Pieces of Work
Except that I’m just not really all that sure that God is all that concerned about being entertained. I’m not sure except that’s just a human thing. Sometimes you try to impress God with all the right words and I just don’t think it’s an easy thing to impress God Almighty. If you know what I mean. And here is the thing that I think we often forget – is that we don’t have to impress Him. Cause He’s already knocked out about you. He already loves you more than you can imagine.
I remember reading a thing that Picasso once said. I like to read what famous artists have to say because I’m barely able to look a their paintings without going into a coma trying to figure out what it’s about. But he said this one thing that I really did like. He said that good taste was the enemy of great art. Which I think is very, very true. Good taste has all to do with being cultured and being refined. If art has to do with anything, it has to do with being human. And one of the reasons I love the Bible is because the humans in the Bible are not very refined. They’re pretty goofy if you want to know the whole truth about it.
I remember when I was a kid and I was one of those typical depressed adolescent types. I wrote poetry and stuff. That’s how morose I was as a kid. People would go around saying, “Cheer up man because God Loves you!” I would always say, “Big deal! God loves everybody. That don’t make me special. That just proves that God ain’t got no taste.” And I don’t think He does. Thank God. Cause God takes the junk of our lives and He makes the greatest art in the world out of it. And if He was cultured – if He was as civilized as most Christian people wish He was – He would be useless to Christianity.
But God is a wild man. And, I hope that in the course of your life you encounter Him. But let me warn you, you need to hang on for dear life. Or, let go for dear life. Maybe is better.
- Rich Mullins
A Green Christmas
Beyond Words
I grew up hearing everyone tell me ‘God loves you’. I would say big deal, God loves everybody. That don’t make me special! That just proves that God ain’t got no taste.
- Rich Mullins
My friend Sarah has graciously given me permission to copy something from her blog. Consider this a guest post of sorts.1 At the end, I’ll tell you why I chose to focus on this post. In the meantime, here is what she had to say:
In the book, Captivating, Stasi Eldredge tells a story of how God had given both her and her husband little gifts to show His love. First her husband, alone on a beach, sees a whale surface, and feels that this is for him and him alone, at a time when he really needed to know God loved him. Stasi feels a little jealous of his experience and the next time she’s alone on a beach asks God for a whale too. After a few minutes with no whale she walks away from the water, only to come across a beautiful star fish. Taking in the beauty and perfection of the little creation, she knows that God is speaking to her, showing His love. Then, exceeding her expectations she comes to a place where hundreds of starfish are scattered across the sand as far as she can see, and she is overwhelmed by the extravagance of His love.
Since reading that I’ve both asked God for special gifts like that and tried to recognize and give thanks when He surprises me with an amazing sunset or a shooting star. One could argue that thousands of people may have seen the same things, but they usually seem to come at times when I need to hear or feel something from God and they affirm that He’s with me and caring for me.
Most recently God’s been giving me rainbows. A month or two ago I was driving south towards MA, as I do several times a week, heading to church or to hang out with friends. It was a misty, sprinkly, sunny kind or day—perfect rainbow conditions. I’m conviced that New Englad has the best rainbows as I’ve seen several full, giant rainbows while living here. As I approached a spot that overlooks a bit of a valley, where I’ve seen rainbows before, I said, “Lord it would be awesome if you could show me a rainbow today.” Just as I finished that prayer the car ahead of me kicked up some water and the light caught it, producing a rainbow. I laughed. It was not at all what I had expected, but it was a rainbow and it was just for me. A few minutes later I also got the big rainbow in the sky out my driver’s side window.
Just this evening as I drove down to church for the 6PM service I was thinking about that day and how once again I was driving in “rainbow conditions.” I wondered if I’d see more little rainbows…and then I started seeing them everywhere! Cars all around me were picking up water and flinging it into the air, creating rainbows in their wake. This went on for a mile or two; it was beautiful and so much more that I could have imagined. To top it all off, when I got to church one of the greeters opened the door and welcomed me and said, “did you see the big rainbow?” I turned back towards the parking lot and sure enough there was a huge rainbow in the sky.
A similar story is conveyed in the book I recently reviewed by Leigh McLeroy. Leigh was feeling pretty down on Valentine’s Day and asked God for a symbol of His love for her. Not long afterward, she picked up a leaf in the shape of a heart on the sidewalk.
* * *
I’ve been doing my best to deal with a series of crushing disappointments which has left me with the perpetual feeling of having been kicked in the gut by a horse. I had Sarah’s post and Leigh’s story in mind as I asked God to do something for me that would hold special meaning. I was in need of a reminder that I am uniquely loved.
As I was wrapping up my quote at the end of a recent post about how much inscriptions mean to me, I accidentally lost my place. The page flipped to the one in the picture below. I purchased the book used and never realized that it had been signed.
The inscription said this:
For Becca,
“Who doth cause the candles to burn bright.” With best love and boundless admiration.
- Fred
If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you could easily guess that Frederick Buechner is far and away my favorite author. I’m sure that on June 24, 2004, he had no idea what these few words would do for somebody else. God’s hand was once again on Fred. This time, though, his thoughts were on me.
… for your father knows what you need before you ask him. - Matthew 6:8
- As a side note, I would love to have some more guest posters on this blog or be a guest poster on someone else’s blog. Let me know if you are interested. ↩
The Fiddle
Now, although a fiddle may never be fooled by the folly of human thinking, very much like us, they have pain. Their necks are stiff and their nerves, their strings, are stretched. They feel the friction of the bow, and inside their beautiful brown little bodies they have only a little stick called a sound-post and an emptiness that seizes every inch of space – top to bottom, side to side. Their emptiness is for them (as it is for us) a nearly unbearable ache – an ache that is fitted to the shape that makes its tone. And sometimes a fiddle is tempted to fill that void with rags or glass or gold, even knowing that, if it should do that, it would never resonate the intentions of its fiddler. It would never again be alive with his music. It would dull itself to the exquisite heat of the fiddler’s will, the deliberate tenderness of his fingers.
And so, they resist. They resist so that they can respond.
Some fiddles have lived without eyes or ears or innards for a couple hundred years. They would die, though, if they were denied a fiddler.
- Rich Mullins, The World As I Remember It: Through the Eyes of a Ragamuffin
A Candlelight in Central Park
By the time you get this issue of Release and read (if you do read) this little essay of mine, I will have celebrated my fortieth birthday. In my mid- to late-twenties, I had some romantic, highly exaggerated notions about an early death – taking off at thirty-three – joining the company of Mozart, Foster, Jesus, and other immortals who checked out in their early thirties. But this was a party I didn’t get an invitation to – a gang I didn’t belong in (me not being a genius and all). So, in Chicago I had my own party – celebrating the fun of being alive as opposed to the mystique of having an untimely death.
- Rich Mullins,killed in a car crash at 41 years old
But when I leave I want to go out like Elijah
With a whirlwind to fuel my chariot of fire
And when I look back on the stars
It’ll be like a candlelight in Central Park
And it won’t break my heart to say goodbye.
The Far Country
God is at home. We are in the Far Country. – Meister Eckhart
Psalm 137 begins as the exiled Israelites are demanded to sing songs of joy by their captors. The Israelites refuse. They hang their harps on trees and ask:
How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?1
The entire video above is excellent, but Rich Mullins makes a particularly insightful comment around the minute mark when he asks, “what land have we ever been in that isn’t foreign?”
Are we really in that much different a place than those Israelites? If so, how are we supposed to sing songs of joy? I can see singing songs asking for deliverance. I understand singing request for freedom. But joy? How on earth are we supposed to be joyful under these conditions?
The eleventh chapter of the book of Hebrews includes a litany of saints who placed their trust in God. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. They were stoned and put to death by the sword. Others were sawed in two.2
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.3
God is not ashamed to be called my God. He has prepared a city for me. Because of Jesus Christ, I’ve already been delivered and my present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in me.4 – These are my reasons for joy.
- Psalm 137: 4 ↩
- Parts of Hebrews 11:35-38 ↩
- Hebrews 11:13-16 ↩
- Romans 8:18 ↩
Driving without Headlights
I don’t know what you do up here in Northern Indiana. Where I came from, on Friday nights, we used to get in our Dads’ trucks cause they used to build those trucks so that you could run over anything and it wouldn’t hurt them. You know, the old gravel roads, they just ran straight for miles and miles and miles. You never had to turn your car because you were always going in one direction until you wanted to go in another direction and then you had to wait until you came to a road to make a turn and then you’d make the turn and go straight in that direction for a long ways.
It was pretty easy driving, so what we always liked to do is go out as far in the country as we could get to where there weren’t any houses or anything that we could find. Then, you’d go as just about as fast as you dared going and you’re turn the lights out. Then the truck, in the middle of the night… It wasn’t a real smart thing to do. But luckily, they built those trucks real sturdily. And our dads always just thought they were getting beat up out in the field. They didn’t know it was in someone else’s field.
So one time I was driving from Philadelphia to Miami, Florida. I was going down Interstate 95 through Maryland, which I don’t ordinary think of as being a beatuiful part of the world. But it’s shocking how beautiful Maryland is. Of course, it was about 2 o’clock in the morning and it was a full moon and so just about any place is pretty at 2 in the morning with a full moon if you’re all by yourself.
And I started thinking about we used to do that when we were kids. How we used to turns those lights out and drive a little bit too fast on gravel roads. And I wondered if I could still see by moonlight like I could when I was younger. So, I looked around and made sure there weren’t any cars and clicked them off right there in Maryland. Only this time, I didn’t drive too fast because I wasn’t quite so young anymore. I had gotten in the habit of trying to soak up things instead of speed by them.
Looking at Maryland I began to think of just the goodness that I was not blind. Sometimes you have to go to Maryland to remember what a joy it is to see. But then I began to think about even if I was in the middle of Brooklyn – with that moon – if there was a power shortage and there weren’t any lights to interrupt – probably even Brooklyn would be pretty with that moon. I remembered how it used to look when you’d drive in the spring and the corn was just starting to come up and the rows were real short.
You know, sometimes we think that everything is changing. But I’ll tell you what – the same moon is up there tonight. The same stars that Abraham saw – they’re all up there. The same God that put them there and made them shine, He’s still there too. And I don’t know what life has for you. I don’t know what life has for me. But I know this: I know that God is good and I know that God does not lie. I know that God has given us the gift of our lives. Sometimes we wish He would have given us someone else’s life. But He chose to give you your life. Don’t despair of it.
Rich Mullins
Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken
I think people get the wrong idea sometimes. Everyone’s favorite scripture seems to be “guard your heart”. Now, you certainly don’t want to give your heart to somebody who is going to put it in the garbage disposal or “give your pearls to the swine”. But I think people oftentimes take this verse way too far and play things way too safe.
I think people get the wrong idea in the other direction as well. A lot of people seem to think that if they take a risk they will be rewarded. This is not necessarily true. A risk is – by definition – risky. If it were not risky, it would not be a risk. You may take a risk and end up with a wonderful reward. You might also fall flat on your face and wind up looking like an idiot.
There is no guarantee that just because you do something challenging, things will work out in your favor. As a matter of fact, you may find yourself in worse condition than when you began. It’s like taking a high dive from higher up. Your dive could end up looking spectacular. You might also land on your head.
Because of this, it is very understandable if someone chooses the protect-your-heart-at-all-costs route. Chances are that this person has good reasons from his/her past to take this approach. This person is a singles and doubles hitter and there is something to be said for consistency and stable returns.
A low-risk/low-reward lifestyle could produce better results than the more volatile high-risk/high-reward approach. This person swings for the fences and has a good chance of striking out. However, there is that chance of connecting and hitting a home run. I admire people who take this kamikaze approach. You may get shot down, but it will be one heck of a ride in the process.
I think that part of the reason I admire the latter approach is because it is the approach that God takes with us. As one Rich Mullins song puts it, there is a recklessness about God. A wildness. A danger. He sings, “Here I’m tested and made worthy… Tossed about but lifted up…In the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God”. He does whatever it takes in our lives to mold us into the people He wants us to become. And it often involves pain so deep that you’re not sure how you’ll be able to make it.
But as the old formula goes, me + God = enough. As one song puts it, God is more than enough for all our thirsts and all our needs. He satisfies me with His love. When our hearts falter, God is still there. And He is all we need.
Here, I truly am tested and made worthy. Tossed about, but lifted up in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God.