The Master’s Work

“…Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49 NKJV)

While doing some school work today it hit me what this means precisely.  In those few, perfect words Jesus is telling each of us what is required to live more fully in His image.  It’s really pretty exciting and simple!  What has God done for you?  He has sent His son so that you might live.  He has sacrificed, voluntarily for all of mankind so that anyone that is willing to receive this free gift may once again have a relationship with the Creator.  When we deserved death and condemnation His response was love and a ridiculous amount of forgiveness!  Each day however, I sin and by doing so pile more and more of my grotesque obscenities against the cross.  I continue, sometimes consciously, and many times unconsciously to build a wall that will surely seem insurmountable between me and my Father.  Each time this happens I come before Him, trembling and waiting for the hammer to fall.  The response I get from Him, each time is the same.

“Do you think you surprised me with that one?  I already took that into account.  I want to forgive you.  Simply ask.  Please ask.  I love you.”

THAT is my Father’s business.  Jesus shows us how we can be like Him in a wonderfully simple way.  Emulate your Father!  That’s it!  He is the master, we are the apprentice.

Much as an apprentice picks up the idiosyncrasies of his master and can reflect this in his own work, God asks us to consciously imitate Him in our own work.  Just as any listener can hear Robert Johnson’s echo in Eric Clapton’s guitar, any person that knows us should likewise be able to say “Hey! I know that voice!” when they see our servant nature or hear words of love and life coming from us.  With that, it boils down to one question.  How has God handled me and my life and what can I learn from His actions?

I have found that the answer to this is that God is always, always patient, gentle, and quiet with me.  He always calms me at the very moment that I expect wrath and judgment.  He always forgives at the moment that I expect condemnation.  This gentle spirit that we feel should also guide us in our everyday steps.  When my son has come to me because he broke some precious bauble and he owns up to it, what should my response be?  Do I cuss in front of my six year old, shatter his heart with a glance, and than make him pay for it out of his backside in order to appease my fury? Or do I hug him, let him know how much he means to me, and reassure him that he is truly forgiven in every sense of the term?  When my coworkers bring up a failure on my part as a chance to slam me against a wall and make me look bad in front of my boss, do I claim abuse and keep a record of their wrongs or simply echo Jesus’ sentiment on the cross when He prayed “Forgive them”.

Joseph, after being thrown into a pit and sold into slavery by his brothers did not respond by having them tortured and killed (though many would say that this would certainly be in his rights).  Instead he “broke down and wept” (Genesis 45:2) when he spoke to them again after not seeing them again for many years.  His response was “don’t be upset and don’t be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place.  It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives.”  (Genesis 45:4-5)  This is truly what it means to be about My Father’s business.

If we tune out the distractions and watch the way God operates I am pretty sure that we will find the answer to the question “how do I respond” very quickly.  It is in His actions that we find the perfect model for our own.  Anything less is doomed to corruption.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

Well I’ll keep it short but today has been one of those “call in to the radio program and tell them about your worst holiday experience” and yet I still find myself thankful. I won’t bore anyone with the details and will simply end by saying that God has changed my attitude over the past year and I will praise him in the good and the bad. With that? Happy Thanksgiving!!

Macy’s Parade, Lexus Commercials, and Grand American Consumerism

While watching the Macy’s Parade today on NBC, I couldn’t help but wonder about our culture.  It may be that I was simply more naive as a child, but I seem to remember a time when the parade was more than a few balloons ushered quickly past followed by an impressive display of hidden advertising for Broadway, Disney, and whatever television show the station feels like plugging.   “Hey we have a guest with us today from “Law & Order”.   Wow!  They just happen to pop in AND also happen to be from the same network?   It’s pretty interesting how that seemingly  unplanned/joyous event seems to work out like that.

So on we go.  Two minutes of a dancing donkey plugging Broadway’s proof that imagination and innovation are dead in the world of musicals, followed by a guest appearance of some actor that is mostly known for a stern look and badly written threats, and then it’s time for a commercial on the newest razor.  And tomorrow?  We get to look forward to Honda, Nissan, Lexus, and diamond jeweler commercials designed to guilt trip each man into going into MASSIVE debt for the sake of his wife’s approval.  We all know that you don’t REALLY love your special someone unless you hide a huge rock under the tree or buy the biggest bow possible for the most overly-hyped vehicle that you can find.  After all, what’s a remembrance of Jesus’ birth without first indulging in gluttony?

And so the holidays are ushered forth, from gluttony to extravagance, from an action figure when we’re five to a $3,000 big screen TV when we’re adults.  It’s a pattern ingeniously set up two generations ago.  Didn’t you ever wonder how we managed to go from the great depression “use it all up and do without” mentality to the “Ya know what! I can’t afford it but I DESERVE it!” attitude that we see today?  Even in spite of the recession sending warnings throughout the nation to slow down, conserve, and save we rush along.  I am currently taking a modern American history course for college and was stunned to find the answer to this one.

The textbook that we are reading from, “America: A Narrative History” puts it succinctly in regards to the post WWII baby boomer period of the late 40’s through the 60’s.   “To perpetuate the postwar prosperity, economists repeated the basic marketing strategy of the 1920’s: the public must be taught to consume more and expect more…many people who had undergone the severities of the Depression and the rationing required for the war effort had to be weaned from a decade and a half of imposed frugality…”  Here we find the beginnings of the “I DESERVE IT” attitudes, hidden in advertising.  It goes on:

“Young Americans especially participated in the consumer culture. By the late 1950s the baby-boom generation was entering its teens, and the disproportionate number of affluent adolescents generated a vast new specialized market for youth…Teens in the postwar era knew nothing of depressions or rationing; they were immersed in abundance from an early age and took for granted the notion of carefree consumption.”

There it is.   As an “X-er”I find that my parents were raised on commercials selling them hula hoops, records, and any other bauble a teen and “tween” could hope for.  Being raised to believe this is normal they obviously raised my generation after the same fashion.  We get Presidents in office from these generations that don’t stop to think that not everyone can’t afford a house (or they choose to ignore it for political and personal gain) and they lower the requirements because “that’s fair”.  At the same time my own generation (now the second generation to be raised on gluttony as everyday fair) begin buying our first homes and, instead of going for the 700 sq ft “cottage” we rush out to buy the “2,000 sq ft starter home”.  In a few years the bubble bursts and voila!  We’re modern America!  A country based on purchasing and nothing else unless you include jobs that appeared with the growth of the military complex.   Now that we’ve defeated our dread foe, the Soviet Union, and the wall has since tumbled, we find a country whose military spending is no longer so vital (one part of our economy destroyed) followed by a new feeling in the air of many people that aren’t so interested in being consumers any more; and thus our economy has imploded from within.

But wait!   There’s another bubble coming!!   Just give it time and I’m sure that the next big thing will come along!  After all, you can’t go wrong when you buy real estate, now can you?

Blogging About Art and God

Below is the link to another great blog! A friend of mine has been championing a revival in the arts for the Christian community.

http://jscottmc.wordpress.com/

Personally I love the idea! If He is the God of our life and He is the God of the universe than that means that He is also the God of creativity. Think about it! He created you, me, lightning bugs (any creation whose butt lights up is just awesome in my book) the Appalachians, and by extension if He lives in you as the Holy Spirit than I’m pretty sure He has the power to bless your creativity and your art in ways that just might stun you.
Why has Christianity been so ready to admit that He is the God of creation yet we’ve abandoned the arts (the one thing so close to a creational capacity in man) to the “secular”* world?

*Disclaimer: I no longer believe the lie of the word “secular” as it suggests an area that has been abandoned to the will of God

Christians & Politics

The question occurred to me today (one that’s been boiling in me for a few days) what is the responsibility of the Christian toward society?  I ask this question because I am back in college again.  It is a private Christian school and is one that is known for being active in society and the defense of traditional Christian principles in America.  Not naming any names, it is also comprised of a group that I have never been terribly keen on as they are responsible for much of what has irritated me with the Republicans and Conservatives over the past twenty years.

While taking one of my first courses in this school I have been asked over and over such questions as what must be done in society to reform it or how should we best reclaim our culture for Christ?  I have had to swallow such questions without complaint in order to pursue the dream of the BA in English (no jokes please).

So what can be done?  Jesus gave us that answer a long time ago.  Watch His actions.  Watch His feet.  When did our Lord EVER decide to form a grass roots political group, pound signs into the ground, spread slim jims, and than try to get only the ethical and Biblically based Senators in Rome?  His answer to the question of “societal reform” (a doomed legacy term from the nineteenth century by the way) was to seek people out individually and preach openly.  By doing this and showing people God’s power in word and deed, He did much to change his society.  It’s not quite so exciting but it’s His way.  I am His disciple.  Why would I say “Nah…I’ve got a cool radio station and a great guy that’s going to become President real soon that swears he’s more compassionate than the last!”  While isolated incidents have given us such men as William Wilberforce, history proves over and over again that couching your political views in faith is a dangerous game that has caused much more sorrow than good.

Society is nothing more than the outward appearance of each individual heart shown together in a collective whole.  By forcing legislation and educational reform we’ve accomplished NOTHING other than to spread a pretty veneer over the whole rotting corpse.  Just ask the coroner.  A little makeup can make the person look pretty but they’re still embalmed.

A Response to the Corporate World and the Consumer Society

Tell me.  When did I lose it, this will to play your game?  I was indoctrinated, just like all the others and, until that moment that my own flesh turned against me, I fought you RIGHTEOUSLY!  My will was not yours to mold!  My soul not yours to trim.  I was not made in your image.  I was not made to be a cog in your factory, earning more money for the company portfolio at the expense of my rights to think clearly and to be distinctly me.

What right do you have to tell me who I am?

What right do you have to tell me I’m not normal?

DAMN your normalcy!  It is a trick of evil to proclaim a human soul in those terms.  I was made like this by my Creator.  You have NO RIGHT to judge otherwise!

I choose to take back my own soul.  I will spend the rest of my life giving it back to God through the strengths that he gave me.  I will no longer burn prose or poetry because it’s “not right for me to waste my time like that and besides it’s probably not good enough.”  I will no longer spend for the newest technology or nicer car simply in the hopes that someone that I probably don’t even like will cast a favourable glance on me.  I will no longer enslave my soul to debt but will free it through nature and wisdom.  The Mississippi River or the Appalachian Mountains can teach me much more than any college course on business and “the exciting world of acquisition.”

Anyone care to join me? 

The Dichotomy of Modern Christianity

On Sunday I am holy.

I wake up and talk myself into going to church, knowing it’s good for me.  I effuse brotherly love.  I am, in short, a happier man.  I come home and tickle my children, love on them for a few moments, feel redeemed, and than slowly drift back into my comfortable, rotting flesh by Monday afternoon.

The days have taken their toll.  Man has interfered again with my perfect plan of bearing my Abba’s gift to the masses, absolving them by my mere presence.  By Wednesday I’m cursing my neighbors, driving way too agressively and looking for reasons to be offended, and ignoring my family for my own pursuits.  By Saturday I relax somewhat.  After all, you can’t just run off to church on a Sunday morning without at least a few hours of holiness can you??

And than?

On Sunday I am holy.

So my life seems to ebb and flow.  I am a different man through those doors.  I see the smile of my family, I hear the music from the sanctuary, I see the joy of the children in the preschool, and than I can’t help but to notice that I’m not the only tired one.

It’s often puzzled me why we have two faces.  Why I can’t simply be true to myself (the one thing I’ve wanted more in life than anything else) and worship my Abba in truth and love and in every aspect.  The reason is simple actually.  I have relegated God into a Sunday morning parade with snippets of “put on the happy face here comes someone I know from church.”  So why do I do it?  Well I have always thought that it was my evil flesh circumventing my attempts and I’m sure that has much to do with it, but I wonder now if it is more basic than that.

I have two worlds that I operate in.  There is one that is for God (personal time, Sunday mornings, coffee with a friend; etc) and than there are the rest of the time.  After all, God surely isn’t the ruler of the rest of the world is he?  How can he be in charge of the place that I work, the people that I meet that are looking for a reason to hate and hurt, a world of reality shows and bad medical dramas?

That’s my dichotomy and, I believe, the dichotomy of many Christians.  We believe that we surely can’t be a Christian during the rest of the week.  After all, if we actually respond to what we believe and we act on what we believe we risk offense.  So, in order to fit in, we’ve created two realities, one for our faith, and one for our week.

The problem is that God doesn’t have this dichotomy and I’m pretty sure he calls it fence sitting.  God, if He is the God of everything, is also the God of culture and art.  He is the God of music.  He is the God of conversation, reason, business, commutes, and every other “secular” thing out there.  Just because these things have been abdicated to the secular by our society does not mean that this was God’s intention.  My guess is that God probably doesn’t believe in the word secular.

On Sunday I am holy.  Of course the reality of it is that I am the image bearer of Jesus EVERY day, not simply when walking into church.  This dichotomy is man made and is something that will burn.  So if it is dross, do we go ahead and drop the dead weight now or just keep carrying it around?  I’m ready to dump it.

Personal Update

Well I’ve been somewhat tardy in my postings as of late. I suppose I should explain a bit so that no one thinks that I’ve dropped off the face of the earth shortly after taking the bold step of starting the blog.
The fact is that I’ve started school again. I’m now taking a B.A. in English (EVERY time I write that or say it I hear that Avenue Q song). Getting used to course work has sapped most of my writing.
With that paltry excuse I will be delving back into the blog again, though this time the updates will not be quite so abundant. Life has once again interfered with dreams.

Salieri’s Curse

I was riveted the first time I saw the movie “Amadeus”.  I saw myself so clearly in one of the characters and it wasn’t Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  Oh I’d always dreamed of being a maestro.   Since the age of seven I’ve dreamed of writing my own symphonies.  I grew up in a family that valued music just as long as you don’t pursue it professionally.  So it should come as no shock to anyone that when I saw “Amadeus” for the first time I saw myself as that little Salieri sitting at the table, surrounded by an uncouth family that only wanted what was best for young Nigel (If you haven’t heard the song “Making Plans for Nigel” than you may be confused on that comment, not my intention but the song is worth mentioning by itself).

If you’re not familiar with the story of “Amadeus” than Salieri may hold no significance to you.  He was, as portrayed in the movie,  a mediocre talent in comparison to Mozart.  Salieri spent his whole life in the shadows of greatness, envying Mozart (again this is the movie version).  At one point he sardonically proclaims himself the “patron saint of mediocrity” and begins to absolve an insane asylum of it’s mediocrity.  He even goes so far as to declare himself an enemy to God and one that will dedicate his life to destroying God’s gift of Mozart because Salieri was cursed with the ability to feel the music on the level of a musician and appreciate it on that same level, but not given the ability to compose greatness; merely the ability to recognize it.

Yesterday while speaking to someone on my recent revelations that I have often refused any offers to play music or write because I was given some talent but not enough to make me immortal (yes I’m that petty deep in my heart) I was rejoined by him with a smile and the statement that I was acting “kind of like Salieri”.  Anyone that knows me knows that a reference such as that will light me up in a flash.  I began bubbling about how true that was and how ridiculous it is of me to deny my gifts and hoard them simply because they aren’t to the level that I’d hoped.

After a few minutes of self absorbed babble I realized that I was suffering under Salieri’s curse.

When I hear music, I hear it on a different level than many.  When I read a book I also understand it on a different level.  I don’t say this in pride or arrogance but rather out of the fact that I’m prone to hearing this pretty often from others and it would do me good to admit I have at least some redeeming qualities.  Because of this level of understanding I have that desire to write, to play music, to create but without the ability to attain greatness.  In consequence I have sat in my own madhouse now for 34 years, sulking over my mediocrity and quite unwilling to bless anyone else with what I have been given.

 

 

 

This person that I was speaking to penned something that has been a prod to me.  He states in a song entitled “How Big Small Can Be”

My hands cannot hold the world,
But they can help someone in need
My cash could never end hunger,
But it’ll help someone to eat

It may seem insignificant but lately,
I think that we are prone to forget

Just how big small can be,
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing
How big does small have to be
For us to do something?
And find how big small can be

- 1000 Generations from the album “Turn off the Lesser Lights”

This is the point of what I’m getting at.  I have become like that servant that Jesus warned about that was given a few coins and, rather than using them to gain more, hoarded them by burying them in the ground.  He was proud that he had not lost his master’s fortune but found that his master was angry at him for not enlarging the fortune.  How can we expect something to grow if it is not used or stretched from time to time?  How long do we sit and practice a song if we’re not going to share it with someone?  How often do we say “I’d like to write a novel some day” before we pick up a pen and paper?

I hope that we can all begin to use the talents that we have to help others.  I pray that we would all forget about our own selfish desires for fame and the fake fawning of popular appeal long enough to remember that it gains you nothing if you end as an embittered, hateful, lonely soul seeking death as your respite.

Life is not about hoarding and the one thing that I’ve been learning over and over is that the more I give to others the more I get in return both spiritually and even sometimes physically.  Or as someone that I know put it once “You can’t outgive God.”

Old Friends

It is good to get in touch with old friends. To share a memory or two with a beautiful face from your past. One that accepts you, not judging you by your sins, so ready to accept the goodness that you so rarely see in yourself. It is good to hear their voice, whether it is in person, long distance, or even printed on a computer screen; to be reminded of the rhythm of their words.

These are the moments that we all yearn for. We’ve all had that 2 a.m. epiphany when we’ve been up later than we imagined with someone that has surprised us with their wit, their candor, or their perception. These intoxicating moments where we’ve found someone to connect to are the moments we treasure.  Yet these are the exact moments that are lost the soonest, once we’ve begun this commercial business of life in earnest.

What friendships that are deeper than a kinsman’s blood have we jettisoned so quickly and eagerly in order to gain the approval of neighbors and coworkers; oftentimes people we don’t value or even people that we consider a latent enemy of sorts.  It is done by degrees, slowly chipping away what is truly valuable in the effort for a little extra chrome on a car that we borrow from a bank’s loan in order to appear prosperous.

So often we console ourselves with the notion that this trade off is for our own good.  Besides, we’ll make new friends, right?  Isn’t life about change?  And yet I cannot help but to ask to what are we changing from and to where are we headed? By allowing our friends to drift from us we wake up to find that an updated facebook photo is cold solace when it suddenly becomes clear that it’s the face of a stranger.

To my friends I say that I earnestly miss our conversations.  I miss the embarassing moments.  I miss the late night philosophical tangents, trying out new recipes at a new dinner table, driving to nowhere, or simply seeing you smile or shed a tear.  To my acquaintances I say, let’s agree to make it a friendship.  To all of you I ask that we not trade in relationships with family and relationships with friends that are more than family simply to get an extra 250 square feet on our house, our own office, or to say that we’re driving a car that makes strangers envy us.