What's that stink? (part 2)

(continued from part 1...)


So here's the thing...when I came home, and started working at home, with my boys, the headphones disappeared. They didn't vanish into thin air, mind you, I just felt sort of weird not being able to hear the boys when they'd fall, or get into a fight, or wander off in the grocery store. The grocery store seems like the scariest, but let me tell you, the rough-and-tumble punks that these boys seem to draw into fights are WAY scarier! (j/k, j/k.) Plus I looked sort of weird just walking around with these big -28db headphones on. So they're downstairs in my garage on a hook.

Well, what do you know? Put down the headphones, and I didn't listen to my iPod Bible nearly as much...no, really, I'm serious. Anyways, for awhile, I rationalized that I was "in the Spirit" as much as I had been before, and maybe I could pull it off this way at some other time in my life, but I've been feeling the loss. Do you know that feeling? That you are missing out on something good, but don't really know where it is, or why you're missing it? And you don't even have that good a reason.

I used to say sometimes that in order to hear God speak, you have to put his words into your lexicon, your language. You can listen to a Spaniard talk till he passes out, but if you don't know any spanish words, well, it's just more of that babble-speak. It can't bless anything more than a sneeze. You have to know the language. It has to be in your head, and in your heart. And it takes a lot longer to use if you're just wandering the streets of Spain, "soaking in the spirit of Spain." Or just "following your gut." Usually a few lessons in Spanish, and ongoing communication in Spanish help.

...

So I went down into my basement this morning, and sat down in my special "chair". Usually that's enough to transport me immediately into a spiritual trance that would make George Harrison blush. No, just kidding. I looked at my journal, over here, and the piles of different devotional readings I've compiled over the years of trying to bridge the gap between me and God. I started to read the great standard, "My Utmost for His Highest" noting with a bit of disgust how many pages I had to skip to get from the bookmark to the current date. I wonder how many people in the history of the world have memorized the first 20 or so entries of this book?

I started, and then I stopped. The book sort of fell shut in my lap. I was so frustrated. This damn thing isn't going to get me any closer to God! HOW!?

I suppose I have so many of these books because no single one of them has ever done the trick. Maybe the next one. Right?

I looked up the verse that our good preacher was going to briefly touch on during today's homily. As I read, I started to catch myself sort of glazing over. Not good.

I picked up my journal. I'd sort of stopped writing in it, because I was caught myself just writing. I didn't feel like I was interacting with God so much as writing down what I'd tell him IF I was actually interacting with Him. Stupid? I don't know.

On this morning, I was going to push through. I wrote-a couple lines. A thought. And then I'd focus in and pray the thought-the line. And I wrote a good portion of the page. Now, sitting here, I can't tell you what I specifically prayed for-but I can tell you that the time spent has left an impression of sorts. I kept praying the Jesus' spirit and God's word would be like smoke.

When I was young and hip I burned up sticks of incense. I'd light 'em up, and flick on some colored lights and "get in touch" with my inner self. Or something. I'm pretty sure I'd still do it if my wife didn't dislike very strong fragrances as much as she did. I'm pretty sure I'd look as dorky now as I probably did then as I sat there trying to go to my happy place.

There's something mystical that happens when you light incense and sit back to observe it burn itself out. For thousands of years burning incense has been a crucial part of bridging the gap between man and his faith-god. Something about smell, something about the intangible mist of smoke-maybe the act of setting fire to something potent, something closes the gap. And causes the man to remember. And every time he smells *that smell*, he knows and feels in the core of his person that he stands on holy ground.

That was the thought I kept having as I sat in my special chair in my little room. God, cover me up with smoke. Make Your spirit like a cloud that I walk through-as I pass through wrap me up. Follow me with hundreds of swirling tendrils-and like a grape-vine tie yourself around me, only instead of me holding You, stand me up. Let your word be to me like the smoke of incense. That it would permeate my clothing, and be like oil on my skin, so that through the day, I catch the scent of Pureness, the scent of Holiness, and the aroma of the throne room of the God of All.

I loved that prayer. I kept thinking about it through the day. Incense will leave it's trace on your fingers, and you can hold them to your face and smell the incense that is left. But if you want to really reek, you gotta light that thing. And then you have to stand over it, and draw the smoke over your face, over your arms. Rub it into your clothing and through your hair. Even suck it into your lungs, like cigarette smoke, smelling it with every breath.

That's what prayer needs to be. That's what getting close to God is. That's why we have scripture. It's not to know each story, so that as you go, you say, "ah, nope, I already know this one. Skip to the next one." Today I learned that God's word stinks. And you can totally tell when somebody has been around it. Or when you've been around it.

Word.

Amen.

What's that stink? (part I)

When I was *gainfully* employed, I imposed a fairly strict hearing protection policy on myself. It didn't require a great deal of pain or enforcement though, because I had rigged a set of earphones into my 'muffs. I could run a wire down the inside of my shirt to my mp3 player and spend a good chunk of the day completely isolated from the world. Aahhhhhh. Blessed solitude.

I studied songs. I read books. I could even listen to podcasts from some of my favorite pastors and preachers. But one of my favorite things to do was to just listen to the bible.

...

When I was in college I had a really tough time figuring out what I should major in. I started out with no major at all. Just a pre-professional program. The registrar took it upon himself to select what HE thought was an appropriate major for me: History. Well, when I saw that, I thought to myself, self, maybe you BETTER study up. You just might find out when you signed up for THAT. So I changed it. I think I changed it to Psychology. A couple semesters of that, and I thought, maybe English Literature. So I switched it to that. I spent a year and change doing that. I took some poetry courses (ahh, matters of the heart), and explored my ontological angst from a literary and artistic perspective.

During my "English period" (as I like to call it) I had the good fortune to take a class on Shakespearean literature from a highly charged professor named Bob DeSmith. He REALLY liked the Bard, and infectiously spread light into what had previously been very dark and ambiguous language. I found that when he read it, his expression and vocal inflection was like a 500W halogen bulb on the page.

A theatre prof, Simon duToit, had a similar impact on me (I only experimented with theatre, never even considered majoring) with MacBeth. The language took on so much meaning when read out loud---it was like---magic. It went from being this lofty, majestic, babble-speak to...human language.

Finally, I confess, Hollywood livened Shakespeare for me too. Watching Mel Gibson's adaptation of Hamlet, and Ken Branagh's of Much Ado about Nothing, Baz's Romeo + Juliet, had very similar impacts. Something that was inserted into the text that made it come alive, human: voice...voce.

...

I went to a pretty small Christian college, located in a reasonably sized rural town. Now, that judgment is in hind sight. I was coming to it from a small city, so I suffered some pretty significant culture shock. But I came to love the small town. But I digress. Again. Key to the topic at hand was the absolute immersion into what was a fairly homogeneous "Christian ghetto."

After my "English period" I finally fell into something I really loved and could come to use for the rest of my life: Philosophy. (Now, some of you are saying to yourself "didn't he do that after History?" and the answer is no. Not quite). Philosophy was where I learned some really great three-dollar words like ontological, and weltenshaung, and angst. That's where I learned to ask questions that couldn't be answered, use words like absurd in an altogether fresh way (for me), and to answer questions with another question.

One thing I simply couldn't learn was how to read the bible, God's written word, as an academic AND as a believer. OH! Years and years afterwards, the bible didn't get cracked. But my faith grew. I never stopped believing. I never even really stopped practicing. But the bible was like dust in my mouth. I couldn't read it apart from my philosophical practice. Was that my discipline's fault? No. Professors? Nope, not them either. Mine. Sin. Whatever. It was a problem though. Until I remembered the strength of voice.

That was when I started buying up narrated bibles. I never went in for the James Earl Jones collection, or Larry King (I'd consider Johnny Cash I think). Just good old fashioned narrated by some shmoe in Grand Rapids NIV bible. Not bad. I could spend time in the word, and it started to sound different in my head.

But when I found out that you could buy DRAMATIZED audio bibles, that just about blew my socks inside out. Geekie, huh? Well, I've purchased two. And they have been at times hokie (like when "everybody" says the same thing at once), and frightening (Revelations, or Ezekial can get pretty intense). But the most remarkable thing has happened. I started to hear Jesus' voice. I started to understand Jesus, the man. His language became human...more real, more sensible. More...*real*.

...

When I worked, I could spend, literally, hours listening to stories the God's ongoing and covenental grace to the Israelites. Stories of God's superheroes and super-failures. And I could listen to Jesus walking through his short life with his thick-headed, low-life bottom feeder friends. I started to think I might actually be getting to know Jesus a little better.

...more to come...

The Days in Between (a little mental wandering--come along for the walk)

I guess I must think a lot about death. I wouldn't say I obsess over it-I wouldn't say that. Someone else might. But this isn't their blog-is it. No. It's mine.

So, I've written quite a bit about my dad, his death, his views on death, my experience as a partner in his death, and much of my way of thinking I believe to be influenced by the idea or concept of death. The fact of it. My entire spiritual existence revolves inextricably around it.

And it is my opinion, as one who holds many opinions, that we as a race are absolutely obsessed with death-the every aspect of our existence touches death in some manner-either assisting us to avoid and forget about it, to master our existence over and above it, to somehow delay and deny its power over us, to disguise it as something else, to reshape it into something good, necessary, or lacking in any kind of moral value whatsoever.

I wonder though-is the contemporary perspective on death too cut and dry? I think I perceive (this is me attempting to define the "contemporary perspective on death" with absolutely no sort of academic integrity-totally based on my gut, ok?) death in our world as an event that is organic, final, inevitable. I wonder, now that I'm choosing my words-the roots of the word inevitable. in-e-vit-able. I don't know how this is classified in pedagogical circles, but when I try to understand a word, I frequently look at the little bit of latin I know, and apply what I know of that (example would be "veritably" and the latin word, "veritas" which means "truth") to the word I'm trying to understand. Sometimes it works, sometimes, well, I have other tricks too.

When I see the word "inevitable" I sort of transliterate "vit" to vital, vida, viva or vitamin-I think life. "In" has its own little meaning in my mind, having to do with fate, or determination, actually, whenever I see "in" as part of a word, I come back to inevitable. So, there's that. Anyway, then able has that sense of action, of motion moving forward like a wave.

Ok...that was quite the little tangent. Back to the topic. Death. Final. Organic. Inevitable. So, I sense that the sort of colloquial understanding of death is that it is the ceasing-to-exist. "Religion" tries to soften the blow to the fragile human ego by offering some sort of immaterial existence beyond the life we touch right now. The bold and enlightened mind accepts, however, the materialist's perspective, and holds to the notion that the failure to breathe is the end of our existence.

And that perspective of material and immaterial coexisting is difficult enough to understand--where is the immaterial connected to the material? Where does the spirit reside?

It is such a prevalent idea-that we exist in two parts-material and immaterial-spirit and flesh, soul and body-that it makes the ideas of life and death so hard to cognate. There is that dissonance in our head.

The bible talks about heaven and hell. Paradise and the lake of fire. Everlasting Life. And everlasting condemnation. These are big, big words. What if Life and Death are not portals? What if they are not doors we go through? What if existence IS? and "Life" and "Death" are simply WAYS of understanding existence?

We base our penal system somewhat on the idea that you live in death. Life in prison. That's not really living, is it? Life with a paralyzing disease? Not living. There's such a thing as merciful homicide in some places, because of living deaths like those I've described. I've come to wonder: Could it be that Death and Life exist side by side as mutually exclusive ontological realities? Death isn't so much a lack of existence, as much as it is possibly a WAY of existing.

So then, what constitutes "Life" as a way of existing? "Death" as a way of existing?

When do you feel alive?

When do you feel dead?

I bet it's simpler to answer those questions than you'd like to admit...

Dear Dale: about Laying Down Your Life...

*This is an excerpt from the Creeds and Confessions of the Reformed Church in America with regards to the liturgy of Marriage:

Hear now what Holy Scripture doth teach as touching the duty of husbands to their wives and of wives to their husbands.

Husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word. So ought men to love their wives as their
own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh...

_____________________________________________________________________________


Dale,
Well, its been just over a week since we last met. And really, we didn't talk, and that's understandable, it being that you were the man of the day, and I was just there to watch. Congratulations by the way, and I must say, the white tux was a pretty ballsy move. But I think you guys looked great.

The statement I quoted from above has been jingling around in my pocket, like a mostly full change-purse and a key ring. My dad used to carry so much stuff around, all the time. At any given time, he'd have a small hair comb, his wallet, a small coin purse, another little black leather purse which produced his key ring, finger nail clippers, a calculator, a matching pen and pencil set, a checkbook-I think that's about it. And that was before cell phones and iPods. He might have carried a cell phone if he'd lived long enough, but I highly doubt he'd have gone all the way for an iPod.

Anyways, I'm getting off track. All week that snippet from your wedding liturgy has been clanging around in my pocket like my dad's coin purse.

You and I-we've agreed to lay down our lives, as Christ did for the Church eternal. We agree so easily, eh? How many men, like you and me, have agreed to lay down our lives, imagining firing squads, or burning houses, or lifeboats with just one seat left?

Jesus died for the sake of the Church. Yes. He gave up his life. But I've begun to rethink the phrase "lay down your life." I haven't known anyone who literally died to save his wife. I hope I never do. But I realized, as I was listening to you and your lovely recite your vows last week, that laying down your life happens well before the firing squad lines up. And it's way harder than staring down a bullet.

I guess I wanted to tell you what laying down my life has looked like. And I really think that laying down your life at the altar of your marriage will make you the happiest man on earth...

Laying down my life. Hmm. In the the apostle Paul's letter to the Philippians, he says the Jesus made himself obedient to death, even death on a cross. Similar to the statement that we (husbands must lay down our life) make on the altar of our marriage, I think we've looked past the foreground for the harshness of the background. I've come to think that while yes, it's a true statement that Jesus made himself subject to the death on the cross, what is MORE true is that he made himself obedient to God, every time, each decision, every step of the way, knowing that the social and legal penalties imposed upon him by the institutions of human power grew more and more severe-he remained obedient to God's will, each time, even when the next penalty was the most socially abhorrent and disgusting kind of death imaginable. I've come to think of my marriage in a similar manner.

Ok. When you've stopped laughing I'll go ahead and make my disclaimer. NO, my marriage is not the most socially abhorrent and disgusting kind of death imaginable. Ok. Well, we've all had a good chuckle over that.

What I mean, is that laying down my life for my wife, as Christ laid down his for the Church, looks similar in that each step, each moment, each little decision goes through different filters than it used to. I used to ask myself, what will this decision benefit me? What will it cost me? Will the pleasure I receive outweigh the cost to myself? Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I think you understand what I mean.

Laying down my life has come to mean that those filters have become obsolete in a sense. My new lenses, or filters to continue the metaphor, have more to do with the cost to my wife, and my boys. And the benefits that they will receive. I'm speaking very non-specifically. I apologize for that. In my first draft of this letter, I listed off a few things that I think of when I think of sacrifice. Problem is, not everybody values everything the same. And viewed from the wrong perspective, it looks like a list of things that my wife has made me give up. And that's exactly wrong. They are things that I've laid aside because my wife, and my family are of greater importance and value.

So instead, I'll simply tell you that laying down your life is not what you think. It can be much, much harder. It's not the crushing boulder. It's the constant drip of pebbles. What?! Sounds painful? Sounds like a nuisance? That's not what marriage should sound like!

Yeah, you're right. That's sin for you. But God blesses the sacrifice. You lay down your life, and He will open her eyes so that she'll see it. And it will make her so happy to be married to you that you will never. ever. regret it. And that is what will make you the happiest man on earth. Take my word for it. Someday you will start thinking to yourself, "how could I have ever been so fortunate that I can spend my mortal life with this beautiful girl?" and "how unbelievable that eternity with her in God's perfect new world is even BETTER?!"

Yeah. That's what I think.