Losing the Language of Faith

The language of faith and losing it is usually brought up in terms of the 'culture war'; politicized like most everything else.  And it is true believers are supposed to keep their faith talk confined to the church buildings.  It is frowned upon to bring it out to the public square.  This is why, for example, prayer doesn't happen before football games and why valedictorians must submit their speeches prior to giving them.  Those young people must be careful not to mention the name of Jesus out in the open where others might hear it.

This is troubling, but not really new.  It should upset us that some speech is more free and some less so.  But, like the lonely girl, 2012 churches make themselves as attractive and as available and as mild as possible in the hopes that someday that handsome world will call and want to know what we're all about.  Meantime, we wait by the phone.

That said there is another facet to the idea of losing our faith language that I'm going to try to illustrate.  This concept has been rattling around my head for a long time.  It might be too abstract and if you don't get what I'm trying to explain the problem is on my end and not yours.

Here is my thesis:  we are losing the language of faith because we no longer think in faithful terms.

Language changes over time.  This is not a piercing insight.  New words are added and old words are forgotten.  Dialects shift, slang become proper and the proper becomes out dated.  Language is tied to human creativity and with it we express our understandings of what we experience.  A good example is the word teenager.  Before there was such a word, talking about young people was different because people didn't think of them as teens.  Or, in the 1970s no one worried about coming across as homophobic.  The concept (label) just wasn't there.

Another key piece of information is that the original New Testament books were written in a dialect of Greek that is now frozen in time.  In other words, people no longer use that dialect of Greek and yet a substantial amount of scholarship exists giving us insight into that language and how it was structured and what specific words in that dialect meant.  Think of it like one of those paperweights with an object suspended in a cube of clear acrylic.  This is cool because it gives us a lingual image into the exact meanings of certain words and phrases.  It can be highly and reliably contextualized.

For example, believers who care to do so can look up a word like church (an assembly of people), or baptism (to dip), or Easter (Passover) and can find out what that word originally meant and can then use that meaning to guide their worship and faith.

I preach out of the King James Version of the Bible - for both accuracy and the fine line the artisan translators walked when keeping both original meaning, providing usability, and expressing the beauty or the original Bible languages.  The KJV is a wonder in itself and I urge anyone interested to look into how it came to be.

Now look, I'm not going to go war if someone reads a different translation of the Bible.  I'm not that kind of Baptist.  But a believer should find him or herself a solid translation.  And why is this important anyway?  Wasn't this supposed to be about losing our faith language?  The point of all this KJV business is that I simply want the reader to understand what version of the Bible I'm referring to when I give the following example.  An English Standard Version (also a very nice translation) might show different results, but not by much.

So, rambling aside, here is my big example.  Pay attention the next time something unexpectedly good or unexpectedly bad happens in life.  Let's say you find a five dollar bill in the grocery store parking lot.  How do you explain it?

Here is a list of words I can think of that people use to describe those things that happen to them, either in their favor or not in their favor:  random, randomness, luck, lucky, unlucky, fortune, fortunate, unfortunate, misfortunate, happenstance, coincidence, coincidental, incidental, so on and so forth.  We use these words and others like them when life happens when we are content to chalk it up the inexplicable.

Both of my daughters had heart problems when they were born.  People noted how misfortunate it was.  About a month ago my youngest daughter was involved in a car wreck at 55 miles per hour with my wife's mother.  Another driver pulled out in front of them.  My girl was shaken and scared and sore the next day, but that was all.  Her grandmother didn't fare as well.  She suffered a total of 32 stitches and a bruised and battered left side from shoulder to ankle.  She also totaled her van for which the insurance company will provide its current value, yet the van's personal value to her will not be met.  All things considered their accident could have been magnitudes of tragedy worse.  A lot of people, beginning with the EMTs, the nurses, the doctors, and some family, commented on how lucky they were to have not been more seriously injured.

When we talk about luck and misfortune and the baker's dozen of other words listed above aren't we relegating life as up to the whims of some cosmic flip of the coin?  Don't we express and understand events as though there is no greater power than randomness?

The old King James Bible contains none of the words we use to commonly refer to the inexplicable events in our lives.  There is that verse about time and chance happening to all (Ecclesiastes 9:11).  Time and chance…   I could find very little else referring to what we say on a daily basis.  The events in the Bible, as originally written and later faithfully translated, relied on other words.  The vocabularies of the original writers of the Bible did not include the dozen phrases and ideas about luck that ours does.

This is not a commentary on the limitations of the Greek Language of the first century as much as it is about how our view of life has shifted away from God's involvement in our lives.  Yes, time and chance does happen to all, thank you Solomon in your wisdom.  But I'm thinking it happens far less than we think it does.

Believing in a God who knew me before I was born (Jeremiah 1:5), doesn't it make sense He would want to stay involved all the way through my three-score and ten years (Psalm 90:10)?  I find this idea more comforting than to think of my life as a single grain in a sandstorm.  A more faithful generation would think in terms of blessings and curses, of trials, tests, tribulations, troubles, and about how sometimes bad things happen to us that force us to rely on our faith; and hence reliance on God. 

For homework, read the book of Job.  Now there was a guy down on his luck.  Yet in the chapters where he and his 'friends' debate on the events of Job's trials, notice the lack of luck words and ideas.  The men involved were not stupid; misguided at times, but not stupid.  Their discussions of Job revolved around God and why God would allow such things to happen.  They did not shrug their shoulders and say, "Better luck next time."

I know God has His purposes.  I know I am not intelligent enough to figure them out.  But what I can always do is trust His Greatness in my life.  Time and chance will not withstand.  God's grace, however, is eternal.

50 Shades of Potato Salad

One would think popular culture might advance beyond its genitalia.  Alas…

What’s behind the success?  Sex still sells; shazam and golly-gee-whiz Wally!  Whodothunkit , and all that.

Trip down memory lane; once upon a not too long ago, towns had special little stores with painted over windows where men parked blocks away and then walked.  Grandpa and grandma called them dirty books.  Ah, but a few years and now it’s the rage.  Marketing is an amazing thing.  Not only does it advertise, but it creates desire.  Now that’s seduction.

If memory serves, I’m trying to remember something here… Oh yeah, that fifty-percent divorce rate and half, yep half, of all children born out of marriage.  Wait till these kids raise their kids.  Won’t that be fun?  But the boomers and the x’ers and the y’ers never were ones to gargle much with self-restraint.

Then there was the London opening.  No Shakespeare, no Wilberforce, no good old Churchill.  But a healthy dose of vapid reflection about the wonders of the cell phone and music and young people dancing and having fun, with just a flash of Winehouse, the throwaway starlet who ain’t going to rehab, no no no.  But the queen was there.  Yes, fun I tell you.  That’s the addition and the display of London culture to the earth.  Can you imagine watching all that in some sub-equatorial group-hut on the village television?

There was something else not too long ago – Holmes at the theater and Warner Bros. descrying the violence, all the way to the bank.  That particular franchise started in 1939.  Get yourself some early ones, see if you recognize anything but the utility belt.

I don't know boys & girls.  Some days I just don't  know.  Maybe 50 is too many.  Maybe we were better off with plain old black and white.

My First E-Book

I wanted to title this post ‘Learning Curve.’  But that’s a cool title that can be used for something else.

Anyways, my first e-book is out.  This post is about the process of getting it there and not about the book itself.  Well, maybe a little about the book.  I wrote Punk Smith in November of 2007 as part of NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month).  I wrote it and put it up.  In the spring of 2008 I proofread it.  I put it away and then sometime in 2010 I reviewed it and edited out some of the content and sent it to several agents.  An agent is someone who takes manuscripts to publishers and tries to get them published.  The agents returned my letters and said things like it was an interesting concept but there is no market for this sort of thing.  So I put it away until late last year after looking into e-publishing.  After some research I decided to do to this.

In late April of this year I began reviewing and editing the manuscript one final time.  The cover is from Rebecca Swift.  She is great to work with and anyone in need of a book cover can expect nothing but a pleasant professionalism from her.

Part of e-publishing is formatting for the various and sundry types of e-readers.  It’s not like a writer can just send their Word document and push a magic button and voila’, out pops an e-book.  Now, I’m not a Luddite when it comes to this here internet stuff.  I know how the thing works and have done programming in the past (both customer-facing and back-office getting the data to the servers and crunching them there numbers).  Algorithms don’t just write themselves and I’ve done some of that.  My guess is I could format my own e-books and may in the future.  My guess is it won’t be long until someone invents that magic button to do the work.  But first time out I thought I would get it right so I went to the good folks over at 52-Novels.  There too, I found professionalism and prompt responses.  It’s nice to know such people still exist the world.

I splurged and bought a Nook.  It’s a nifty little thing and I’ve found a number of sites with free books and because I’m cheap I use them.  I also bought the Nook for testing my own stuff. It’s a business expense (that’s what I’ll tell the IRS).

When everything looked about as buttoned-up as it could get, I created an Amazon account, a Barnes and Nobles account, and an account at a place called Smashwords.  Smashwords is an e-book distributor to different sites, including the big ones.  They offer a system scary-efficient.  I mean that in a good way.  Amazon was easy to work with as well.  Of the three, Barnes and Nobles has the clunkiest interface and user experience (at least when it comes to submitting a self-published e-book).

So today it’s all done and you can get your very own copy of Punk Smith for $2.99 at any of those fine companies.  For that money most people can’t even drive to a Starbucks.  And once you get there, three dollars won’t get very much in the way of a frappuccino, which is what you need when it’s hot like it’s been.  My advice is to stay home in the air conditioner and buy my book instead.  At least help me pay for the Nook.

Even if you buy it and hate it and think it’s too wordy and preachy and that nothing much really happens, and why don’t we find out what happens with Carol and Pete and how come there’s not a big car-chase, that’s still a lot more than you ever get with a frappuccino. 

ps - other e-books are on the way.

Question

When will the CIA stop using those black highlighters?

Red Bramble Blue Bramble

Pardon my absence.  I have been a busy little Baptist - trip to the east coast, teaching, preaching, and an e-book coming soon! More about all that some other time.

This here posting is about politics, seeing as we are near unto another election.  I have my own thoughts on the matter of course.  But everything I need to know about politicians is found right here:


Judges 9:8 – 15  The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us.   But the olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honour God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us.  But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us.  And the vine said unto them, Should I leave my wine, which cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.

There’s a good set-up to this parable.  You should read it.  That’s your homework.  And why the good and useful trees would want a king in the first place is beyond me.

But really today I would like to draw attention to something that has been around for almost twelve years.  It’s a type of prism through which we identify ourselves and others in terms of politics.  That's a fancy way of saying we label one another.  It appeared shortly after the presidential election in 2000.

Let me type it.  I’ll set it aside just a bit with some white space.  Read it and pause.  Stare at it a minute and try to imagine having never seen the phrase, then continue.

RED STATE / BLUE STATE

Is it just me or is this idea simple?  Perhaps it is a little too simple.  It sounds like a child’s game.  It reminds me of ‘Chutes & Ladders’ and how just when you think your little plastic person is going to win, down he goes and then the other plastic person is winning for a time.  Or, substitute the word ‘state’ for ‘fish’ and we arrive at the title of that book written by Dr. Seuss in 1960 for new readers.

I bet you know what color state you live in.  I do.  That’s nice; that way we know if we live in enemy territory, or not.

Red State / Blue State has marketing and public relations written all over it.  Public Relations is just propaganda wearing nice clothes.  It is an ingenious idea, a slogan more readily recognized than the NIKE swoosh.  It is a fulcrum for manipulation and keeping masses of otherwise docile consumers angry and upset towards one another.  It is Branding 101.

Coke and Pepsi – which are you?  They are both brown.  They are both carbonated.  They both have sweeteners and caffeine.  They cost about the same.  I don’t know the secret recipes but I imagine there’s not a dime’s worth of difference in a bottle of each.

Truth is, we’ve been living under the shadow of the brambles for quite a while.  At this point I would say they are all of the same root.  I urge my fellow Americans that if we want to be angry at someone then let us point our anger towards the right tree.

Bellewood

Part 1

            Earl lived in the nursing home for more than 18 months, though home is wrong.  Bellewood is not a home.  When he arrived, Earl understood it was a temporarily rented room, a dorm.  The first day, going down the long hall in a wheelchair he glanced back at Ruby, his wife, and told her, “I guess I’ll die here.”  She looked aside, towards the wall and told him to, “…not say such things.”  He guessed to me privately that he should be thankful such places existed.    

            In the following months this idea turned into an ebbing mantra and thinned to a frail line like his own silver spit that would leak down his chin, spoken finally without conviction and trailing off beyond purpose.  Many here don’t even know the particular name of the place they live. 

            Of course, the residents see things from the inside out.  That’s obvious but I don’t think outsiders appreciate that.  What it’s like full time, a visitor can only guess.  Residents smell the halls all day and all night, like working in a bakery only without the sweet; colostomy and urine, liquefied foods and sterile lemon bleach cleansers mix oddly. 

             Some are in their second or third home.  Families, forces beyond their control, gauged care, shuffle the remaining parent to the place they think best.  Betrayed by health and suspicious progeny their powers of attorney get talked out of them or surreptitious court orders are obtained or living wills presented.  Somehow or another they end here.  Those yet in their right minds understand too well what is going on.

            The grandchildren with their often illegitimate offspring were more frequent before this.  They used to visit “ma and pa”.  They were there for meals and a place to stay and money.  That was before all this, when everyone was relatively well and when they needed help.  But now, extended family rarely visits and when they do they don’t stay long.  These are the same children who can’t stand to be alone on a Friday night.  They desperately try for mom or grandma to watch their children for the evening so they can go out and try to make another one.  They are too young to understand how history repeats.  There’s a whole level of abandon they have yet to consider.

            And when they visit there isn’t much to say.  There isn’t much to note or discuss.  Somehow, “What did you do today?” is ridiculous to someone bound to a wheelchair, stalled in a room, and checked every two hours by a CNA.  Current events don’t fit in a place where televisions and most other forms of private property aren’t allowed, but for the common rooms.  Even the weather loses relevance to those who never get outside.  Simply because there is a construction paper cutout of a Christmas tree or a rainbow or an Easter egg with a man’s name on it doesn’t make it a pleasant place.  The mumbling of the bedfast roommate doesn’t help either.

            These homes are without personal phone calls.  They are out of the question because the logistics and costs of having a separate phone in each room, to be shared between two roommates, are confusing and potentially litigious.  The cords would be a treachery and the receivers would offer bludgeoning opportunities for the unruly.  There would also be bickering between families about who used whose phone.  Besides all that, in late-stage dementia, when the hand cannot be trusted with a cup of coffee, the voice on the other end would just be meaningless.

            In these homes things also tend to disappear: spare pajama tops, toothpaste, perfume, slippers, gold framed wind up alarm clocks, even walkers and wheelchairs sometimes get away.  And not to be sinister, but in a place where the residents can’t walk and have nowhere to walk to and where the rooms are barren and where nothing is stored even under the beds, one has to consider the alternatives.  These homes have caretakers, attendants, wing nurses and orderlies.  Lots of things sometimes get lost.

            So that’s where Earl lived for over eighteen months and some days it didn’t even register with him as to where he was.  He had late stage Parkinson’s, marginalized in his thinking in all but the most jagged realizations.  He was left alone with his thoughts and yet somehow unable to consider them.  I don’t believe in purgatory, but understand where the idea comes from.

Part 2

            Brother Earl;

            I am writing you this letter because I want to know why it takes so long for some men to die.  I don’t think you have the answer and I doubt you will ever read this.  Your Parkinson’s will not allow you to be clear long enough for you to understand.  In this sense I suppose it isn’t really to you, as much as it is about you.  I hope you would understand.

            In World War II you were a heavy machine gunner assigned to a tank unit.  German and Italian shells crashed around you at places like Agheila and Anzio.  My apologies, but I can’t picture you then, buttoned up in your green suit, pulling levers and squinting through slots to find your bearings in some hellishly hot metal box, pointing the end of your fifty-caliber towards the twinkles of enemy fire.  It’s not that I don’t believe you.  It’s just such a remove from where you are today.

            You told me once you got to see Patton, the man, not the movie.  Another time you said you were strafed and snuggled under a supply truck with an anonymous Italian woman you pulled out of harm’s way. You whispered this story to me while Ruby was downstairs.  There were late night supply runs and roads you had to back down because of German choke points.  So you’re not new to this; men dying quickly around you and I do have the sense that your youth was fast forwarded by the war and those late teen years must have prepared you for this. 

            I’m trying not to be morbid.  I don’t want you to die.  But seeing you like this, it’s not good.  You barely respond.  You don’t look out the window so much as you are pointed towards the glass.  The open shades don’t draw a focus.  You blink hard in the sharp light.  What do you see out there, staring at things I can’t?  Your hand doesn’t squeeze mine back when I ask.

            Others come here and die within weeks or months.  What is this, your fifth or sixth roommate?  You remind me of Jonah, 18 months in the fish’s belly, no dry land in sight.  I want to know why it’s taking so long.  I want to know so I can have something to tell you and your wife and the people who ask.  For my own walking to and fro through the earth, I want to know for myself.  Maybe I shouldn’t be asking you.

Part 3

            On good days we visit.  We talk.  We pray and hold hands.  I go early in the morning because that’s when he’s most likely to be awake.  I have my best chance of catching him aware in the mornings.  By the time I arrive he’s been fed, though not yet cleaned.  Trickles of a yellow orange drink called Nectar are almost always coagulated on his chin and shirt.  I know the name of the stuff because the wax and cardboard box it comes in is usually still on the table.  It doesn’t matter.  In the morning we can still enjoy one another’s company.  One time I mentioned to him that we don’t have much to talk about.  He agreed and it was quiet again.  He knew I was there, and I wanted to stay longer than I did but he tends to drift off.

            The hard thing to say, that both Earl and his wife said to me, was that he was ready to go.  The difficult admission for many nursing home residents is that they are dying.  Earl got past that early on.  He knew it was coming and he grew impatient for it.  Barring a quick accident, it’s something we’ll all face – not the dying, but the admission that death is on the way, personally, for us.  But knowing death is coming and being impatient for it to arrive, outside some imbalance or anguish found in a young life, are two separate things.  It’s like the sour old smell that lingers, just an hour or so beyond any bath or shower.  Once it’s there you can’t shake it.  While it may be easier for a young man to say that he will not go gently into that good night, it’s more courageous for an old man to become impatient and wish it to hurry.

            Not to be heavy handed, but you should know that before I was born Earl accepted Jesus Christ as his savior.  I cannot imagine the hopeless doom offered by the alternative.   The other side will be peaceful and rewarding for him.  It’s just that getting there seems to be taking such a long time.  It’s like being in the house waiting for an overdue guest to arrive; only the guest never said when they would arrive, only that they would be coming sometimes, perhaps in a day or so.  Waiting by the window a long time even small things can become advanced announcements; rain, first frosts, and reemerged memories of Tennessee rivers are mentioned like prophecy.

            On the drive home I have to decide how to deal with it and what to pray for.  I struggle to remember it’s not really about me.  The Habakkuk in me comes out swinging.  He was the one demanding immediate answers.  His situation was grim, more so than mine and Earl’s put together.  His cries required exclamation points from the translators.  The Jamesians even gave him a few.  Habakkuk’s complaints weren’t questions.  He saw violence against God’s people on a daily basis and he wanted to know why he had to see it.  The land promised to Israel was overrun by an unjust and ungodly group.  The golden accumulation of Solomon’s better days was trotted away, packed into the trunks of unbelieving men, the conquerors of his progeny.

            The lives of peace promised in the 29^th Psalm don’t seem to be happening either.  Is this causing the ringing in my ears or is it just the whine of tires on the interstate?  It’s the same stitching I see after every visit, the highway yellow rectangles dividing the coming from the going.

            I want to challenge the suffering on behalf of a man who has life and Christian experience I cannot, and may never fully appreciate.  I squint through the late morning sun and it doesn’t seem right.  I demand that a man of God I have known for ten years deserves better.  He’s been a faithful member of one church for about as long as I have been alive.  He’s served his country, raised his family, and loved his wife.  The unfairness is orange hot.  The tide of thoughts turns my questions into demands.  Like Habakkuk, I start to accuse.  I’m wondering why I get to see this.  Something warns me to back off.

            A curve in the road reminds me to back off.  When I cross the Illinois River I am reminded also of Zechariah.  He lived with much of what Habakkuk lived with.  He saw the same unjust things.  His first vision was of a man on a horse at night, among Myrtle trees; evergreens with white flowers and dark berries, followed by speckled horses.  When I exit the highway I roll down the windows and can almost smell the damp loam of the river bottom.  It must have been an incredibly peaceful place to visit, in his dream.  Zechariah waits, watches, and then lets the Spirit ask, “How long will you not have mercy…?”  It’s a good point to make at the end of captivity.

            There is patience, and then there is patience; there are ways to approach the Lord, and then there are ways to approach the Lord.  My anger management issues threaten this message.  But the patient dreamer is soothed by night visions.  Earl and I and the family that still cares have all run up to God demanding to be saved, when we have already been saved.  It’s just a matter of time.  Why is that so easy to forget?

Some Things Personal

Ok, I was feeling pretty good about this whole blog thing.  Look at all the posts.  I am like totally destroying last year’s number of posts.  Granted, two is not difficult to totally destroy, but still.  Blogging, enjoyable, driving production of written words, keeping goals and having fun at the same time, what could be better, aside from a run-on sentence I didn’t take time to tame but somehow managed to make sense?  Then someone griped.  They said I should put something personal on here to let people know about me, like that would be interesting.  So, I abdicate once again to the gripers.  Here are some personal things.

Personal thing #1:

I am a pastor.  I have been a pastor for sixteen years and some change.  Very early a wise old man who was also a pastor told me if I could find anything else to do that would satisfy the call, to do it instead.  I never found that other thing and he was right.

Personal thing #2:

I hate prefixed-literature.   Any kind of writing with a word in front of it, I hate.  This includes Christian, feminist, gay, and whatever else you can think of.  I understand genre.  That’s fine.  I get it.  But please, can we judge a work on the merits of the work and not on the current geo-political-gender-race-sexual orientation-red state – blue-state prism?  Nice writing is nice writing and if I’m really grooving on a writer I’ll take the time to see what’s behind the story.  Otherwise, I don’t need to have it sliced and diced and pre-prepared for my consumption based on a marketing cluster. 

Personal thing #3:

I have a thing about how we no longer have privacy.  I’m not sure we appreciate that fact, as a culture or as individuals.  If I worked for the FBI and wanted to create a national database that kept track of people, where they live, what they do, what they think, and who their friends and enemies are, while keeping data-entry costs non-existent, the perfect system would be facebook.  I know how that sounds and I’m really not a tin-foil hat kinda guy, but then again…  Like I said, I have a thing.  I’m reticent about being too personal on the internet.  I’m cautious about it. 

Personal thing #4:

I like to write.  In my brain this blog is mostly an outlet for creative writing and an initial foray into creating a home-base for some planned ebooks (stay tuned).  Think about what it means to be a pastor who likes to write creatively.  The preconceived notions of what pastors are supposed to be swarm like angry hornets.  For example, everything I write is supposed to be pure and inspiring and about the Bible.  I should never ever cast a cold unflattering light on people of faith, and should maintain a caricature-ish and awkwardly simple level of fiction, a la Ned Flanders.   Right?  No cussin’, no sex, no blood, no nothing like that and the good guys always, and I mean always, win.  Deus ex machina was a plot device before it was a cool video game.  Look it up.

Personal thing #5:

I'm a smelly human.  I was a smelly human way before I answered the call to be a pastor.  I have smelly human thoughts, I've experienced smelly human experiences, and sometimes my writing reflects these experiences.  I mean, have you seen the world?  That's the life I've known and what's so graceful about the Grace of God is that it shines through anyway.  Despite our best efforts there are still blessings and wonderful things.