Happy Birthday Johnny Cash

Today would have been Mr. Cash's 80th birthday. This Friday, I'll turn 28.

Perhaps I'm a bit full-of-myself to compare Johnny Cash to myself. I'm certainly not a renowned musician nor do I offer respite to prisoners all over this country with whatever gift I may have. But I have long felt a connection to the man in black.

I was first exposed to him with the release of "Hurt" (video is below) a cover of the Nine Inch Nails original. With this song, Johnny awoke a whole new generation to his prophetic voice. Not since George Jones moaned "He Stopped Loving Her Today," had I FELT music like this. Cash famously refused make-up for the shooting of the video to expose his fragility and the result was both shocking and disarming. Here was the man, not the celebrity, not the recording artist, but simply a man hurt.

While I agree that we as a culture elevate celebrities to unfair heights, some deserve their place. Johnny was one of those deserving persons a man who was not famous solely for his talent but for his soul. His story, now immortalized in Walk the Line, portrays a gifted but troubled young man who finds a second chance with God in the love of June Carter. But his story, and all of ours, is far more complicated and diverse than hollywood's portrayal. At its heart, his story is yours and mine as well. Redemption wrapped in black. numerous second chances and undeserved love. Immense promise mingled with immense failure. Desperation meeting hope.

I will not attempt any biography here, only a salute: To the Man in Black, thank you for truly living.

The Power of Fiction

On J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series:

Like Lewis, Williams, and other greats, Rowling has written a spiritual allegory of the soul's transformation to perfection in Christ. Fiction, as philosopher and historian of religion Mircea Eliade explained in The Sacred and the Profane, serves a religious function in a secular culture. Moderns are immunized against sacramental experience, prayer, and worship, yet still long for the transcendent, something beyond the ego. We find it in sports, film, and music, but most powerfully in books, especially in novels in which the heart recognizes its reflection in a character like Harry. We recognize and imaginatively experience our hearts' end in Christ's victory over death. -John Granger

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/july/harryherestay.html

Expecting to Lose

I have struggled with who I am, how I am defined. Throughout my life, I would give myself to certain interests and seek to be defined by them; whether it be dinosaurs, football, music, girls or even drugs. I would devote myself to be filled with every tidbit of info I could find about these interests and would find gratification in the search. But I have also felt a common thread through each of these things, I would lose.

Football has been the clearest example of this losing for me. My high school team lost 29 straight games during my career and went on to lose 20 more after I left. To be the captain of that team and to love something as much as I loved football, that hurt. I can't even give words to how it felt to lose so much or how demoralizing it is to think we never had a chance. And to add to this, the team that I gave my attention to, the South Carolina Gamecocks, were perennial underachievers. The first time they ever won a post season game came 100 years into their experiment with football back 1995.

We've flirted with success here and there but only to find our hands empty. After a while, you just expect to lose. I have realized that the one word that best sums up my self-opinion is 'loser.' Football seems small compared to the failed relationships, the drug abuse, practically flunking out of college, and severe depression that became my story.

God has this thing for giving new names. The great persecutor of the early church Saul, rode the meager christian out of town and into death, but God defeated him and gave him a new purpose and a new name, Paul. He would go on to write 2/3's of the New Testament and was almost single-handily responsible for bringing the faith to all of Europe. And yet he never forgot his first name, 'chief of sinners' and because he never forgot, the power of his new name was unsearchably immense.

God is giving me a new name too. Once a loser I now find myself living under the moniker of 'victorious.' Its a hard pill to swallow. Even though I sobered up, made it through college with honors, and have the greatest relationship of my life with my wife, I still am scared that I will lose it all, that I will lose even my new name.

And it was in the midst of this fear and uncertainty that I watched the Gamecocks win a second consecutive baseball national championship. And not just win it, but do it in style. Pulling off near-miraculous plays when all seemed lost, breaking the all-time records for consecutive tournament wins, to do it against near-insurmountable odds like your best player playing with a broken wrist. And best of all, I kept expecting them to lose and I was so wrong.

This team comes from a place that knows nothing of winning. The schools athletics seemed so doomed to lose that the local papers refer to the 'chicken curse' as stifling all the opportunities for victory. But this group of self-proclaim nobodies won in way never seen before. And while most simply enjoyed the spectacle, I was floored with the sprig of hope these gamecocks were bringing me.

I am not destined to lose.

Life has thrown me some wicked curve balls, I've had my share of brokenness but my expectations are changing with my name. I am beginning to believe that I might just win. And that, my friend, is the greatest hope I can imagine.

Patched Together

Last year as I traveled to and from my family in Arkansas, I devoured a little book called Patched Together by Brennen Manning. Manning, more than any author or speaker has inspired me and shaped my faith. I was privileged to hear him speak on the furious love of God for us in 2006 and his words of faith forever changed me.  I have since read some of his work, mostly non-fiction that deals with aspects of God's love for us, but this book, a piece of fiction was the simplest yet most profound work of Manning's I have yet encountered.

The book was given to me at a conference by a representative from David C. Cook publishing out of Colorado Springs. I shared my testimony of renewed love that stemmed form Manning's work. The story seemed both routine and invigorating for him, I imagine that he meets people everyday touched by Manning's honesty and truth and yet each encounter gives him hope as well. He informed me that Manning was rather ill, almost fully blind and near death even. He promised to give the book if I promised to pray for Brennen. It was an easy promise to make.

The story is autobiographical while still being fiction. We see the life of a man in three stages from childhood to death and the struggles that present themselves but most importantly the impossible victories as well. Not once was I spell-bound by some  fancy prose but always I was enthralled with the rawness of Willie Juan's life and his encounters with the Man of Sorrows. With grace, Manning weaves together a patchwork tapestry of life, love, pain, death, and mercy. Thankfully Manning is still with us and his actual autobiography is coming soon. But in the meantime, I encourage you to find yourself patched together and to join me in my promise to pray for this man.

Bound to Ramble, part 2

Harold returned to Polk County that fall a new creation. That Banjo had changed him deeply, now he could travel to that special place, somewhere like heaven, whenever his heart desired. Harold loved that hollow-back banjo so much, he gave it name, Verne. The name didn't mean anything in particular, Harold just thought it fit. Harold would sprint the mile and half between the bus stop and their old home place every afternoon so that he could pick on Verne. Sure their were chores that need to to be done, but Harold couldn't help himself, he was born to pick.

Harold's chops got pretty fine, pretty quick with all that practice. Anytime their was a singing downtown, Harold and Verne were there ready. Harold even started playing at church, although he hadn't been in a while, the temptation of getting to play more was greater than his sense of religous guilt. And despite how cold that old Baptist church felt, Harold's spirit would soar when Verne and him took a turn at "I'll Fly Away."

Those two were inseparable. Some evenings they would play on the porch and all creation seemed to join in the tune. The lightening bugs would float on the breeze, the willow tress would sway in rhythm and the stars sometimes seemed to jump with delight as Harold and Verne explored "Uncle Pen," embodying the chorus proclimation, "You could hear it talk, you could hear it sing." It wasn't long before Harold's reputation began to spread, folks who wouldn't dare step into a church were washing there Sunday bests to hear Harold and Verne give new life to the Heavenly Highway Hymnal. The Saturday night singings got so big that they had to move them to the park so everyone could hear.  While all this seemed like a dream come true, Harold became uneasy with his newfound fame and so did his family.

Its hard to nail down when things started to go wrong and especially why. Maybe from the moment the kids started listening to Harold over their Pa's stories, the root of jealousy struck. Harold's old man had struggled all his life to make a living for his family, he worked odd jobs around town, fixing fences, cutting wood, and of course he had been traveling to the delta every summer sense he was sixteen. But nobody ever come to see him do nothing. That boy put a piece of drift wood on a cigar box with leather laces and all of a sudden  Pa didn't matter so much. Unintentionally Pa began to drive the family against Harold, blaming him for everything. Secretly, he justed wanted his boy back, he was scared where all this would take him. Fear and jealously birthed a rift between the two that seemed near impossible to fix.

"Where you off to tonight son?" His Pa inquired.
"I'm gonna play with the Dickerson boys down in the next holler."
"Is that so?"
"Well, I reckon I ain't gotta."
"You dern right right you ain't gotta, there's plenty needs to be done round here fer you go off runnin round."
"Yes sir."
"Just cause you can pick the blasted thing bettern most don't mean you can do whatever you want."
"No sir, I didn't..."
"Don't talk back to me boy," his Pa interrupted, "I reckon it'd been far better had you never started on that old cigar-box."

These exchanges increased in frequency and intensity. What had once been the greatest blessing of his life had begun to drive a wedge between Harold and his family, especially his Pa. All he ever wanted was to escape, to find that place that made him forget his troubles but now instead he just found more trouble. If it weren't his Pa's nagging, then Brother Lee was telling not to stand out too much on Sunday's; they were for the Lord after all not bluegrass, or the ladies down at the auxiliary who thought he should play more jigs, or even Sally, his sister and a good singer in her own right, who thought she oughta to get a chance to shine like Harold. It seemed to him that he hadn't took anyone with him to that place but drove them all away. Of course that wasn't so, the town loved him to death but to Harold all he seemed to do was disappoint.  He wondered where that place had gone to, that place like heaven, it had been far too long since he'd had a visit. Now, whenever he plucked on Verne, his heart twisted in pain. The thing that had once been so good, now seemed broken, maybe it was him, maybe it was luck, but it just didn't work no more.

Harold remembers that night just as clear as any in his life. The pressure of everything had finally gotten him. He lay sleepless in his bed, a bit deranged. His chest felt as if an ox were sitting on it, he found it hard to breathe. And all he could hear in his head was "Man of Constant Sorrow." The words reverberated in his mind, he felt bound, like he was caged in.  The words became him, he wasn't born to pick but bound to ramble. He had no friends to help him now, so he sat up, packed a sack, grabbed Verne and left the town he was born and raised. He left home and with a purity of confusion determined never to return again. Heaven wasn't there no more and he doubted he would ever find it again.

Bound to Ramble, part one

Harold had the bushiest eyebrows in all of Polk county. Folks when they would meet him would always remark about his eyebrows, no matter what else Harlod did. And that was indeed an impressive feat for Harold also played a mean banjo. Harold had been playing since he was just a boy, traveling with his family to the flatlands in the summers to pick cotton. Those kids swore that those summer evenings in the Arkansas delta were as close to hell as any place on this here earth. The humidity was so thick you could slather it on a piece a bread with a spoon. And so Harold began to pick a homemade cigar-box banjo he had made to keep their minds off the heat. At first, The kids couldn't decide which was worse: the pickin or the climate. But Harold, like his daddy, was as stubborn as an old dog and he picked that poor banjo every night after pickin that poor cotton. With callosed and even bloody hands, Harold would struggle to figure out how to roll his fingers in time to make that banjo sing like all the greats. When they were in the hills in the off-season, they could sometimes pick up the Opry on the AM radio if it were clear enough. They had heard Earl Scruggs and Ralph Stanley and in that hearing they were transported, not to Nashville, but to somewhere even better, somewhere like heaven were their troubles weren't gone but understood. When Stanley would moan Man of Constant Sorrow, they knew that pain instinctively. And it was only in that place, somewhere like heaven, that Harold truley felt home, felt alive. He knew he was destined to pick.

And so he picked and by the end of that first summer, he not only had the finger-roll down but he could play a recognizable Orange Blossom Special and for a moment the family forgot all about the Opry and found that place of understanding had found them there in that ghost of a house they filled. Each of the kids got to spend some of the cotton money on themselves, usually they would buy some prize like a coca-cola or if they had had a real good harvest a new pair of shoes. But this summer, they left the coke in the icebox and threw in to get Harold a real banjo, a used one that a friend at the gin got in Memphis, but a real one nonetheless. Years later, Harold would think back on that day, on that banjo and he would still cry. Never had he been so surprised, so happy, so whole. Harold took that hollow-back banjo in his hands and he smelled the wood, cedar. As he inhaled the distinct smell, he knew it was a good gift, the best even. And as he sat down to pick it, the Orange Blossom Special never sounded so good and perhaps never again. When we was done, he laid it down on the bed beside him and nearly prayed over that instrument, "Its so good, so very good." And so it was, for a time.



This is part one of a five part short-story I will be publishing the next five Thursday nights.

Overflow of the Heart

As we approach Holy Week, I find myself reflective upon this season of Lent. Part of me wonders if I even tried at all to engage with Jesus as our local church has defined Lent. I at least set up a goal for myself, to study and practice the speech ethics of Jesus. To aid me in this I have been reading Eugene Peterson's book Tell it Slant, a study of Jesus' parables as he travels through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem and to the cross. In many ways, this season of Lent has mirrored that journey, as I've walked with Jesus through a foreign land. I wish that I had the same flare for the dramatic as Jesus, that I could interpret people's spiritual situations into well-crafted metaphors that people would be repeating two thousand years later, that I could set aside my agenda to be well-liked and to merely speak words that give life. Yet in my quest to see my tongue changed, I found God working on a very different part of me, my heart. Its often like this, I think, with God, we simply want to change our behaviors but He seems to care far more about who we are at our core. I found that to speak like Jesus did not mean learning smooth rhetoric but to be changed by his words.

And so as Jesus is preparing for his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem he tells a story about the life he is bringing us into. He tells of a master who entrusts ten servants with some investments, talents. When the master returns a King, he surveys how his tenants spent their talents. One especially daring servant risked his in high-stakes investments and doubled the King's returns. Another held tightly to his, afraid of losing it and is scolded by the master who subsequently takes the servant's little and gives it to the daring one. In this story Jesus is illustrating what it means to live in and move in his coming Kingdom. We are to throw caution to the wind and risk all.  He has given us tools to use and what he most desires is for us to go to work, without fear and with great hope.

So often I find myself like the last servant, keeping my talents to myself out of fear. I am so often afraid of failure that I fail to act at all, a failure in and of itself. Yet I see Jesus telling me that anything worth anything is going to take risk. He knew this keenly as he rode that donkey into the death trap that was Jerusalem. He knew what was on the line and he risked it all, even his life for his dream, for our dreams. He died and in that act of bravery he freed us all to do likewise. This season of Lent has challenged my heart at the basic level: I am coward, yet Jesus looks deep into my eyes and sees far beneath and proclaims that my name is "Courageous" and "Victorious." He bids me, and perhaps us all, to follow in his steps of daring even if it costs me my life, for the reward is doubly, even infinitely, greater.

Questions of Silence

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. -Abraham Lincoln

I was born to talk. 

My dad, when he had enough of my rambling, would say to me, "you could talk the ears off a brass monkey." I'm not sure I knew exactly what that meant but I knew it was his way of telling me to shut up. I spent so much time in the principal's office for talking in class that the principal from the local high school where my mom taught thought I was the office assistant at the elementary. As I've grown older, I have learned that I am a verbal processor, that I have to talk things out to understand them better. This often looks like a spew of unrelated mutterings and apologizes as I chase rabbits only to realize that everything I was trying to say made no sense at all. See, processing.  And yet, it is in the act of speaking that I find myself most fully connected with others and even with God. This deep connection has forced me to contemplate how I use my words, to dig into the meaning and power of speech. One of the scriptures primary lessons on on how to speak is to not do it. The Teacher in Ecclesiastes warns that we are human and thus our words before God must be few. Jesus' brother James also commands us to be slow to utter a word, but instead to speed to listen. Jesus himself warns that merely calling someone a fool can bring fiery judgment upon us. But, as one born to talk, learning to be silent is rather hard. 

Jesus showed excellent skill in public speaking. His proclamation of ministry intent at the synagogue, the sermon on the mount, the sermon on the plain, the pronouncement of woes against hypocrisy, and his various parables all exemplify a person who not only had something rather valuable to say but also wielded the power to say it well. Yet there are these times when Jesus is oddly silent, especially before the Sanhedrin. With his life on the line, he offers no great rhetoric to prove his divinity or even his innocence but merely remains silent, save a few choice words. Even though I know the ending, that He must die, I still read that story and just want him to stand up and tell them off, but he remains silent. He had the wisdom to know that no matter what he said, the end would remain the same and so he used his silence as a witness.

But this scenario is not likely for my daily encounters. How did Jesus speak in his day-to-day conversations? One great example is found in Luke 10:

Just then a religion scholar stood up with a question to test Jesus. "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life? 

He answered, "What's written in God's Law? How do you interpret it?" 

He said, "That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence-and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself." 

"Good answer!" said Jesus. "Do it and you'll live." 

Looking for a loophole, he asked, "And just how would you define 'neighbor'?" 

Jesus answered by telling a story. "There was once a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. On the way he was attacked by robbers. They took his clothes, beat him up, and went off leaving him half-dead.Luckily, a priest was on his way down the same road, but when he saw him he angled across to the other side.Then a Levite religious man showed up; he also avoided the injured man."A Samaritan traveling the road came on him. When he saw the man's condition, his heart went out to him.He gave him first aid, disinfecting and bandaging his wounds. Then he lifted him onto his donkey, led him to an inn, and made him comfortable.In the morning he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. If it costs any more, put it on my bill-I'll pay you on my way back.' 

"What do you think? Which of the three became a neighbor to the man attacked by robbers?" 

"The one who treated him kindly," the religion scholar responded. Jesus said, "Go and do the same."

Here we see a conversation dominated by questions. These are not integrating questions but ways of opening up, disarming one another. I recently watched a movie in which a teenage boy and girl try to get to know each other better and they play a game where they can only ask questions. The interesting thing is that it works, the questions spoke of a desire to not promote oneself but to know the other. Jesus here knows that the religious scholar wants to know what he's about and Jesus turns the question right back. Jesus seems less concerned about "preaching" the truth here as he is about connecting with this man. Even though Jesus speaks the most in this encounter, He never makes any commands other than supporting the conclusions the religious leader makes himself.  Jesus could have simply explained all this without the use of leading questions and story, but by doing so, He let himself be silent and listened to the answer that was already inside this man, and inside us all. 

In our conversations we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. And in so doing we may find less and less need to defend ourselves and our beliefs but to nurture the truth that is already in those around us. And just maybe, the act of listening will nurture the truth within us as well. The religious scholar challenged Jesus to find justification for how he treated his neighbor but in listening to Jesus' story he finds no defense of his definition of who his neighbor is, only a plea to be a neighbor. He finds not the answer to his question but the answer to a much more important one. And perhaps, he finds what he asked about in the beginning, eternal life.

What, I wonder, will we find?

What is the Church? Part 2: A Story

In December of 2005, I lost my life.  It was, in many ways, coming to an end.  I could almost feel the noose around my neck.  My life was defined by addictions to drugs, drink, and depression.  I was simply dark.  But as the Grateful Dead once sang, "you can see the light in the strangest places if you look at them right."  And sitting on a barstool in a frat bar that I bounced at, a friend came to me and asked what was wrong.  It was such a simple question, one that I often answered "nothing" to, but this night I was in a strange place and with whatever shred of hope I had left, I was straining see some semblance of light.  So I laid my troubles before this friend and in his confusing religious speak, something burst forth.  Grace, perhaps.  

Having little choice, I leapt at it.

Two days later I awoke in a Baptist church in Mammoth Spring, Arkansas; surreal, I know.  And whatever it was the burst forth in that bar, exploded that morning.  I fell in love with this person named Jesus and all the things I had done, that had defined me so, ceased causing me pain and finished their torment upon that man.  In my new freedom, all I could hope to utter was a tear-drenched "I'm sorry."  And in that most honest of prayers, I felt the arm of my cousin and the sweet forgiveness of my God.  I went home after the service and repeated the act of confession to my mom, who like our God prior, shushed me and simply said, "I forgive you, I love you, I am so glad you're home."   The invitation was before me in the outstretched arms of my crying mother.

Having little choice, I leapt at it.

Despite being home, I felt like a stranger.  I had never gone to Sunday school, I had never sung "I'll Fly Away," and I had sure never prayed believing that it made some sort of difference.  But this was my new home.  And something special burst forth in this strange place, I became part of a family.  These people had no reason to trust me, no reason to care about me.  I was a recovering addict from God-only-knows-where, but this community, Mammoth Spring First Baptist Church called me "son."  Less than a month in, I was already teaching.  They gave me a place helping out with the 4th-6th grade class.  Little did I know at the time, but those kids would teach me more than I ever taught them.  I could not help but lay awake at night back then and think about what was happening to me.  I once was alone, purposeless, blind, and drunk, but somehow God pulled me out of that mess and put me into a family, I was in every way a new man.  I soon began to to know the stories of this new family and I was invited to become a part of their next chapter, I was invited to dinner, to play music, but most of all, to simply be together.

Having little choice, I leapt at it.

People who were complete strangers a month ago, showed me the Grand Gulf, invited me to pick my mandolin back up and play in front of everyone, got on their backs and crawled underneath my car to see what was the matter, hugged me when I most needed it, and reminded me constantly that Jesus loved me whether they said it or not.  For someone who felt that love had slipped him by, this tasted the most sweet.  I thank God that He loved me so much, that he gave me to this thing called church.  I know these past few years have been both difficult and wonderful and everything in-between but I still made it, I survived by God.  Yet, I still wonder what tomorrow brings, whether or not I will continue this game of survival.  And in the midst of that doubt I sense something strange bursting through, whispering "trust me." And I also see something strange in the beautiful mess that is my church, extending its hand, asking me to come along to suffer and celebrate together.  It is a beautiful offer.

Having little choice, I leap at it.

What is the Church? Part 1: An Origin

I have recently been challenged to articulate what exactly the church is.  In many of the circles I have found myself in, the answers often included multi-syllable words ending in -ism and -ology.  While these words hold a depth of meaning, they lack a sense of heart.  To say that the church is a "heterogeneous, multi-ethnic, fellowship committed to orthodoxy and worship through a prescribed liturgy" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  Do not get me wrong, I think the definition is accurate, just not palatable.  I need something to sink my teeth into, something that speaks to me as a person who gets up at 4:40 am to go to work to support my family.  While the -isms and -ologies translate in the classroom, they sound an awful lot like a clanging gong to those of us not so well-versed. Beyond this, these words lack a vitality that dresses the church in rather drab cloakings.  The church is a fierce, living, breathing entity, a story in the process and it deserves to be described as such.

The very first church was like this:

" They spent everyday eating together, laughing and crying, relishing honest conversation over good meals.  They strived to live together in a radical way, giving away everything if they had too, so that no one suffered.  They would cry out to God for help because they desperately needed it and would sing songs of "thank you" whether He answered or not.  They committed themselves to live out Jesus' love commands as taught by his closet friends.  They were one despite being so different, daring and hoping to change the world one act of intentional kindness at a time.  And by this, the world took notice and smiled and some even risked it all to join this group so devoted to one another that they could truly be called a family." (Acts 2: 42-47, My paraphrase)

This is a story I can give myself to.  This is the story I have given myself to.

This week I will explore this story of who the church is and I thirst for your thoughts and convictions as well.  

That High Lonesome Sound

One of my many passions is music.  Although I enjoy nearly every genre, one stands above the rest: bluegrass.  While there are many different definitions of what is or is not bluegrass, anything with a banjo and mandolin makes my heart sing.  One of the many reasons that I cherish Americana roots music is the sense of adventure found in the improvisation. There is something daring and beautiful that happens when a picker takes a turn and lets his fingers dance a bit.  This excites me because rarely can we witness the creation of something so beautiful and also unique, that moment of improvisation is both given and lost in a moment and only the reverberations linger.

There is a soul to this music rooted in the hills of Appalachia, nurtured in the hills of the Ozarks and refined the mountains of Colorado.  When I think on the geographic progression of the music, it mimics my move from the Carolinas to Colorado via Arkansas.  The words speak of hope found in pain seen through the lens of folk tied desperately to an unforgiving and rocky land.  Bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe defines the music this way: "Scottish bagpipes and ole-time fiddlin'. It's Methodist and Holiness and Baptist. It's blues and jazz, and it has a high lonesome sound. It's plain music that tells a good story. It's played from my heart to your heart, and it will touch you. Bluegrass is music that matters." In many ways, Bluegrass music is the truest form of American music, a melting pot of European and African influences.  It is in our bones and it is in my blood.

My deepest attraction to this music is found in the "high lonesome sound" of my Grandfather Madison Pierce's Dobro (pictured above).  Before he left us nearly 20 years ago, Madison would tune his Dobro and head downtown for a "singing."  there other musicians would congregate to play the standards, a few hymns, and maybe a country song or two.  Everyone was invited to sit-in, there was no set band but you better be ready cause if you got the nod, you better have something to offer.  I am sad that I've only heard stories and seen videos of these singings. Yet, just as talented of a musician as my Grandfather was, so also he could tell a story and that gift in particular has carried down to his family.  My Grandma can bring me to tears merely describing the tone of Madison's Dobro.  That steel whine provides the soundtrack to my dreams.  Oh, I can't wait to pick one out with him one day in glory.  But for now, I honor my heritage and my heart by playing and listening to the music I love dearest.  And this is good because this is true music.  It tells the story of our pain and finds the courage to celebrate in the midst of that pain.  The "high lonesome sound" knows trouble and yet hopes for a brighter day when our tears are made dry.

So I leave you with a sample of that "high lonesome sound."

Story Time

I was recently challenged to tell the whole story of the Bible in a few words.  Condensing a thousand page book, thick with theology, history, and all kinds of literary genres is no small feat.  Below is what poured out in a fury during this creative session.  I have not edited this from its original content.

Everything was created by God.  Of it all, man was God’s most prized work. God shared His image with man and loved him.  However, man disobeyed God through sin bringing death into creation.  This act cursed everything. But God began to reclaim His prize.  He made Abraham His son and made a covenant with Him, that through him, God would restore the nations to Himself.  This promise was carried out in the people of Israel whom God brought out of slavery and into the promised land.

This people had a great King, David, in whom God reaffirmed His promise to Abraham, adding that David’s son would build a temple and in this temple God would live with His people.  (This son would be Jesus Christ and His followers would be that Temple through which God would again dwell amongst His people.)  Israel turned away from God and was sent again into exile (slavery) away from the promised land.  The people longed for a Messiah and King to free them from exile, for even when they returned to the land they were still in exile because the land was not theirs.

God, at the perfect time, steps into history as a man, Jesus, and becomes the fulfillment of all God’s promises.  In Jesus, God brings His people out of exile to fulfill their purpose, to be the light of the world and to usher in His kingdom, bringing all nations to the Temple and thus the presence of God.  Jesus secures the redemption of Israel through His death and resurrection, vindicating God and ushering in a new era of resurrection.  Jesus commissions His Church to carry out His plan of blessing the nations by being the light of the world.  He promises to dwell among them in the Holy Spirit and to one day return and finally fulfill His ultimate desire and our destiny, the making new of all things, perfect communion restored with the Father and life everlasting.

True Grit: Review and Reflection

As the snow fell on the Colorado Foothills this past Wednesday, excitement grew within my home.  This night we were to see True Grit, the new Coen Brothers movie starring one of my favorite actors, Jeff Bridges.  I received an ominous call from our viewing companion in which the soundness of our plan was challenged due to the winter weather.  I reminded my friend of the movie's title and all question of canceling was put to rest.  While this resembled humor, I was dead serious, I busting at the seams to see this movie. Rarely do movies exceed my expectations and I had rather high ones for this film. Thankfully, I was surprised by this work of art.  I know that our culture (especially my generation) has devalued the use of superlatives by claiming that every new item, event, movie, song, or even candy bar is "epic" or "life-changing."  So with no small amount of trepidation I can say that True Grit was one of the best movies I have ever seen.  While no doubt many other works of great cinema have alluded me, this was a stroke of genius compared to the stale stories I have endured over my film-viewing experience.  It contained rich characters, surprising dialogue, dark humor, intensely-understated imagery, a compelling score of reinvented hymns, and a pace that demanded your attention; it was simply a good story.  The movie forced me to count the severe cost of revenge, to hope for redemption in even the most stubborn, and to wonder if I could possibly tell such a captivating story.  When the show was over, I just sat silent in my chair, paralyzed by the sheer beauty of it all.  I love these moments when I try not to put thoughts or words to what I am experiencing, but I just simply experience it.  N. T. Wright shares a story of a classical ballerina who after performing an epic piece is asked what it meant.  She replies, "If I could express what it meant in words, I would not have to dance it."  I pray for more story-telling, more art, more dance such as this, leaving us with a burning hearts and inadequate words.

Review and Devotion Thoughts on A Million Miles

 After reading Blue Like Jazz a few years ago, I became a fan of Donald Miller’s work.  In that memoir he gives a humble and fresh perspective on the journey of faith.  His experiences, struggles, and desires resonated with me as I wrestled with what my faith was all about.  A Million Miles in a Thousand Years picks up Miller’s life story where his previous work left off.  He has found himself stalled wondering what his life is becoming and as he is forced to 'edit his life' for a movie adaptation of Blue Like Jazz, he is awakened to the reality that his life, his story, is not worth telling; propelling him into a spiritual quest to begin living a good story.  As I read this book, I too was faced with the boring reality that is my life but also with the vast potential my story possesses.  I, like Miller, want to live a good story.

            Miller exhibits masterful control of conversational language that draws the reader into his story, allowing them to participate not merely observe.  This gift is the force behind Miller’s popularity and is what makes his work so convincing.  Here in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Miller brings his audience along for a new spiritual quest, to find meaning and purpose in life.  He is thrust into this journey when a couple of film-makers desire to turn his memoir into a movie.  Miller is stunned to discover the amount of rewriting is needed to turn his best-selling book into a movie people will actually want to see.  In the process of rewriting, Miller begins to explore the components of story and apply them to his life.  He boils down a definition of story as “a character that wants something and overcomes conflict to get it.”  Miller contrasts our lives against this definition through the illustration of a man who really wants to buy a Volvo, so he saves up for three years and is finally able to buy a Volvo.  Miller declares that if we saw a movie about this we say that this story “sucks" and thus maybe our lives suck too.  He proposes that we change our desires for what we want.  Miller’s quest takes him to seek reconciliation with his dad, to hike the Incan trail, to bike across America, but most importantly to start the Mentoring Project in efforts to connect fatherless boys with good male role-models in hopes of changing their lives.  In this effort, Miller has found himself in the midst of a great story and the reader, myself included, is left wondering what our stories might look like.

            This challenge to live a better story is the reward of this book.  I felt a renewed passion to live, to fight for goodness and beauty, to see myself and my story in the context of the greatest story ever told, the gospel.  I found it difficult to read of the spiritual awakening of another and not hunger for that same awakening.  I too wanted to do the things I always dreamed of but the practicality of life choked to death.  But like Miller, I wanted my story to be more than climbing mountains, even though that offers a wonderful backdrop to our stories. I wanted to bring goodness to my community, to the world.  The way I see this unfolding in my life is multi-faceted.  I want to plant a church and see the broken find wholeness in Christ.  I want to labor in the effort of seeing my daughter grow into a woman of God, fully loved.  I want to provide wheel-chair ramps for the disadvantaged and disabled people of the Denver metro area.  I want to live a good story.  Our stories have only begun, especially if we believe in eternity.  But we only have a short time here on earth to make something beautiful, to honor God, to live good stories.  So like Miller, we must ask ourselves, "what do we want? What conflict am I willing to overcome to get it?"  And when we answer these honestly, we can then begin the quest of truly living.

Sermon For Class on Romans 12:9-16- Genuine Love is the Foundation of Genuine Relationships

A feather fluidly descends upon an Alabama bus stop, resting beside the well-worn Nike tennis shoe of a slender, flat-topped man.  As he awaits his bus with a box of half-eaten chocolates across his lap, he introduces himself to his neighbor and begins to tell his story.  He has met Elvis, overcome a crippling disability, played football for Bear Bryant, met the president, gained and lost the best friend of his life in Vietnam, survived a hurricane, ran across America numerous times, lost his momma, and of course he tells us about Jenny.  We find ourselves like Mr. Gump’s neighbors captivated by his stories, by his life.  This is a fascination that goes beyond Forrest and speaks to each of us; we are all lovers of story.  Billions of dollars are spent each year in the consumption of various forms of stories, be it movies, television, or books.  Take for instance the millions of young people, who despite their Attention Deficit Disorder, spend numerous, consecutive hours thumbing through 800 pages of a vampire love-story.  The desire for story begins in us early as we climb into our parent’s lap and with acute determination and cunning innocence ask, “Daddy, will you tell me a story?”  This fascination grips us early and really never lets us go.  I love holidays at Grandma’s in Arkansas.  No matter where you go, stories are in the air, stories of fishing, cars, childhood mischief, and of family members no longer with us.  We gather around our memories and in the retelling, we relive them.  From birth to death, something inside of us longs for a good story.  But why?  What is it about stories that intrigue us so?

            We could define story like the textbooks do, defining the component parts such as narrative hook, conflict, climax, and resolution.  However, I believe something else is going on below the surface, something that gets at our love-affair with story, that is they deal the extremes of life, such as joy and pain, hope and despair, winning and losing, fall and redemption.  And it is in these extremes that that life truly happens.  We long for stories because they give definition to our own stories, our own lives.  One of my favorite movies is Walk the Line, the masterfully-told story of the life of Johnny and June Carter Cash.  It shows a deeply talented yet deeply troubled young man.  Johnny, like so many in his field, watches from the sidelines as substance-abuse takes over his life at the loss of everything he loves.  But at the height of his fall June sticks with him, protects him, nurses him, loves him.  Johnny can’t believe her love in the face of his sin, he knows and professes that he’s hurt everybody, he’s nothing.  But June fights back, “You’re not nothing, you’re not nothing.  You’re a good man, and God has given you a second chance to make things right, John.  This is your second chance honey.” Johnny emerges a new man and in some way, as we watch, we do as well.  Stories like that resonate because we all know the depths to which we can fall and we wander if someone will ever love us the way June loved Johnny, we wonder if God will give us a second chance. Stories help to remind us what it means to truly live, that life is more than our jobs, our school, our routines, but that life trips us up but also picks us up.  Life and I mean real, abundant life is seen, perhaps exclusively, in those extremities of pain and joy, hunger and fulfillment, life and even death.

            A couple of years ago I formed a relationship with an 8-year old boy named Chris.  Chris came from a tough family, his dad, his hero, was in jail for murder and his mom was rather poor.  Despite this, Chris was full of life and probably taught me more than I taught him.  A few months after we became friends, I received a phone-call informing me that Chris’s dad had killed himself in jail.  I cannot remember a time in my life when I have ever hurt so badly.  Why did this kid, so alive, have to deal with death so tragic?  I’m not sure I, or any of us, will ever understand why.  But I do know that in those tears, in the pain of questioning God, I was at least in part experiencing what it meant to truly be alive. 

            But there is something else foundational to a good story, something that gives force to these emotions and events, something, in fact the very thing, that makes story so personal for us: relationships.  This is the common thread of all of our stories; June and Johnny, Chris and his Dad, us and God.  Even stories of solitude deal with the absence of relationship.  Because relationship is so foundational to story we find it foundational to life as well.  We were created for the very purpose of relationship.  But the relationships that make good stories are not just average run-of-the-mill relationships, if there is such a thing, but significant ones.  These are genuine relationships, real, fully alive people struggling through life together, learning how to relate to one another and to God. 

            Relationship is core to story and thus core to life.  In his epistle to the Roman church, our dear friend Paul guides us into the abundant life through the context of relationships.  In fact the entire book can be seen through the lens of relationships.  The first 11 chapters deal with the theology of reconciliation, detailing how Jesus had mended the broken relationship between God and man.  In the final five chapters, Paul explains what our lives should look like in response to these mercies of reconciliation; although we are many we become one in God, each gifted for the benefit of others, we must love even our enemies and be subject to authority, that the entire law is summed in love for our neighbors, that we must sacrifice our rights for the welfare of the weaker brother.  Paul ends the letter fittingly: “I’m sending so and so to you, tell so and so I miss them, I can’t wait to see you.”  In his appeal for us to welcome one another, Paul goes to great lengths to welcome all he knows in Rome, he is indeed practicing what he preaches.  But I believe Paul is saying something very specific about our stories, about our relationships in verses 9-16 of chapter 12: 

9 Let love be genuine.Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.

           Paul begins this section by merely saying “Genuine Love.”  In our English translations we have added the “let” and the “be” in order to make sense of it.  But perhaps Paul is simply titling the following imperatives illustrating what genuine love looks like.  He deals with hope and charity, blessing even those who persecute us, and instructs us to weep with ones weeping and rejoice with the ones rejoicing.  We are to participate in life with one another, in the extremes of persecution and hope, weeping and mourning.  For when we cry together, we live and when we laugh together, we live.  Core to a good story are good relationships, which begs the haunting question: “How much of our lives is worth telling?”

            Genuine love is the foundation of genuine relationships.  Yet hypocrisy, pride, and ignorance choke out our love, our relationships, our stories.  So we spend $15 every Friday night to escape for two hours, because instead of risking it all and truly living, we’d rather play it safe and watch someone else live.  O that our lives were even horror stories, but they are simply boring and not really stories at all.  They are not good because our love and thus our relationships are not good, are not genuine.  My story is lacking because I love what is evil, I outdo others in pursuit of honor, because I am not daring in the spirit, I grow impatient in difficult times, and only extend hospitality to the familiar.  I curse those who bless me, mock those who rejoice and ignore those who weep.  I can not live harmoniously because I am the wisest person I know.  My story is not good.  How is yours?