On Being Childlike

Someone has said, "We are born original, we die copies." And, as Steve Thompson says, "You will only be a good you, you will be a poor anyone else."

One day, Jesus said, "...unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." He was talking to a group of grown-ups, people who were once children. But, they grew up. Children fascinate me. They have commonalities Jesus may have been referring to.

Children have an honesty that makes grown-ups uncomfortable. A child will look you in the eye and say, "Your breath stinks!"
One day, when my oldest daughters were small, I walked into their room. They were hiding behind their bed, whispering.
"What are you two doing?" I asked.
Lauren, the younger of the two, replied,"We're not eating candy!"

Children carry an innocence that cuts to the heart. When Allison, my oldest daughter, was very young (before the candy episode) I arrived home later than usual. She asked, "Where were you tonight?"
"I went to visit a sick man."
"Is he better?"
"No."
"Is he going to die?"
"Yes."
Without hesitation, she said, "Well did you give him a kiss and a hug? You wouldn't want him to die without a kiss and a hug."

Children have wonder. I have met few grown-ups who have wonder. As an educator, I have seen the correlation between wonder and knowledge. As knowledge increases, wonder decreases. As we gain information and understanding of 'how the world works' the world, and all it contains, is less amazing. Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And God gave it to me."

The list goes on. Children:
are imaginative
love a good story
glad to be a part of whatever is going on (and don't wait for an invitation)
love to sing
are inquisitive
love to draw, paint, cut, mold...be creative
don't worry about their wardrobe (or whether their socks match)

But, most importantly, children seem to be comfortable in their own skin; they don't mind their quirky, peculiar individuality that distinguishes them from their peers. They are not concerned with being like everyone else. God, in His wisdom, crafted me according to specific specifications.I want to be a good me. I want to be 'like a child.'

Kaddish

"I have been hearing the moaning of wood. It is not like a human moan. It is not a moan of pain, it is a moan of adjustment- the whisper produced by a shift in pressure, by a strain that is ending, by an accommodation with the forces that are pushing and pulling. One day I would like to moan like wood." Leon Wieseltier, Kaddish

Yesterday, something I said caused a man to laugh. And he looked like he needed to laugh. Perhaps that was my greatest accomplishment of the day. Maybe laughter, for that person, was the hinge on which his day turned, for the better. And yet, I didn't feel like laughing. I felt like moaning. 'Even in laughter the heart may be in pain...'
Kaddish is the Aramaic for Holy. It refers to a prayer of magnification, and sanctification, of God's name- a prayer used as a doxology in Jewish prayer services. It is also used to mourn.

Kaddish
Exalted and magnified is God's great name
in the world which He has created according to His will
and may He establish His kingdom
may His salvation blossom and His anointed near
in your lifetime and your days
and in the lifetime of all the House of Israel
speedily and soon;
and say, Amen.
May His great Name be blessed
forever and to all eternity.
Blessed and praised,
glorified and exalted,
extolled and honored,
elevated and lauded
be the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He.
Beyond (far beyond) all the blessings and hymns,
praises and consolations that are spoken in the world;
and say, Amen.

This season of strain I have been in is ending. I sense it.
Spring is near.
And I agree with those, past and present, who say
"May His great Name be blessed forever and to all eternity."

Wafer Thin

"A small thing is not small when it leads to something great" St John of Damascus



Due to a series of events, much like toppling dominoes, my life has become simple. Time itself assumes a different appearance when schedules are free of appointments; when days are not governed by school bells or class periods. It is a dimension of freedom I am not entirely familiar with. Nor, comfortable with. I am familiar, and have grown quite 'comfortable' with 'busy'ness, with full schedules and little down time. It is no small thing to desire a simple life. I am currently chewing on this thought by Daniel A. Siedell- "The distance between the immanent and the transcendent, between the material and the spiritual, is wafer thin." God in the Gallery. I say 'chewing' instead of reflecting because last night I made Matzoh, traditional Passover bread. The key to good Matzoh (and I would not call what I made 'good') is thickness, or rather, thin-ness. Wafer thin. The bread, of course, doesn't rise because of the absence of yeast (symbolic of sin). Hmm.
Several years ago I felt a strong desire to spend time in the woods, alone with the Lord for a few days. It was in the dead of winter but I was, after all, a Boy Scout. I couldn't find the spot I was looking for and before I realized it the sun was setting. Rather than pitch my tent in the dark I found a motel. A cheap motel. My plan was to spend the night in conversation with the Lord. But the room was warm, the pillow soft, and I fell asleep. Almost instantly. Night two was a different matter. On this, the second night, I was in a tent. The outside temperature was well below freezing. The ground was hard. I spoke with the Lord all night. Comfort is a curious word.



In 1848, Joseph Brackett wrote-

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be.

Simple Gifts, Public Domain

Contemplative Activity

“If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town had no interest in its forests but to cut them down!”
Henry David Thoreau 1854 Life Without Principle

I have spent much time walking in the woods; it is there I feel most alive, and, closest to God. The smells, the colors, the sounds (and absence of certain sounds) captivate me. In the woods I can think, clearly. I think it's the trees. For me, the spiritual is more obvious in the woods, life makes sense there. Speaking of trees, yesterday I read this in the book of Judges-

"Once the trees went forth to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, 'Reign over us!' But the olive tree said to them, 'Shall I leave my fatness with which God and men are honored, and go to wave over the trees?' Then the trees said to the fig tree, 'You come, reign over us!' But the fig tree said to them, 'Shall I leave my sweetness and my good fruit, and go to wave over the trees?' Then the trees said to the vine, 'You come, reign over us!' But the vine said to them, 'Shall I leave my new wine, which cheers God and men, and go to wave over the trees?' Finally the trees said to the thorns, 'You come, reign over us!' And the thorns said to the trees, 'If in truth you are anointing me as king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, may fire come from the thorns and consume the cedars of Lebanon.' " Judges 9:8-15 (sounds like a political parable to me)

When we lived in Tennessee my children and I would take occasional walks in the woods together. One day we discovered a clay deposit in the cliffs that overlooked the stream, white stoneware. We dug a few pounds and I took it to the wheel. It threw and fired beautifully. The best part- my children watched found material, in its raw natural form, transform into a functional object in our home. And, they were a part of the entire process. Most of us Americans are so far removed from the process we don't even know what the process is, or, that there is a process. If we need something we buy it. If it is cheaply made we buy it again. And again. What happened to a people who were makers of things? Saint Thomas taught that there were three vocations in this life: the active life, the contemplative life, and a mixture of the two. He taught that the third is superior to the first two. I like Thomas. He probably spent time in the woods.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Time Slivers

A former student of mine recently changed her college major from fine art to philosophy. I don't know why- we haven't had that conversation yet. I do know that the decision was probably a difficult one. The thing is, she will excell in whatever she chooses. She is a multi-gifted, young lady; equally comfortable with a paint brush, a violin bow or a lectern. She is an artist, a member of that odd community of people who see. George Steiner said, "Art is a dangerous thing that can take over our inner house and transform us." I suppose this is why artists struggle with 'the way things are.' The struggle seems especially challenging if the artist is a Christian. Artists ask, "What if?" as they capture slivers of time with layers of paint, or, make the moment about the moment with a line of perfectly arranged musical notes. My former student is both an artist and a Christian. I pray she understands that choosing between Art and Philosophy is not an either/or proposition. The real issue, the one we all must wrestle, is about mark-making. Whether it is paint on canvas or chalk on a sidewalk, a fresco on the ceiling of a Vatican chapel or a crayon drawing on the door of a refrigerator, we all leave marks in this world. Some are bigger. Some are louder.
For centuries the Church has lacked discernment in the area of mark-making. Dorothy Sayers said, “The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church [attendance] by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly- but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? ...The only Christian work is a work well done.” Letters To A Diminished Church.
The good marks, Kingdom marks, endure. I have no doubt my young friend will turn the Philosophy Department upside down. That'll leave a mark.

The Path

William Barclay said, “The only unanswerable argument for Christianity is a Christian life.” Terri and I spend Wednesday evenings with Greg and Susan Card, two brilliant artists who live Christian lives with graceful humility. And, as Matt Peterson says, “Humility is beautiful in every season.” We meet in their studio for dinner, conversation, music, prayer. Greg is working on a series of paintings on black with pearlescent polymers whose colors shift as light moves across them. The effect is stunning. The other night it occurred to me that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to photograph these paintings. They must be experienced, in-person. This, of course, would eliminate publication in journals or books, narrowing the audience and limiting the exposure. Why make art, if not to be seen? Why does God make flowers in remote mountain regions, or fantastical creatures who roam the sea-floor, never to be seen by man? Is exposure the ultimate goal? Or is the joy born out of the process sufficient? For Greg, the joy is evident whenever he shares a new work. He is on the path every true artist yearns for, the path of discovery. Perhaps art is merely the communication of a discovery, or, perhaps art awaits discovery. I don’t know. I am just grateful for the gift of Greg and Susan’s friendship.

On Being Centered

My guitar feels good in my hands because it was made, partially, by my hands. I watched every piece come together. Spruce, Walnut, Mahogany, Ebony, Maple. Based on Martin D28 plans, my guitar was customized and crafted by Master luthier Hulon Stringer of Bolivar, Tennessee. After spending several years as owner/operator of a men’s clothing factory, Mr. Stringer decided to spend his golden years making musical instruments. His violins and guitars are works of art. Watching him build my guitar redefined the expression ‘attention to excellence’. We began with the top, European Spruce I found online (it has a subtle bear claw). He sanded it close to the desired thickness and glued the book-matched pieces together. Then he sanded it to thickness, carefully measuring at several points with a micrometer. “Sounds pretty good” he said, as he tapped it with his finger. Finally it was time to drill the pilot for the sound hole. On closer inspection he realized he had drilled the pilot hole slightly off-center, almost imperceptibly (at least, to me). His reaction startled me. I thought he was going to throw it in the trash and begin anew. When I said, “It’s only off a fraction!” he stopped, looked at me, and said, “Off is off. The amount doesn’t matter.” I wonder if he knew the deep spiritual truth he had just offered. How many of us walk this life with ‘off-centered’ sound holes?

Solid Rock

I grew up in church. Whenever the doors were open, we were there. And, as the Apostle Paul said, “When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child;” This applied especially to the music in my church. I did not like the ‘boring’ hymns we sang. My mind wandered, I drew pictures on the bulletin; I was not ‘paying attention’. Or so I thought. Later in life I discovered that those ‘boring’ hymns had become a part of who I am; I discovered the words contain a rich theology. From time-to-time one of the hymns of old will pop into my head. For the past four days I have been hearing The Solid Rock, written by Edward Mote. I could only remember the first verse and refrain, so I looked it up. Verse Two captivated me:
When darkness seems to hide His face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil
There have been days in my not too distant past when darkness seemed to hide His face. As my friend James and I discussed recently, faith is not real until it is tested: until moments occur when faith is required for your next breath. It is one thing to sing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness,” when all is well. It is quite another when you’ve lost your home, your vehicle and your job; when you have no earthly assets, no bank accounts, no health insurance. This is the time when His Word is true or nothing is true. It is a time when I can join the saints of old and sing, with honesty and humility, “all other ground is sinking sand.”