Hypocrisy: The Drug of Choice

Didja ever notice how often we end up involved in the very evil we started out to oppose? How we end up hating the hateful? or gossiping about gossips? or being bigoted toward bigots? or looking down on others who look down on others? We judge people who judge people and resent the resentful. We become stingy with tightwads and hold grudges against grudge-holders.

Self-righteousness is a deadly poison and humble love its only cure. I hope that in writing this I have been thinking more of my faults than yours. . . . I hope the same for you.

And Jalal ad-Din Rumi said . . .

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

Tempted and Tried...

I was born (or early infused) with an innate reverence for books. They were my ships to far-off lands, my passage to distant times. They brought me face-to-face with the giants of Earth's history, the towering intellects of remote eras and of my own day. By them I walked right through the bloodiest battles as they raged with men and beasts dying amid the clash of iron on iron or blasting weapons discharging left and right. Walked right through . . . and emerged unscathed a handful of pages later!

I believed in books.

I believed anything and everything written in books. Until . . .

'Farther Along' is a favorite country Gospel hymn of many. It has been sung by everyone from Elvis Presley to your favorite local church choir. And I am blessed -- through nothing I have done -- to be a descendant of the author of that precious song. Rev. W. B. Stevens is my maternal great-great-great-grandfather.

I will sometime recount here the story that lies behind the writing of that song but suffice it to say that it has to do with the death of his last living daughter and the sorrow of a grieving father's heart.

But the details of that story were, as you might imagine, early etched upon my heart and memory through their frequent recital around the family circle. And, too, it existed in written form within a carefully compiled and meticulously transmitted family history passed down from generation to generation.

So, imagine my surprise when, upon opening my first book of hymn stories, I discovered a HUGE discrepancy between the "received" version and the "published" version of the song's background! Across the years, few stories of "how it was written" have jibbed with the version I learned within the family circle.

So how does a boy (now of 52) react when his books, his lifelong guides into all things wonderful and awesome, prove to be less than reliable? It has only served to remind me that this is life drawn small -- that a life is only as credible as the person living it. To leave a record of real integrity, we must live integrity. . .we must exemplify integrity in things both great and small in our lives.

Tempted and tried? Yes. But -- cheer up, my brother! -- farther along we'll understand it all by and by!

"Just Old Stuff"

It was a call from another state, a previous pastorate, this past week . . .

A dear lady is preparing to go into an assisted living facility and knowing and trusting us from our previous years together called now to ask a question about how to dispose of her belongings.

"All my stuff is just old stuff," she said. "Should I just call the Salvation Army and let them haul it away?" I asked if it would be alright to have another friend, from yet another pastorate, drop by and check things out and she agreed.

A couple of night's later I picked up the phone and the man on the other end said, "Pastor?"

"Yes?"

(A long, low whistle.) "You would not believe all of the beautiful things A_______ has! She is living in a goldmine!"

He then proceeded to describe several pieces of furniture and other antiques that the dear lady owned . . . things purchased by her now deceased husband years and years ago, the value of which she had no idea! One music box, alone, is worth in excess of $5000, having seven different songs and a bevy of mechanical birds that "fly" upward when the lid is opened!

And her whole house is full of such treasures. The proceeds from their sale will help her to enjoy a better standard of living than she has been experiencing for many years.

It set me to thinking. What treasures do you and I take for granted, unaware of their true value? Family? Friends? Church and Sunday School? Scenery? Even some material treasures long forgotten in boxes and attics? I'd like to make a suggestion . . . let's both spend a little while this week thinking of the overlooked treasures God has blessed us with and thanking Him for each one. And, if that treasure is a living human, pick up a pen or, perhaps, a phone and let them know that, among the blessings of life we have received, we're grateful that God has given us them!

Vacation

I vacated.

For the first time in years, I shut "the shop" down and headed to Nowheretown for a week. I didn't answer the phone. I didn't answer the door. I didn't even answer myself .

It was beautiful.

And habit-forming.

I'm going again in a couple of months.

Vacate.

It'll do you good.

Just mosey along and bother someone you love . . . or not. Whatever you wish.

But do it soon . . . or you may do it permanently.

Disappointment

I had a surprise encounter with disappointment yesterday. How like an unexpected death are these times when, quite out of the blue, the trust one has invested in another is suddenly dashed and the safety assumed to be found in relationship with another is discovered to be but an illusion.

As usual in these matters, it involved a person well-trusted and close to me. It was one who should have known better and, indeed, probably did. Yet, despite this better knowledge, they chose to act in a way that injured others, betrayed a professional trust that others had posited in them and, instead, acted in a low, mean and petty way.

I can do little now that the deed is done. I can remonstrate and will. But the deed is done and cannot be undone.

However, to myself -- to my own heart of hearts -- I have spoken a few words of counsel that, perhaps, bear repeating here.

"See to it that you never, likewise, betray a trust. O, watch over yourself lest in some unguarded moment you do in weakness and foolishness what in your strength and wisest moments you would know to be loathsome and repugnant! Be true clear through to the end!"

What a Difference a Day Makes!

As I write these words I am sitting in the beautiful international headquarters of the Wesleyan Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Here the affairs of this God-focused, Jesus-sharing, Good News-witnessing, and socially-active integral part of Christ's Kingdom are directed for maximum effectiveness each weekday.

As one born into the home of a Wesleyan pastor and whose grandparents were Wesleyan ministers, I have a deep sense of love and gratitude for the spiritual nurture and social network I have received from this marvelous group of devoted people.

Unique to our history is the role of leadership in the struggle to abolish human slavery in Britain and America. Later, after that long and difficult contest had been won, it was in a Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, that a conference dedicated to obtaining women's equal treatment under the law -- including the right to vote --was first held. Again, Wesleyans led the way -- before the cause was popular, before it was deemed "the right course", while it was still opposed by the vast majority.

Wesleyans have taken courageous stands for the defense of the legally impotent and socially powerless, not because we were wild-eyed radicals looking for some cause for which we could agitate. We have simply followed where the Bible, the Word of God, dictated the right course lay and tried, to our utmost, to be faithful to the One Who has gifted us with our freedom and rights.

Yet, our mission to win the spiritually searching has never wavered. We see ourselves as the unembarrassed co-workers of an Almighty God who so loves the world that He will stop at nothing (short of the individual's own refusal) to reach and rescue a fallen, ruined and doomed world. He has come to change our doom into deliverance and our defeat into dancing!

But Wesleyans own one further distinction: we rejoice in all who know and follow the Lord Jesus Christ as fully as in those who bear our name and share our history. All who serve the Lord Jesus and are on mission with Him in the world are warmly embraced as our sisters and brothers in the Lord and as our beloved co-workers in the work of His Kingdom. There is, among us, to be no air of superiority, no glorying in anything but in the Christ by whose atoning work we have been redeemed from our sins and adopted into His family!

So every Wesleyan may enthusiastically say: "Wesleyan? Yes, and gratefully so! But Christian first and forever!"

New Turf, Old Wars

You've heard the expression "turf wars"? It's a phrase that paints a picture of someone fighting tenaciously to protect something (some place, position, power, or privilege) they have come to think of as their own. Stay on your side of the invisible line and things will be fine; cross it and die -- at least, die by character assassination.

Turf wars are fought by petty, small-minded people. Which is not to say that petty, small-minded people do not frequently occupy elevated positions. In fact, it is sometimes shocking to discover how high a turf warrior can rise in an organization. But whether high or low all turf warriors have two things in common:

1. An irrational fear of being deposed, and

2. A invisible network of trip-wires leading to their hidden minefields.

The irrational fear drives them to question everything (and, here, I do mean everything!) that takes place around them and to view it in the suspicious light of the potential it could have if it were a part of some larger plot. No kind word, no unthinking gesture, no thousand-yard stare exists but what it is seized upon and dragged down into the fathomless depths of their inner sanctum for endless speculation.

Picture the sad-eyed innocent yawn of a co-worker. That yawn, now having been seized and shackled and hauled into the nether regions of the paranoid's soul, is forced to sit upon the cold, hard steel of their mental examining table there to be endlessly poked, prodded, tested, sampled, stimulated, analyzed, and pricked! Not for mere moments but for days! There are, my friends, cases on record where the examination began years ago and still continues to this very day!

And woe be to the one trait or deed which may be construed to have been sent from a malevolent heart or guided by a nefarious purpose! That entity and all who ever came in contact with it are summarily condemned to a life of public humiliation and endless harangue. They will be paraded out at every ensuing argument between the turf warrior and the person identified with the offending item, there to be reviled, denounced, and excoriated until the turf warrior falls silent from sheer exhaustion.

But the absolutely humorous thing (if we are free to find humor in so low a pattern of behavior) is to be found in the value of the turf being fought over. Mostly it is pale, curious soil which none but the most derelict would seek out or desire. The positions being sought go begging for takers elsewhere and the power is such that one might have the right to re-arrange the papers on their own desk -- provided the proper request forms have been accurately filled out and suitably filed.

Now, with all my railing against turf wars you might think me immune to their appeal. Alas, that is not the case and I lie if I make it seem so. Turf warring is part and parcel of the human condition having come to us rather suddenly when humans in the Garden decided to call a certain tree "theirs" that God called "His". Next we have Cain killing Abel and disavowing any responsibility for him -- all the while using the personal (and possessive) pronoun "my" in the now-infamous line of his, "Am I MY brother's keeper?" The first interpersonal turf war, turf warrior, and turf war casualty.

So I have the bug as badly as you and anyone else has it. Like a repentant vampire, I am good - until I pass the local blood bank. Then, "woe is me for I am undone!"

But my prayer is that the God of this place will help us to go out of business in this turf warring sideline we've been running. Tear up the fences, tear down the "No Trespassing" signs, tear out the stubborn landmines that do so much damage to innocent, unsuspecting people who were only passing through our lives.

Will you join me in that prayer? Join me for me, and join me for yourself?

Out west they had a lot of tension between the "free and open range" cattlemen and the fenced-in sheep-herders. Blood was spilled and hostility built up that lasted, in some places, right down until today.

But I vote for "free and open range" in this turf thing. Come on over. Come on in. Share life with me. Don't mind the occasional (and faded) "Keep Out" signs. They're all coming down, anyway.

A Sleepy Independence Sunday

It's an overcast day, slightly humid, with a soft breeze moving down from the mountains. Were it not for that breeze I suppose it would feel like one of the so-called "dog days of summer."

But it's been a nice day. Ate lunch with friends. Got caught up on the latest news and views. Laughed a whole lot. Even argued a little. No harm done.

It's days like today that remind a person of the gold that can only be mined from genuine friendships. These are not founded on cloned thinking or lock-step political views. They aren't even tied to whether we like one another at the moment or not. I mean, with a real friend you can afford to be upset for awhile. You both know that the other person doesn't consider his friend a disposable item. You don't throw away a real friend.

So the table was crowded with that kind of people today. Real friends. Just beautiful!

Death and Independence

It's 'Independence Day' here in the United States of America -- the day whereon we celebrate the birth of our nation and hail the heroes and heroines who sacrificed so mightily to make it possible.

It may have been noted before but, Death doesn't take a holiday.

I have just now returned from the hospital where a 32 year old young man, who not more than two weeks ago was playfully throwing around his similarly aged brother in their swimming pool, passed away this morning.

And this day marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of my older (and only) sister.

Even the very holiday is shot through with the remembrance of death.

Although the Declaration of Independence was issued on July 4, 1776, the effect of it only gradually came to be felt across the former British colonies. It wasn't until next Spring that "the shot heard 'round the world" was fired and death answered its volley. As I have written elsewhere:

"Jonas Parker and Isaac Muzzey and Jonathan Harrington, on a crisp April morning – at dawn’s first light – laid down their lives in freedom’s birth pangs on a little piece of mist-enshrouded land called Lexington green. There, as far better-trained and better-equipped British soldiers fired volley after volley into their ranks, these men laid their all upon the altar of duty and freedom.

Jonas Parker was wounded so severely that he could not rise and was bayoneted when still he tried to defend his village from the place where he had fallen.

Isaac Muzzey was killed instantly and Jonathan Harrington, in full view of his young wife who was watching from the upstairs window of their nearby house, was shot in the chest with a three-quarter inch musket ball. With blood gushing from his mortal wound he stumbled toward his home. He fell, struggled to his feet, and fell again. With all the love of his heart he pulled himself along, crawling until he reached his door – where waited his horror-struck wife who then flew to help him. And, reaching out his arms to her, he died at her feet…a martyr in the cause that has made and kept us a free and flourishing people for these many years."

Death doesn't take a holiday . . . but we do. And I hope that woven into the happy hours we'll spend together with friends, family and community this year, will be a moment or two of remembrance for those who have made it possible . . . and for those of our own circle who have slipped out of line to join the celebrations beyond.

"Live free or die!"

Rumi's Ruminations

Rumi is the shorthand way of referring to one of Persia's (modern-day Iran's) greatest thinkers and poets. Rumi had a great deal of fame in his Islamic 13th century era and is rightly coming back into his own in our time, as well. Lovers love him for his romance poetry. Philosophers admire him for the depth of his wisdom and the acuteness of his perception of the human condition. He was no "slouch" as an Islamic scholar, either. Rumi was something of an expert on Shariah Law, that rather rigid code wrung from out of the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. He was widely known for his juridical skill and for the magnanimity of his interpretations of that law.


So Rumi was a Muslim scholar, romantic and philosopher. But he was one thing above all others. He was a keen observer of humans and human nature. As he watched the people around him his observations formed the core of the nuggets of wisdom and the thread upon which he strung all his many proverbs. Often he chided his fellow religionists for excesses and hypocrisies he observed in the commission of their religious duties. Remember, this was the 13th century and while Islam was strong and flourishing, Christianity was suffering persecutions as, perhaps, it had not seen since the days when it had become identified with the hated Roman Empire.

If ever there was a church who had an excuse to retreat into itself and hide behind its own walls, it was the Christian church of Rumi's day. Yet, as he watched them live from day to day, he took special note of the fact that they deliberately remained open to "outsiders." Although each new encounter with a non-Christian brought the potential for conflict and even martyrdom, the Christians lived as if they had no other alternative but to be a people for others and a shelter for all who were hurting or in need.

Rumi finally wrote down what he thought summed up the Christian attitude toward others and received permission to have it engraved above the door of the church in Shiraz, Iran:

"Where Jesus lives, the great-hearted gather.
We are a door that is never locked.

If you are suffering any kind of pain,
stay near this door. Open it."

I wonder: What would Rumi write above our doors?

The Techology Show! (Stoned Wallabies!)

Every week, I am privileged to participate in a relatively high-energy Internet Radio Show called 'The Techology Show.' It's advertised as "the world's only user-antagonistic podcast." And it really is, too! Antagonistic. Spicy. Pugnacious. Bordering on impudent. That kind of thing.

Today we discussed everything from Dr. Keith Drury's 'Common Ground' -- a book dealing with the beliefs articulated in the Apostles' Creed -- to Martin Luther's comments on Death, to 'Stoned Wallabies.' Talk about "range!"

Anyway, the thing I wanted to say about this was that the gift of honest, thoughtful conversation is beyond all calculation. Just to sit and talk without censoring your speech . . . because you are among friends. There is no need for a pretended agreement of ideas or opinions. No pretence, whatsoever! No shallow, fawning posing. Just pure conversation. Pure joy.

I pray you receive such a gift, too. The gift of true friendship.

Old Suit & A Good Sunday

Had a Red Letter Sunday yesterday. Got to dedicate baby Joshua Paul and see his extended family gather around him with love lighting every face and joy beaming out for all the world to see. It was a happy, holy moment.

Had several families away on vacation and still had a fine crowd. Signs of a maturing congregation. Signs of hope among what has been burned-over earth. Too many turf wars can reduce the happiest neighborhoods to rubble. Pray God those years of the past are gone forever and that we find ourselves in fields of verdant growth where all good things live and all evil dies.

So many blessings. No one name rises far above its neighbor's. All have their part to play and, thankfully, are playing it. God's lovely symphony. Long may its sweet song of salvation waft over our hungry community. If it's up to me, it will most surely be.

[Listening to Celine Dion sing 'Immortality' as I write these words. Do angels dare sing in her presence?]

Old Suit gets busy...

Today is the Pirate Party for boys 3-8. The Children's Department goes all out to create as authentic a pirate experience as is possible. (They did, happily, decide to abandon all efforts at bringing real Somali pirates to this year's festive doings. There's always next year, however!)

Senior pictures are being taken for Miss V. She is the star of her own drama and a fascinating personality. What a gift she has proven to be, though I'm not quite certain that the world has adequately prepared itself for her emergence.

Now I'm being paged so all the accrued wisdom I was nearly about to put down here must, for the time being, go unpublished. Poor, unfortunate world! (But, as we've already said... "There's always next year . . ." or, perhaps, tomorrow!)

-Old Suit