preacher learned of her intentions, seized the initiative, trumped up some kind of charges against my outspoken grandmother, and had her voted out of the church before she could act. Thus, her voice was effectively squelched and discredited. I had always wondered why my devout grandmother would be dismissed from a church. Although all of those involved have been long years gone from any earthly involvements, I have written this as a belated public vindication of Emma Roark. This prompted me to do some thinking about strategy and tactics. One of the most effective elements in any kind of conflict is to seize the initiative before you are forced into a confrontation in which you may be at a disadvantage. Another closely related important strategical element is surprise. Grandma lost on this occasion because she did not keep her own counsel. She talked with some others. Who talked with others. Who talked with the pastor. The story would have ended differently if Grandma had done two things: quietly gathered and verified the relevant facts, and then kept it all to herself until she caught the congregation and the minister by surprise. They might not have believed her at first, but since Grandma was a respected member of the congregation, they likely would have listened as she laid out the indisputable facts. As they recovered from their shock, it probably would have been unnecessary for the church to have voted to dismiss the offending minister. I suspect he would have seized the initiative and resigned before it came to a vote.

Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan? I wonder how seriously they are taken in the 21st Century in the United States? Tuesday I attended a funeral. Several ministers were involved. I met and visited with each of them. One fellow was from up in Arkansas, and when he named the specific “city” he was from, he added that this little town was a “planned community.” He said the people of the county were a very closed group; outsiders were not welcome, nor were they accepted. However, that part of Arkansas is attracting large numbers of “outsiders,” who are not even being accepted in, of all places, their churches. The newcomers like their good jobs, and love the scenic countryside. They did not want to leave. Someone made the suggestion, so they got busy and built a town specifically for outsiders and the unacceptable. They built their own churches. This fellow at the funeral, the one who told this story, is pastor of one of those churches. When I commented that I was surprised at the situation–major commercial activity nearby, economic development, a large influx of people being completely shut out by the natives–he added another element. Then I understood the situation. The county seat is the national headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan. He said there are only eight African-Americans in the county. Wondering about the new “city,” the one built for the locally unacceptable, I asked if any of those African-Americans were members of his church. I expected a negative answer. To my surprise, he said, “Yes, one is a member of our church.” ____________ This world we live in constantly confronts us with the unexpected. Who would expect to find a black person active in a white church in a place such as I have described? In this adventure we call life, we had best be hesitant to name anything impossible. Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? Who knows? Some of us are intent on establishing absolutes, establishing order, and doing all we can to bring everything under our control. Completely under. I know a couple who retired after having spent their unreconstructed racist life in Louisiana. They were raised in a culture of unchallenged racism. They were strong participants in that culture. I wonder why, when they retired, they left their home state and moved to Arkansas. Was it because of the natural beauty? That might be enough for me. Was it because he had a lifelong dream of becoming a country music star, and wanted to be within driving distance of Branson? As a teenager and young adult, he had sung on local radio. He had developed an outstanding voice and distinctive style. And is good-looking. They moved to the hometown of the KKK. There are other locations nearer Branson. Much of Arkansas is blessed with natural beauty. I suspect they have found themselves accepted in the town, the county, and the local church. I have another wonderment. I visited with a fellow, from Arkansas, a friend of this preacher, this preacher whose church accepts all races. This friend lives in the same region as this exclusive county with its inclusive “city” and church. As I visited with the friend, it came up that he (the friend) is a big fan of Rush Limbaugh. I wonder if, among the fans of Rush, you would find many members of the KKK? That may not be a fair question, and I am a person who tries to be fair. Still I wonder. It’s just a thought that, from somewhere, came to me.

Can Online Religion Be Real?

Can internet religion be real? I was, for thirty-some years, a university professor of Christian studies (and philosophy); then I retired. From classroom teaching, that is. Thanks to a friend who asked me to move my philosophy classroom from the university to his blog, I continue to teach philosophy. Then I established a few blogs in my own name and continue to teach Christian studies. I must present a caveat: years ago I quit calling myself a teacher, for to be a teacher means there are learners. You can be a professor or instructor without learning taking place, but if no one is learning, teaching is not being done. I am not sure when and where the learning takes place, so, rather than teacher, I choose to call myself one who attempts to set up conditions that facilitate learning. The question remains: can real Christianity be studied by computer mediated communication? Does it not require face to face, eyeball to eyeball, connection? Connection of the kind where tone of voice, facial expression, gesture, and perhaps even a pat on the back are possible. Religion is personal. Can it be electronic and remain authentic? In the School of Christian Studies at the university from which I retired last year, I am told the answer is, “No.” I understand and appreciate where they are coming from. I also believe that Christianity at its best, at its fullest, is something lived out in the flesh rather than in cyberspace. In spite of my appreciation for Karl Rahner’s idea of the “anonymous Christian,” the follower of Jesus can neither remain anonymous nor confine their commitment to the realm of virtual reality. At some point it must enter the world of flesh and blood, the world of physical space and actual rather than merely virtual community. Yet, I must affirm that if Christian studies can, to a certain degree, be conducted in a university or seminary classroom it can be conducted on the web. If it can be done by means of words written on paper–Bible, theologies, pamphlets, etc.–it can be done, to a certain degree, electronically. Eventually, it must get out of the classroom, out of the books, and out of cyberspace, but it can start there. Or it can be educated there. And cultivated there. These have their place. And in the 21st Century, computer mediated Christianity has an incredibly large place, a place in which the School of Christian Studies at my beloved university, should establish a presence. I much prefer teaching in a physical classroom, with less than twenty–preferably only ten or twelve--students. This provides a wide range of conditions that make for better teaching. On the other hand, it touches a quite limited number, which is why the school always insisted on larger numbers in the classroom, classes of as many as forty or forty-five (larger universities hold classes with hundreds in the same auditorium). If we insist of “ideal” conditions for learning, we will cut out most of those who have the need to learn and the interest in doing so. I am aware that I have not yet learned how best to do it online, but I do have, from all over the world, potential students looking in on my virtual classroom. Some of them decide to attend regularly. Some of them study and think. So far their numbers are small, and they come from only ten different countries, but that is far more inclusive than the few who can afford the time and money, and travel the distance to attend university classes. Yes, online religion can be real, as many Christian institutions are aware. I hope it will not be long before my old school realizes they are being “left behind.” It is not too late to play catch-up. Not only can online religion be real, it remains true that religion at the corner church house can be real. From time to time, here and there, I have actually seen it. Old-fashioned “organized religion,” “institutional religion” is not always hypocritical, nor is it always dead. “With God, all things are possible.”

Bedrock Beliefs

I used to carry my own coffee mug to Starbucks. I got a dime discount. More importantly, I prefer to drink coffee from porcelain or stoneware than from paper (or–horribly–from Styrofoam). Nevertheless, long ago I quit taking my own mug. A Starbucks “tall” container holds more coffee than my mug. I don’t drink a lot of coffee. I am not one of the coffee-drinking elite, so I can save about two-thirds of a “tall” for the next day, and often the last third for a third day. Using their container is more economical, at least for the way I drink coffee. The other reason for turning to their “cups” is that I like to read the quotations printed on them. Most are inane, but occasionally I run across one that is quite good. Recently I read the judgment of Rick Ridgeway, World Class Mountain and Rock-climber, explorer. He said: “Most of our bedrock beliefs are established by the time we are young adults–the ones we use to make our choices, and therefore direct our lives.” For more than forty years I have made it a point to review my “bedrock beliefs.” I know what I believe, and why, but I had never considered when those beliefs were established. So, I went back to those early years to see what of my “bedrock beliefs” were established by the time I was a young adult. I list them pretty well in the order they developed. • Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life.” • Church is the place. • I am a social misfit. • The status quo is somewhere off-center, not to be accepted uncritically. • Carol is my “one.” • Reading is my best way of socializing. • Nature restores me. • Life is bittersweet. I appreciate Ridgeway for helping me see myself more clearly. These are, in fact, the beliefs that direct my life. • My understanding of Jesus is, far too much, culturally conditioned. Knowing him is beyond my grasp, but knowing that I am known by him, knowing that I can–and do–trust him keeps me moving the right direction, and gives his assuring presence and strength to keep moving on ahead and on up. • For near about forty years I have been engaged in a lover’s quarrel with the church. Good ones are not easy to find. Many of them stink. I find that, inside the church building, anger often visits me and is slow to leave. Nevertheless, the church is my home. There my soul is restored. God always meets me there. In this world where all the lights seem to be going out, the church is the only place any hint and hope of The Light of the World can be found. • In social situations, such as parties, dinners, Sunday School classes, and conventions, I wish I were more comfortable, and that I was accepted as a living, active member of the group, but I always remain an outsider, even if I am the honored guest or featured speaker. It was long years before I came to accept my differentness and stopped trying to round off the corners of my square peg and fit into the social circle. Three factors seem responsible for my otherness. When tested by the Myers-Briggs Personality Profile, I was classified as an INFP, a category that comprises somewhere from 1-8% of the population–most sources speak of 1%. I have a life-long condition called dysthymia, which affects only 3-6% of us–again, most authorities speak of 3%. On top of these two personality features that separate me from the vast majority of society, I was moved through the second and third grades in one school year, making me always the youngest in my class, thus a year behind my peers in social and psychological development. Thus, one of my bedrock beliefs is that I am not and will not come to be an insider in the larger society. • As early as I can remember, the status quo, in all realms of life, seemed amiss in my eyes and mind. This was a vague, indefinable perception that the years have brought into clearer and more definite focus. • By the time I reached middle-age, I realized there were only two things I’d never had a single doubt about: that I married the right woman, and that, through Homer White, God had called me to teach (this call came long after early adulthood). I was only sixteen when I realized that Carol was my “one.” That was well over a half-century ago. • Books have accepted and affirmed me just as I am, beginning back when just as I am was a lonely little boy. Through books I have been everywhere, learned something about almost everything, and befriended some the wisest and most interesting, first-rate, quality people who have ever lived. Often I am reading ten or more books at the same time, and on at least a half-dozen subjects. Whether like Poe I have “sought to borrow from my books surcease of sorrow,” or to visit with a friend, or to satisfy my curiosities, books have always been there. • The out-of-doors, fresh air, God’s good creation is like a restoring tonic. Always. Immediately my spirit is lifted, whether by a wisp of grass coming through a crack in the concrete, a lizard at attention, the prairies, the desert, a swamp or the clouds of the sky. A refuge. • Finally, before I left childhood, the bedrock conviction had come to me that life is bittersweet, a never-ceasing dialectical conflict in which the sweetness of life runs, always, ahead of the bitterness. Some of us taste much more of one than the other, but life is always both. ___________________ All of this from a French-pressed cup of Starbucks Italian Roast. I never realized that, although my eighteen-year-old self would not recognize its septuagenarian fruit, my bedrock beliefs were in place by the time I was eighteen. What about you? What foundations did you lay in those tender years? Do you know? It might be worth exploring.

Why I Read

I was asked once, why I read so much. This is the answer I gave. It remains true. ______________ I read because I'm hungry, because I need nourishment, because I want to grow. I choose a very wide range of books to provide a well-balanced diet, to feed all dimensions of my soul. I read every kind of literature, except junk; there is a lot out there. Sometimes I read because it's easier to read than to do; sometimes I find it's easier to do because I have read. Unquestionably, I know myself more completely, understand the gospel more profoundly, and appreciate you more fully because I read. I love God more, enjoy life more, and love you more because I read. Reading expands my world and enriches my life.

Taipei 1995

Summer, 1995

World Vision of Taiwan assembled us, Jirka from Prague, Job from Singapore, me from Texas, and highschool graduates from fifty nations. Jerry Chang assembled us, charged us to seek Universal Life Values and ways to promote them. For two months in Taiwan I led workshops, Jirka rehearsed them for the concert stage, and Job kept it all together. For another month we toured Southeast Asia, dialoguing and singing values, and forming a new, worldwide community.

I remember that summer. I was sixty-one, and had never traveled

Four months in the Far East surprised me.

1.

I remember I fell in love with the Chinese people.

I felt at home, comfortable,

walked city streets and alleys alone

before daylight and long after dark, unafraid.

I remember they were so ordinary--

mothers taking children to school,

Yuppies rushing to work,

old men in unwashed tee-shirts.

No inscrutable mystery,

mere human beings of different tone and culture.

I remember the variety of the Chinese.

Young lady in Taipei,

clearly Chinese, but taller than I

she strode by, wearing faded blue overalls.

I found faces varied as Americans,

and distinguished a dozen shades of black hair.

I remember they dressed

with more diversity

than Dallas does.

High fashion and hippie,

Asian and American,

school uniforms,

all on same sidewalk.

I remember the colors they wore,

muted hues.

Beige, mauve, taupe, tinted grays,

and everywhere pale grayed jade.

I remember the food.

Asia deports bad cooks.

I=m sure of it.

Unexceptional variety and excellence

followed me all the days of summer.

2.

I remember--before they came--

we stayed at the Empress Hotel.

The China Post under the door by 6:00 a.m.

I ordered Chinese breakfast,

almost every day.

Fish soup, steamed turnips, strange bits of pickles,

egg over easy, rice,

a plate of crispy little fishes

the size of a kitchen match--

one big eye shining--

chopsticks, and Oolong tea.

I remember we stayed three weeks in the Academia Sinica,

east edge of Taipei,

earthquake the first hour,

5.1 they said.

Small Chinese farms outside my fourth-floor window,

roosters before daylight,

a later earthquake

shook me from sleep

middle of the night.

I remember two weeks at the New Jade Valley

Resort and Convention Center.

Cook=s pride, his breads.

He made deliberate leftovers,

snacks for sixty all day long.

From our rooms

to lecture and rehearsal hall

one hundred steps

up and down

steep mountainside.

I remember in Manila

the Gilarmi Apartments.

Much older, darker,

with hint of dirt.

Guards at the entryway

held shotguns at ready,

smiled and greeted us always.

Thailand=s boast:

Athe land of smiles,@

but Bangkok revealed the rudest

people of the summer.

Manila was the city of smiles,

even from armed guards.

I remember that clearly.

I remember the Arcadia Hotel in Indonesia.

Fire extinguisher message,

in English, directed us:

AIn case of fire, light the extinguisher.@

I remember I was the only one

provided a private room wherever we went.

Asia honors old teachers.

3.

I remember we filled two buses

with hours of laughter, stories, and sleep.

We lived on the bus.

I remember with tight schedules

we often ate on the bus,

fast food--exotic Asia.

Macdonald=s, the staple food of Asia?

I remember Bangkok, world=s worst traffic,

we rode to a school at 5:00 a.m.

in an easy thirty minutes.

The 3:00 p.m. return took four hours.

Creep forty yards, then stop ten minutes.

Plenty of time to savor the city

and afternoon street life.

I remember the night in Manila,

On the buss after concert, Georges

commandeered microphone, and

impersonated the staff.

We laughed, Piedad uncontrollably.

He began to imitate me, but not long.

Later I learned someone pointed to the front, and whispered,

AHe=s on this bus.@

I remember the night Nahed,

sixteen year-old Palestinian

girl, sat with me as we crossed Seoul

on Hyundai bus.

She was our youngest, yet

mature, intelligent, and intense,

but so uneasy.

APlain, ordinary little Palestinian girl,@ she cried.

ANo, Nahed, not at all.

You think, care, and speak with head and heart.

You one day will lead@

I remember we rode from Bangkok south

three hours to the Burma border,

returned later in the day.

I lay in the back seat, both trips, flat on my back,

sick, Adon=t move,@ eyes covered, nausea.

I remember that ride.

4.

I remember we went to the largest church

in the world--

seven or eight hundred thousand members--

Seoul, Korea.

Six cellos in the orchestra,

at least six choices of language

to select on the headphones, .

They fed hundreds a good meal.

That=s my main memory.

I remember the next Sunday,

little Baptist church

I attended alone,

entire service in Chinese,

God=s love warmly shared.

I remember Fram Jihanger introduced me

in huge warehouse auditorium in Jakarta

where a charismatic group expanded.

Crudely groomed young American pastor,

offensive style--

and the Spirit spoke

to me, clearly,

in a known tongue.

I remember often we held our own services.

I found contemporary Christian music

universal among the young.

5.

I remember drinking java in Jakarta one evening.

Live music, three Chinese cowboys wailed,

ABlue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining.@

Exotic Java.

I remember on the Burma border

our project in small Thai village.

The colonel who commanded the Thai Border Patrol

listened to our songs,

smiled, clapped,

and asked permission to sing

ADanny Boy.@

Exotic Thailand.

I remember Hong Kong, our whole group singing,

AI can=t help falling in love with you.@

Shalom caught my eye,

crossed the room, and took my hands.

Others evaporated while old man

and Zimbabwean granddaughter sang,

ATake my heart,

take my whole life through, but I can=t help . . . .@

I remember that.

I remember haunting mezzo-soprano,

acapella, singing,

AGo and leave me if you wish to.@

Deirdre, County Limerick,

left us four days later.

An Irish mother in critical condition

needed a daughter.

And she sang as she walked away.

The lady had class.

I remember Tshepo Ntsala--bass--

so slowly intoning, APraise, praise,

praise the Lord.

Praise God=s holy name, hallelujah,@

while Lindirabe, Shalom, Marlene,

and Ndondo danced.

Alfred, Baffoe, Sebilu, and Isaya joined them.

Tempo picked up,

high-pitched African warbles punctuated Tshepo=s praise,

overtook it, and suddenly introduced

ecstasy to the entire assembly.

I remember two weeks at the Taipei Fortuna Hotel.

Piano player in lobby late at night

played Aour@ song--

mine and Carol=s from forty-five years ago--

AThey tried to tell us we=re too young.@

I remember Mitcy and Felipe arrived two days late,

as we rehearsed APraise, praise, . . . .@

When they entered our practice hall, the forty-eight

began a march, encircling them,

continuing to smile and sing,

APraise God=s holy name, hallelujah.@

Although late arrivals,

they felt our love and acceptance.

I remember we flew Singapore Airlines

serenaded passengers and crew with,

ASingapura, oh Singapura, pretty island set in the sea.@

I remember we sang all summer--

on concert stage, in buses,

hotel hallways, hospitals,

and in prison:

ALove in any language,

straight from the heart.@

Our signature.

6.

I remember time alone, not often.

Alone in seven of

the world=s most densely populated cities.

I remember one evening, alone in a restaurant,

I wanted fish,

So I took pencil and paper,

and drew its picture--

best fish ever I tasted.

I remember one night in China,

in a Burmese restaurant,

I chose Vietnamese rice.

I remember in Hong Kong mall,

I looked down and read the label

on my can of geranium tea,

looked up

and the group was gone.

Alone in a sea of Chinese figures,

I was lost, near panic

for two minutes of eternity,

and then I saw Jules.

I remember brisk autumnal drizzle as

I walked Korean park.

Japanese Red Maples turning color.

I relaxed.

Rare opportunity

I sat and wrote in journal..

And I remembered Carol,

and I remembered I had a return ticket to Texas.

I boarded China Airlines

and came home.

Vulnerable Vases

For years I have been amazed that people watch television. I don’t know where they find the time. I must have an overabundance of interests and ambitions, because I have been unable to organize my life well enough to have time for them all, and I’m not ready to abandon my impossible dreams. I certainly can’t find time to watch, on tv, someone else live their virtual life. Thus, most of the things I have projected and begun, are seriously neglected. Julie Morgenstern’s Four D method of dealing with the overwhelming has been helpful, but I don’t want to delete, I have already delayed so much that I am continually finding the forgotten, decayed, and disintegrated. I do delegate more and still more, yet in the overall picture, I delegate only a small portion of my life. My life is mine. I don’t want to delegate it to someone else. The fourth D, I’ve made my peace with. I have lowered my expectations and diminished my visions to fit reality. Almost. With this introduction, now I get specific. A year or two ago, my yard, I was told, reminded everyone of Sanford and Son (I used to watch a little TV). I was gathering material and preparing ground for a total remake of my conventional lawn into a Native Plant Landscape. I know where I am headed with it, and am making real progress in the front yard. But to some of my neighbors, I suppose it still looks like Jed Clamped and all his kin have moved into this nice neighborhood. The backyard, however, looks more like Pa Kettle’s place. This evening as I was locking gates and shutting my little flock of banties into their coop, the thought struck me: “What if I were to drop dead before I get it all uncluttered, landscaped, and planted? Would the family attempt to restore social order, or would they throw up their hands and hire someone to come in, haul it all off, level the ground, and sod it afresh with St. Augustine grass and socially correct shrubbery?” I realized that it would be completely unfair for me to die, leaving it all in this condition for them to deal with. And, although I am in excellent health, I am at an age where human bodies fall apart unexpectedly. It is happening to more and more of my friends. I am aware I am not exempt. I will not be the exception. In 1975 I took up pottery, traditional pottery, hand-thrown on the potter’s wheel, fired in a flaming kiln. I enjoyed every aspect of it, from digging and mixing my own clay, my own glazes, forming it on the wheel, firing it long hours in the kiln, then, after admiring some and throwing out my disappointments, I sold a little and gave away 99% of the best I made. I’ve often regretted I didn’t keep more, but I am glad it is in the hands of people who can enjoy it. I’ve kept and enjoyed a vase that I made in 1976. With recent renovation in my retreat, I set it on a shelf on the back porch. Apart from breakage, pottery has an incredible life expectancy: at least thousands of years. Apart from breakage, yes, but that has always been the fate of most pottery. Pottery is brittle; it is fragile. With my eyes on the inexcusable chaos of the back yard and thoughts of the unfairness of a sudden death on my part, I opened the back door to come in for the night. As I opened the door, I bumped something that was mislocated–like almost everything else in that area–and heard things begin falling. I turned and looked down. The thirty-one-year-old vase lay in shattered disarray. That easily, that suddenly and unexpectedly, it was gone. Immediately I became even more keenly aware of the fragility of human life. It could happen to me. I try to live by Naomi Shihab Nye’s advice: Walk around feeling like a leaf Know you could tumble any second Then decide what to do with your time I made pottery for only about ten years before it was diminished in my schedule and delayed until I now keep thinking I will just delete that joyous element of my world. The pot tonight was one of the last I made with my own hands and thought. I understand that Paul of Tarsus, responding to challenges from a dysfunctional church in Corinth, was talking about something different when he said, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels,” but his words also apply to the precious treasure of human life. Life is another treasure in earthen vessels. Some of us already are cracked pots, but we all will go the way my thirty-one-year-old vase did this evening. Evening is coming; for some of us it is already dusk. Know you could tumble like a leaf any second, then consider whether you have time for that addictive electronic, brain-numbing, time-stealing tube over there in front of the couch.

Correction

In the recent blog, "Mary Magdalene a Prostitute?" I named Chloe as a deacon. Should have written Phoebe. Chloe was another woman who apparently was a leader of some magnitude in the church at Corinth, but is not identified as a deacon. Check Romans 16:1, and 1 Corinthians 1:11.

Snot

The only person, the only face, the only name I can remember from my first two years in school was a second-grader I often walked to school with, a hare-lipped boy we all knew only as “Snotnose.” Sadly, the name always fit. Of course we all at times have suffered from that condition, but with him it was a constant. One of my own snotty discoveries came after I began working: plowing, mowing or raking hay, mixing feed by the ton, unloading semi-truck loads of porously sacked blood meal, and other tasks that filled the air with dusty pollutants. Blowing and cleaning out my nose at the end of the day, It took only a few of those experiences before I came to see the function of snot. That black stuff that emerged educated me. Snot is not an obscene topic. It is merely mucus. Think of them as synonyms, which they are. Snot simply refers to the stuff in the snout. Check a dictionary; check an etymological dictionary. In polite society we find one term–snot--objectionable; if we study human physiology, we find the stuff itself–mucus--indispensable. In its pure state, this slime, in cooperation with the hairs in our nose, functions as a filtering vacuum cleaner to provide our lungs with clean inspiration. As we inhale, mucus traps and hold in the vacuum bag–the nose–much of the pollution that contaminates the air in every breath we take: dust, pollen, airborne germs, and other assorted detritus that drifts full-time through the atmosphere. When we exhale, the vacuum bag tends to empty its dirty accumulation. If the buildup begins to clog the system, we typically turn the power up a few notches for a more vigorous exhalation to blow the now contaminated snot out. Thus our lungs are protected and our health body maintains its homeostasis. What would we do without snot? This structure, the nose, stands guard over the lungs (and by implication, the body; by further implication our very self), but the guardhouse is not 100% effective. Sometimes the airborne invaders overwhelm it and infections of varied types attack the system--perhaps the most common intruder is the common cold. From the battleground on which the invaders and our immune system combat each other, many of the wounded and dead wind up overloading the limited storage space the guardhouse provides. On top of the miseries we already suffer from infection, we find ourselves with breathing problems. The intonation of our speech changes. If in public, we are embarrassed as people see us shift our breathing to a makeshift vacuum cleaner, the mouth–sans hairs, equipped rather with teeth, thus not as effective in trapping whatever foul invaders may take the occasion to advance their attack. With the nose overloaded with used up snot, we take action and blow the garbage out so the good mucus can get back on the job full-time. And, we move more closely into our comfort zone. I am writing such an essay because it is an exercise suggested by Bonni Goldberg in her book, Room to Write. This exercise was designed to facilitate a less inhibited approach to writing. I suspect that, for me, it will work. To use T. B. Maston’s applicable phrase, are there any “abidingly relevant principles” that emerge from this brief essay on bodily slime? I think there are. If time and purpose allowed, we might note the other many assorted elements with which the body protects itself, and the half-dozen or so systems with which the body rids itself of used up, useless matter, or substances that threaten our health. Moreover, we might find it adventurous to study the ubiquity and function of mucus in places beyond the nose. I am interested just now, however, in what analogies we might adapt from the foregoing essay. We live in a social atmosphere in which monstrous pollution, garbage, filth, and toxicity is unavoidable. Television is high on the list, but the list is long. We need guard towers, we need protective filters (soul mucus), or we will be–we are being–destroyed. But even with the best of protection, at times our complex of defenses is inevitably overwhelmed. Our soul becomes a battleground. Not only do we need a strong and effective immune system to rally and defeat the intruders, we similarly must develop and maintain an active and efficient elimination system or systems. Day and night, week by week, if we are alert, we become aware that our mind, heart, spirit–whatever–is stopped up or is becoming clogged up with stuff that has been used up and no longer of value, stuff that was useless to begin with, stuff that threatens our entire being with its toxicity. Part of a psychic guard station/vacuum cleaning/filtering system by learning where pollution is severe and intentionally avoiding these danger zones, to the degree that is possible. Take lessons from Thoreau’s, Walden, Scott and Helen Nearing’s, Loving and Leaving the Good Life. Listen to the Psalmist, “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee.” Embed things into our character that automatically screen out pollution because they are part of who we have become. Such character traits will, like the mucus and hairs in our nose work without any need of conscious effort on our part. This only begins to suggest ways to filter out the garbage that our society systematically offers us as food. Each will have to develop systems that are appropriate to who they are, but develop them we must, or multiple infections will destroy us; our life will stumble down a degenerative hill. A second step toward spiritual, mental health is to excrete all of this stuff that jams up the plumbing of our spiritual anatomy. Sometimes, like the blowing of the nose, it requires forceful, even violent expulsion. If our spirit is healthy, much of this will be done unconsciously, much as the body secretes wastes through sweat. But we also need to maintain the sensitive awareness of the daily alien intrusions and develop habits of regular daily elimination of all the junk that obstructs or threatens our well-being. Otherwise, mental and spiritual constipation will provide a perfect setup for misery. A few methods of excretion occur to me immediately; I’m sure will come to me later. Talk with someone–trusted friend, professional counselor, God–about the trash that is clogging up your life flow. That can make a beginning, at least, of getting it out of your system. Somewhere years ago I heard the idea of “the expulsive power of a new affection.” Can something be found that is interesting enough and powerful enough to take over the space and thus expel the enemy agents that have gained a beachhead in your mind? One lesson learned from snot is that at times there are things that must be eliminated from our life or it can become mighty miserable. What has our scrutiny of snot attained? It has established that we need to learn more about the mental and spiritual defensive structures that can filter out the pollutants that fill our individual and social environment. If these structures are to do their job, regular and careful maintenance is necessary. We need to identify and become more aware of the importance of our several systems of elimination. We must understand how they work so we can regularly rid ourselves of all the crap that inescapably accumulates in our lives. Thinking about snot is not a waste of time.

Hearing God While Reading the Bible

Today during Ed’s funeral, we learned that the greatest single word of assurance for him came from John 14:1-3, specifically: “I go to prepare a place for you. . . .” When God spoke directly, personally to Ed as long ago he read those words, he heard God saying: "I go to prepare a place for you.” Ed had felt alone in the world prior to that life-changing moment; there was no place where he felt that he fit. But when the risen Jesus spoke clearly to him of “ a place for you,” he knew that there was a place already prepared for him, just him, a place waiting that no one else could occupy. After that word from God, any time he felt a question about his standing with God, he went back to that personal word from God. But we know the setting in which these words were spoken by the historical Jesus. Knowing that he was facing death, knowing that his close disciples felt as if they were about to be abandoned, Jesus assured them that they should not be disturbed, because although he was about to die, he was going to prepare a place for them, so that at the appropriate time they could join him in a prepared place. These words were addressed directly to the few special disciples. They were not addressed to the multitudes. These words weren’t given as a generic message of comfort and hope. How can we appropriate these words, believing that God speaks them personally to an individual in the 21st Century? Can biblical hermeneutics answer out question? Hermeneutics is all about interpretation: methods, principles, practice. It intends to help us understand the true meaning of a written passage. At the heart of hermeneutics is the concept of exegesis, which is the effort to extract from the text only what is in the text. Exegesis is to be contrasted with eisegesis, which is the practice of reading our own ideas into the text. Careful use of the principles of exegesis give us an objective, we might even say scientific, understanding of what a text is saying in truth. Eisegesis is a subjective reading that can read almost anything into a text; it has no objective constraints. Standard practice in schools of theological training stresses exegesis as the only dependable pathway to biblical truth. Eisegesis is frowned on. For long years I lived under the control of these ideas. However, I’ve come to realize that exegesis alone is not sufficient, perhaps not even necessary to hear God speak through the written holy script. Exegesis, in all its dimensions, de-finites meaning only in the literal sense of definition, that is, it sets the boundaries of meaning, and that is all it can do. It indicates where the fences are. A fence, a wall, a border, knows not the content, intent, or portent of what it confines. Sometimes exegesis cannot completely fence in meaning. Sometimes meaning jumps fences, breaks them down, slips through the border guards. Sometimes the borders are permeable or semipermeable. At other times the fences have gates, built-in gates through which meaning finds or achieves greater freedom. “The letter kills; the spirit frees.” Nor do any principles of interpretation dictate or clearly delineate meaning. Certainly hermeneutical principles cannot provide objective, indisputable, comprehensive understanding, much less insight or direct communication. Hermeneutics exists only as a faithful servant to be called only occasionally, as needed. None of this is to denigrate exegetical, hermeneutical principles and methods. However, occasionally the need arises to remind servants of their station, to put them back in their place. Servants are not masters. Consciously or not, deliberately or not, one theme of history is that servants tend to forget who they are, or reject their status and usurp the authority of their mistress or master (Mark 12:1-12). Principles of interpretation, the work of exegesis, the learning of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic languages and perhaps other Semitic languages are all of value. To repeat, the vocabulary, etymology, grammar, and syntax of a language guard against subjectivism, but the guard–like the servant–is not the Lord. I cannot overemphasize the respect I have for all these objective tools, but they must be kept firmly in their place. I remember the manager of a nationally prominent Angus Cattle Farm in Tulsa, Oklahoma back in the 1950s. He had brought his prize cattle to show–and win–in the International Livestock Show in Chicago. After getting the cattle and hired help (read, “servants”) settled in, he checked into a nice downtown hotel. The manager, Earl, was inconsiderate, wrong, and extremely rude to the bellhop who carried his luggage for him to his room. The bellhop, expecting a tip, extended his hand, palm up. Earl dismissed him abruptly with a curt: “I don’t shake hands with the help,” then turned to the task of unpacking and settling into his room. In recounting this occasion, I have not intended that we should adopt and project Earl’s attitude toward the “help.” I reviewed this scene as one way to emphasize that the “help,” the “servant,” always holds a place subordinate to a superior, and must maintain always the subservient place. Formal hermeneutics is subservient to the living Spirit who first inspired these words and would now speak to our own living spirit. I have great respect and appreciation for formal hermeneutics. It has been a needed guard and servant for me, a close companion for most of the past fifty years. Because of my training in a “modern” and conservative theological seminary. I too often allowed it to be the director–even the dictator–of my reading of the Bible. (Clearly, it would rule that Ed did not hear God speak to him in the words of John 14; those words were directed to Jesus’ apostles.) I refer to my “modern” theological training, for although pre-modern–patristic and scholastic–interpreters were not at all hermeneutically unsophisticated, their way of reading the text was quite different from the modern. In the late 20th Century, a postmodern generation also refuses to be fenced in by “formal” rules and boundaries. Postmodern searchers for a scriptural word from God search intently within and without the gate. They are realizing the limits of the exegetical limits on meaning and truth. This diatribe came about as in the wee hours of the morning I drank coffee, ate toast and eggs (from my little silver-laced bantam pullet). As I ate and wrote a letter to one of our daughters, I had The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, open to the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah. At about three o'clock I took a sip of coffee, looked over at the text of the message, and read: “‘There’s hope for your children.’ God’s decree.” I know the occasion of these words, to whom they were addressed, and know that God’s word is not in any one line, or one verse, but lies, rather, in the whole story of the Hebrew Exile. However. . . . When I read, “There’s hope for your children,” this troubled father of sometimes troubled daughters, grandchildren, and great-grand children heard the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, God’s powerful presence, speaking words of comfort to my own aching heart. To me, for me, in that moment, the Holy One of God’s covenant community spoke, saying: “There’s hope for your children,” and I gratefully acknowledged and praised God. A few years ago, the Benedictine oblate, Kathleen Norris acquainted me with the ancient idea of lectio divina, which is defined as: An ancient form of meditation on scripture where one reads "very slowly through a text until a word or phrase 'lights' up and attracts the reader. The text is then laid aside and the phrase is repeated in the heart...without analysis." It is: Reading or more exactly, listening to the book we believe to be divinely inspired. In this way we hear the word of God in the scriptures. It is the most ancient method of developing friendship with Christ by using scripture texts as topics of conversation with him. God spoke to his people in Exile, Jesus to his fearful disciples; Jesus to my friend, Ed; and the other morning, to me. Not, the Bible said, or the Bible means, or “we may understand this as God’s word to us.” No, God’s word, that is, God speaking directly, through the written word, Spirit to spirit, divine love to human cry. Lectio divina: words on a page suddenly light up and it is not just a book, not just an inspired text, rather, in that moment we are inspired–in-spirited by the Comforter Jesus promised.