January 2008
The Discontent of Our Winter
The Christmas tree is down, and all the brightly colored decorations are packed away. Nights are long; daylight is scarce. A cold wind often blows through leafless trees. Sometimes there’s snow, but usually not so much (no mountainous ski resorts anywhere near here, of course, to which we can escape and play). Yes, January in Missouri can be bleak. So can February, but it’s redeemed a bit for me only because it’s my birthday month.
The state tourism bureau will not find these words amusing, I suspect. But they can still tout the other three seasons: an early spring (the one thing about Missouri my wife prefers to her native Michigan); a long, hot summer to spend outdoors; and a lengthy, picturesque autumn. January, though, is a rough month.
The radio stations that started playing Christmas carols the day after Halloween finally switch back to regular programming. Homeowners and shopping centers remove those beautiful outdoor lights. People assess the extra pounds they gained during the holidays and obsess—if only for a short while—on diet and exercise. This year, politics fills the airwaves, which means lots of mudslinging, vague sound bites, and empty promises that will barely last until the day after the next election.
It’s easy to look at all this and bitterly conclude that winter must simply be endured so we can somehow, someway, get through it all until springtime raises our spirits. Then, once again, we will know that life is good.
I’m sure such talk reinforces feelings of good fortune among many folks who live in temperate climates year-round. They may be lounging on a beach in south Florida; watching yet another perfect sunset over San Diego’s Pacific coastline; or surfboarding in Hawaii. I suppose it’s possible they give scarcely a thought to us “poor souls” stuck in the American Midwest—or, for that matter, in any other frigidly bleak place.
Still, there is an advantage to wintering in a place like this, something of a spiritual advantage. This place offers an obvious, rhythmic pattern to life. Even though I quickly grow tired of cold weather, of shoveling snow from my driveway, and scraping ice off my pickup’s windshield, I appreciate winter. For starters, I know it won’t last forever. I’ve had some challenging, bleak times in my life—and as it turned out, they didn’t last forever either. With hindsight, I can say those times helped me grow, strengthened my faith, and caused me to look confidently beyond the present moment to a “springtime” yet a little ways off. I wouldn’t trade them.
The bare branches of the trees around my house only look dead. I know there’s life underneath the bark. Those leaves that fell in October and November, now raked and mulched and plowed into my garden, will eventually be replaced by new leaves (and, yes, those annoying little “helicopter” seedpods my maples drop all over the place—no need to get too sentimental here). Still, a short vacation somewhere “down South” in early March wouldn’t be a bad thing at all.
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February 2008
Not Just for Wordsmiths
Bunda Chibwe’s commentary on Section 163:4a in the January Herald carried the simple title, “Unnecessary Suffering.” Bunda wrote from his heart and his mind, as an African and as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Among the issues he raised was hunger. It’s a problem so vast that those of us in the so-called developed world have trouble grasping its breadth and depth, much less what we can do about it.
Recently I stumbled on a simple approach that is beginning to make a dent. It appeals to my compassionate side, which holds dear the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel: “Whenever you do it to one of the least of these, you do it to me.” It speaks as well to my editor’s love of words. Perhaps you’ve already heard of FreeRice.com.
Log on to this Web site and you will see a word displayed with four possible meanings. Pick the right one and twenty grains of rice go to the United Nations World Food Program. It’s just that simple. Granted, twenty grains of rice isn’t going to quiet anybody’s hunger pangs. But the cumulative effect of site visitors improving their vocabulary skills is impressive.
An Indiana man started this last October. He had been helping his teenage son prepare for a college-aptitude test. His son’s vocabulary was, evidently, none too impressive, so he devised a word game that he thought others might like to play on the Internet. Coincidentally, he is a computer programmer already managing the Web site poverty.com to tell people about hunger. He merged the two, and a great idea was born.
At first the rice donation for each correct answer was ten grains. By the end of November the site had attracted so many users and advertisers (that’s who pays for the rice) the donation was increased to twenty grains. When you read this it might be higher. Certainly the total donations will have increased exponentially. As I write just before Christmas (2008), more than 10 billion grains of rice have been donated. That’s enough to feed more than 325,000 people for a day. (Update: by late March 2010 the total is more than 76 billion grains of rice.)
What an incredible start! It’s just a dent, of course. According to global estimates, 854 million people do not have enough to eat (more than the populations of USA, Canada, and the European Union); 820 million people in developing countries alone are hungry (one in four lives in sub-Saharan Africa); more than 60 percent of chronically hungry people are women; and the number of chronically hungry people worldwide is growing by an average of 4 million each year.
The site has 50 vocabulary levels—to appeal to young schoolchildren, to adults learning to speak English as a second language, to postgraduate students. Hardly anybody so far has made it beyond 48. I made it to 44 briefly, but more typically score between 39 and 42. But I’ll keep trying! After all, every five seconds a child dies because she or he is hungry. This is, truly, the least I can do.
End Quote
“Nearly everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world. A few do not. Join them.” —Arthur Schopenhauer
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March 2008
Easter Eggs and Frankincense
Easter comes about as early this year, on March 23, as it is possible to come. That makes it a bit of a challenge for me as an editor working a couple months ahead of this magazine’s issue date. As I write, it’s barely past Christmas. Easter and Christmas, of course, are the two big days on the Christian calendar. Big crowds show up at church for both. In many ways, though, they appear to be polar opposites.
The four Sundays of Advent focus on peace, love, joy, and hope. We sing carols in church and hear them on the radio (along with songs about Santa, Rudolph, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire). It’s a season of heartwarming TV specials, shopping lists, and richly indulgent but comforting food. Sometimes lost amid all that are nativity scenes and counsel that “Jesus is the reason for the season.” By and large, it’s a happy time for people.
Easter is different. Unless your focus stays on a secular agenda—bunnies and chocolate eggs—the Easter “season” also includes Gethsemane’s “dark night of the soul” and Good Friday’s brutal scourging and execution. Sure, Sunday morning calls for shouts of “Hosanna, he is risen!” but it also brings to a close Lent’s forty days of self-examination.
So here I am, writing about Easter when baby Jesus still smiles peacefully from the mangers of nativity scenes in some parts of town. Two questions surface: How do you commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus while strains of “Silent Night” still linger in the air? How do you celebrate the birth of Jesus when you already know the other end of the story will include a crown of thorns and a blood-stained cross?
One way might be to recall the part of Matthew’s Gospel story we never, ever include in Christmas pageants: Herod’s soldiers murdering all the boy babies in Bethlehem once foreign Magi had inquired about a new “King of the Jews.” That, after all, was why Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt—to protect their newborn son (fortunately for them, the term “illegal alien” hadn’t been coined, I suppose).
Another way would be to note that the sign nailed above Jesus on the cross carried that very same “King of the Jews” wording. I don’t think that was a coincidence. Nor was the angel message to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb and to shepherds watching their flocks by night: “Fear not!”
Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, and, let’s not forget, “Ordinary Time”—these are all necessary parts of the same story, the one story that unites all of us who follow Jesus. A few years ago, the movie The Passion of the Christ stirred controversy largely because it focused on only one aspect—suffering and death. Certainly that’s an important part of the Christ Story, but it’s far from the whole thing.
Maybe it’s possible to be just an Easter Christian—or a Good Friday, a Christmas Eve, or a Lenten Christian. By that reasoning, maybe you really can be a twice-a-year Christian, or a Sunday Christian, or an everyday Christian. But at the end of the day, I can’t get away from a peaceful manger already in the shadow of a cross, or that the same woman, Mary, was present at both events. And so are we.
End Quote
“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.” —Alexander Hamilton
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April 2008
The Check’s in the Mail
In a few weeks the U.S. Treasury will send me a check for $600. I didn’t ask them to do that, but I won’t send it back either. I definitely will cash the check. At that point it becomes not so much a political issue for me as a theological one. Let me explain, with apologies to readers outside the USA (and probably a few inside) who couldn’t care less.
The government refers to the check as a rebate. The dictionary I keep within arm’s reach explains that makes it “a return of a part of a payment.” This money wasn’t mine to start with. It’s a “gift” from the Treasury, most likely made possible by a huge loan from the Chinese or the Saudis or some other government that has more money than it knows what to do with. The purpose of the gift is simple: I’m expected to run to Wal-Mart or Best Buy or Amazon.com and buy stuff.
Here’s where the theology comes in: I don’t need more stuff, thank you very much. Sure, I can easily fantasize driving around town in something newer and fancier than my 1997 pickup, or kicking back with a huge high-def, flat-screen TV, or cruising the Caribbean while snow piles up in my driveway back home. Of course, those fantasies tally significantly more than $600, so I’d have to either pilfer savings or go into debt. No thanks.
I’m told by government authorities it’s my patriotic duty to go buy stuff to head off a recession and the related meltdown of the home-mortgage industry. Apparently, my country’s economic well-being depends on consumers like me. Are these “authorities” the same people the apostle Paul refers to in Romans 13:1–2?
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (NRSV)
Now I am in trouble! Or am I? Those particular words of Paul have been used–and misused–for two thousand years, and not just in regard to money. The letters of Paul are among my favorite parts of the Bible, but what he has to say here (intentionally or unintentionally) is hurtful to the issue at hand. What I find helpful is this prophetic counsel to the Community of Christ:
“Faithful disciples respond to an increasing awareness of the abundant generosity of God by sharing according to the desires of their hearts; not by commandment or constraint. Break free of the shackles of conventional culture that mainly promote self-serving interests. Give generously according to your true capacity. Eternal joy and peace await those who grow in the grace of generosity that flows from compassionate hearts without thought of return. Could it be otherwise in the domain of God, who eternally gives all for the sake of creation?” —Doctrine and Covenants 163:9
God wants me to give first, save second, and spend wisely with the rest. It’s a real challenge to bear national citizenship and to dwell in the “domain of God” at the same time. Nobody said it would be easy—just simple.
End Quote
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” —Theodore Roosevelt
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May 2008
Unintended Consequences
Most of the world’s current population had not yet been born on November 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was fatally shot during a motorcade through downtown Dallas, Texas. And even those who were alive and remembered exactly where they were when they heard the tragic news could not have foreseen the long series of later tragic events.
With forty-five years of hindsight, people today commonly view that moment in Dallas as a tipping point for the United States and the world. Of course, they may or may not be correct in connecting the dots of political assassinations, war and related protest, political corruption in the highest places, a president’s resignation, more wars, and the list goes on and on.
Merely for the sake of simplicity, let’s set aside conspiracy theories. We can only speculate what was running through Lee Harvey Oswald’s mind that day. But as he aimed his mail-order rifle out the sixth-floor corner window of the Texas School Book Depository, I doubt what he had in mind was changing the entire course of human history. I think he just wanted to kill the president of the United States.
The closest I’ve ever been to Dealey Plaza was to change planes at the Dallas–Fort Worth airport. But as my wife and I prepared to drive to Houston in March, we immediately decided we both wanted to stop there. Initially, I was dubious about actually going through the Sixth Floor Museum, half-expecting it to be either “creepy” or “cheesy.” It turned out to be neither, and we spent far longer there than we’d expected. I have to say, however, there were some interesting characters hawking souvenirs down on street level. The most popular activity there was to get your picture taken while standing in the street on the painted X marking where President Kennedy was struck the third and fatal time. To smile and point to the sixth-floor window while doing so—well, that’s just tasteless. But that’s only my opinion, apparently.
By coincidence we were there on Palm Sunday. And so I couldn’t help but think of a very different “procession” long ago and far from Texas. Was Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem the “tipping point” for temple authorities and Roman overseers? If Jesus had slipped into town unnoticed, would he have ended up on a cross by Friday? Would there have been a tomb for a few brave women to go to on Sunday morning? Imagine all the questions that could then be asked.
To paraphrase a bumper sticker, “Stuff Happens.” Is all or any of that “stuff” part of some cosmic or divine plan? I don’t have a clear answer on that. I do believe there are consequences for whatever happens. Some are intentional; most are unintended. That doesn’t make them any less real or important. This is where I put on my theologian’s hat to say God is with us no matter what happens. Therefore, there is always the possibility for blessing of some kind and at some point. Apostle Paul got it right this time: “Whether we live, or whether we die, we belong to God.”
End Quote
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science is not ‘Eureka!’ (I found it!) but ‘That’s funny…’.” —Isaac Asimov
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June 2008
Hyphens and Hyperbole
A few weeks ago the state of Missouri unveiled the design for its new vehicle license plates. OK, I know—this is not big news even for those of us who live in the state, and for everybody else it probably doesn’t register at all. But I bring it up for a reason.
Perhaps only state legislators know why there is a law requiring license plates to include the state’s widely known nickname: the Show-Me State. The precise origins of this slogan are clouded in mystery, but regardless of its first use, most people appear to agree that Missourians often need more than a little persuasion to be convinced of anything. It’s not just coincidence that the words “Missouri” and “mule” go together so well, either.
For several months anybody (yes, even non-Missourians—Kansans, of all people) could drop by a Web page and vote for one of the three final designs. The winner didn’t have much competition, as it turns out; the second-place finisher trailed far behind. But—yes, I’m finally getting to the point—for reasons that may be as mysteriously clouded as the origins of the nickname itself, the hyphen between “Show” and “Me” disappeared. I can hear the gasps of English teachers and editors everywhere as I write this. The rule is crystal clear, of course: compound modifiers must have a hyphen (the exception being if an adverb is involved—you know, those “-ly” words). Now, I can practically see eyes rolling for the rest of you, so just go ahead and say it out loud: “So?”
For starters: if we become this casual with hyphens, what’s next? Do we toss out semicolons as old-fashioned nonsense? Do we start capitalizing everything on little more than a whim? Don’t even get me started on serial commas. (As a former newspaper reporter, I crossed over to the other side once I began editing books and magazines.) In short, do grammar and punctuation matter anymore? Have we seen our future, and it is texting? One reason I’m so slow in sending cell-phone text messages is that I can’t bring myself to use common text shorthand (sharp-eyed grammarians will notice that’s not a compound modifier).
OK, say it again out loud: “So?” (I’d add an exclamation point to that, but of course that would be wrong!)
I cringe every time I hear “I seen…” or “Me and…”, and I’d at least like to think this still matters to other people (especially ones far younger than I). Still, I recognize that rules for speaking and writing change over time. Read Shakespeare lately?
Years ago in Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah presented the case of a woman named Sheila who created her own religion called Sheilaism (she was spiritual without being religious). That sort of thing is possible if you do not have a normative religion to stand for or against. While brands of Sheilaism can tear down institutions, they cannot build them. It’s not what Jesus or the early apostles had in mind at all for the church. And, I think, it helps explain why we keep publishing this magazine.
End Quote
“What matters most is that we learn from living.” —Doris Lessing
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July 2008
On the Road Again
I stood on top of a grassy hill looking eastward toward the Missouri River as it passed by the northern end of Omaha, Nebraska. One hundred sixty years before, grieving Latter Day Saints had trudged up this hill to bury their dead. Down below, closer to the then-untamed river, their hastily built settlement known as Winter Quarters bustled with life. But a brutal winter that year, along with disease and malnutrition, meant those Saints made the sad trip up the hill more than 300 times. About four of every ten graves were for children under the age of three.
Their suffering is unimaginable to me. Those good folks, I believe, were as much my spiritual ancestors as they were for members of the LDS Church. Yes, Winter Quarters is an important stop for them, as they retrace their own historical narrative, with its remarkable exodus across the Great Plains. It’s not as well known that some of those Saints decided to go no farther west than this river valley. Others walked a thousand miles to the Great Salt Lake; then, for various reasons, they decided that wasn’t where God wanted them to go after all and walked all the way back. Within a couple of decades many of them joined the young Reorganization as it put down roots not too far away in the little town of Lamoni, Iowa.
The LDS have done a wonderful job of preserving this site. A few years ago they built a small temple next door to the cemetery and a visitors’ center across the street. My wife and I were greeted warmly there by a young “sister missionary,” who gave us the tour. I was pleased to learn she had guided a good many other Community of Christ members previously and was well aware of and valued our church’s connection to this place.
Unlike Kirtland, Nauvoo, Far West, and Independence, we have no official historical presence at Winter Quarters. I’m not sure we should, even if we had the money to do something. But that sunny Sunday afternoon in May got me to thinking about the importance of narratives (those who know me realize how easily my mind wanders). The well-rehearsed story I heard in the LDS visitors’ center was familiar, at least up to a point, to the one I recall from childhood Sunday school classes and since. That LDS narrative, of course, focused on a safe destination amid the mountains of the American West.
What about our own narrative? As I think about it, I wonder if ours may be more about the journey of a people always on the move than arriving at a place of safety and rest. Even when I consider our final destination—God’s peaceable reign “on earth as it is in heaven”—something whispers deep within me that “rest and ease” won’t be a big part of the plan. Winter Quarters, then, is one of the many way stations worthy of note and remembrance as we keep “marching…onward to Zion.”
End Quote
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” —Alvin Toffler
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August 2008
“Real” Churches
Not long ago I received a short testimony from June Stephenson, leadership development officer for Community of Christ in Africa (by the way, how’s that for a challenging job?):
“As the nearest congregation was some distance away, members of the Community of Christ in Chintheche, Malawi, began meeting under a large mango tree on the shores of Lake Malawi. The local chief was so impressed by their commitment and the teachings of the church that he granted them a plot of land, where they have now erected a grass shelter to meet for Sunday worship, somewhat protected from the sun and the rain.
“Malawi’s main export crop is tobacco, so the shelter resembles a structure used to dry tobacco. Other villagers have passed by and told the members that they are meeting in a ‘tobacco shelter’ and they should come out and join a proper church. But the people have said no, they are members of the Community of Christ and one day there will be a church on this land! Soon they plan to make the mud bricks for the walls. They are faithful to God’s call in their lives and to this faith community.”
I’ve heard this story before, and my guess is so have you. Sure, those other stories probably took place on different continents. Take out “tobacco shelter” and “mud walls” and substitute any number of other building materials—white-washed wood, red bricks, or concrete blocks. The buildings could be in small farming communities, suburban subdivisions, or urban storefronts. The definition of just what constitutes a “proper” church tends to begin with buildings, though. Of course, there’s no scriptural basis for that.
In the Ephesian letter, chapter four, I find phrases like these: “one body and one Spirit”; “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all”; “some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”; and “we are members of one another.” Chapter five goes on to offer counsel to “live as children of light—for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true.” Of course, Ephesians is just one place to start in the New Testament.
I love testimonies, hearing in constantly changing ways unchanging truths, lived out this particular time by our sisters and brothers in Chintheche, Malawi: They are faithful to God’s call in their lives and to this faith community. Sermons are good; so is celebrating the sacraments. While I’m at this list-making I’ll add Sunday-school classes, church potlucks, small-group Bible study, reunions, youth camps, retreats, and prayer meetings. Yet no matter what we do “in church” (define that however you want), sooner or later somebody tells a story of God’s goodness, of healing, of transformation, of rebirth, of new light and truth. That, for me, is a “proper” church.
End Quote
“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” —Vernon Sanders Law
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September 2008
Smelling the Roses
My dad never took me hunting when I was a kid, and I can recall only a few times baiting a fishhook. That’s not a knock on my dad at all. Those weren’t things he learned growing up on a farm in southwestern Ontario, either. On the other hand, we always had a garden when I was growing up. More than anything else, I think that explains why I like to grow stuff in my yard. Now that my son owns his own house, he’s spent time creating a plant-filled landscape, too. Go figure.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, September is a time to sit back and ponder what worked and what didn’t in the garden and yard. Some years there’s a small mountain of tomatoes and zucchini to give away. Other seasons it’s “Well, maybe next year the weather and the bugs will cooperate.”
As I write this at the end of July, I’m hopeful for the harvest—it’s actually rained in Missouri in July! Little green tomatoes have gotten bigger and are turning red. Cannas and gladioluses and daylilies have provided a succession of color around the yard. Sadly, the peonies I had to transplant because of a building project have, as I expected, decided to punish me for my impudence in moving them at the “wrong time” of the year. (Late August through September is best, in case you’re wondering.)
Gardeners love to see what other gardeners are doing. And so a couple weeks ago, while on vacation with my wife, we stopped by Dow Gardens in Midland, Michigan. Although I’ve been visiting that area for thirty years, this was my first time to check out this delightful garden. I had wondered if it would be anything like the famous gardens I’d seen while living in British Columbia, Canada, years ago—especially Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver or Butchart Gardens near Victoria. It was—how shall I say this—a much more “attainable” garden for an amateur like me, and I came away with several ideas I might incorporate at home. I think that was the point.
We meandered along informal pathways, across lovely lawns, through a great little children’s garden, and even sat for a while in a fairly formal rose garden. Most roses, apparently, don’t have a scent but I tried smelling them anyway.
It’s interesting to me that the Bible begins and ends with garden imagery, with flowing rivers and trees. All the stories in between, the journey from one garden to the other, give breadth and depth to our faith and faith community. One of Jesus’ most memorable parables concerned a sower (a gardener/farmer?) who went out to sow. There’s mention of weeds in a field, wheat being separated from chaff, stony ground and well-trod paths, and hungry birds eating the seed almost as soon as it hits the ground.
Ecclesiastes famously relates that there’s a time to sow and a time to reap, a time for birth and a time for death. Yes, seasons come and seasons go. There are times to till and hoe, times to get the weeds while they’re still small, and times to savor the taste of a freshly picked tomato or the sight of chrysanthemums. September can be awkward for gardeners: summer hangs on and autumn is nearby by not yet. Soon we’ll once again be “between gardens.” Life is like that.
End Quote
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” —Aristotle
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October 2008
Our Fourth Standard Book
There’s a long-standing joke in this church that the Three Standard Books aren’t quite enough scripture for us. We have to have a fourth—our hymnal. Or, more correctly, our hymnals.
Stacked in no apparent order on the piano at home are Hymns of the Saints (now twenty-seven years old, although it’s still referred to by most as the “new” hymnal), Sing for Peace (published in 1994, not coincidentally the same year the Temple was dedicated), Sing a New Song (which came along five years later), and By Request: Songs for the Community of Christ (just four years old, it’s the “new kid” on the piano).
I’m pretty sure that inside the piano bench you’d find the old gray hymnal (it’s official name is The Hymnal, published in 1956—but I don’t know anybody who calls it that). Somewhere in the basement, I think, is a copy of the Saints’ Hymnal from the 1930s and ’40s. Here in my office there’s even a heritage reprint of Emma Smith’s hymnal.
Why, it’s fair to ask, do we in the Community of Christ care so much about our hymnals? What we sing—and how we sing them—says a whole lot about who we are, what we believe, and our vision of Christ’s peaceable kingdom on earth. Put that way, of course, it shouldn’t be surprising there might be some disagreement among us about what ought to go in a hymnal published by the church.
If you’re one of those people who reads this magazine from back to front (you may read all magazines that way and it’s merely coincidental that my column is on the back page of this one) you haven’t made it to the news story on page 36 yet. It’s an update on the church’s new hymnal project, which will lead to introduction of a two-piece “song and hymn resource” at the 2013 World Conference. You can follow the link provided to www.CofChrist.org/hymnal/, where you can share your own thoughts on this subject and submit music and text for consideration.
Much closer to the front of this Herald is a new hymn, “This Is a Day of New Beginnings,” from Hope Publishing Company. That well-known and highly regarded music publishing house will be working with our Hymnal Steering Team. During the past year we’ve published hymns in the Herald from the 2007 Peace Colloquy and from Danny Belrose’s new book, Vulnerable to Grace. Most often they’ve appeared in the Voices section (by the way, I’ve received a number of positive comments from readers about letting our “Voices” sing).
You can expect to find more hymns (OK, “song resources”) in future issues of this magazine. Maybe one will be yours or from a member of your congregation. You may love some of them; you may really, really dislike others. You might try out a few in your home congregation. Perhaps you’ll just sit down at the piano in your living room, push aside all those other hymnals, and give these new ones a run-through. I hope so. Who knows, maybe someday we’ll all begin to refer to Hymns of the Saints as our “old hymnal.”
End Quote
“There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is.” —William P. Merrill
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November 2008
I Remember Vinyl
It’s been years since I could play records at my house—my turntable, receiver, and speakers having exited via garage sale. Perhaps it was inevitable the album collection I’d dragged halfway across the continent, twice, would descend first to the family room, then to the basement. Now, with a pressing need to declutter again, my not-quite-ancient treasures are stacked in the garage, waiting for…well, I’d rather not say.
There’s not much of a market for them. And, I know, it’s possible to convert vinyl to CDs or electronic files. But let’s be honest; that’s just not going to happen. I couldn’t resist sorting them, though (OK, I made a list, too), and in doing so came across one I’d almost forgotten: Albert Schweitzer Plays Bach.
Yes, that Albert Schweitzer. You probably know about how the good doctor founded a medical clinic in Africa almost a century ago. Maybe, without checking Wikipedia first, you also know he received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize. If you’re a church organist, or someone who holds that profession in high esteem, you recognize that he, perhaps more than anybody else, preserved and interpreted the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach for posterity. (He played a leading role in reforming the way pipe organs are built, as well.) Schweitzer helped support his clinic with recitals in Europe. In 1935–1936 he recorded some of his favorite Bach organ works on organs in London, England, and Strasbourg, France. Therein lies the connection with my record album.
All of that would make for a full and rewarding life for most people. But there’s more. Although he first learned to play music from his Lutheran-pastor father and went on to study with the leading organ teachers of the day, he also developed quite a reputation as a professor of philosophy and, later, theology. His book, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, published in 1906, was his most important by far, but certainly not his only published work.
Before Schweitzer came along, scholars sketched a picture of the so-called historical Jesus through the lens of their own cultural, sociological, political, and theological perspectives. Schweitzer dared to interpret Jesus of Nazareth solely in light of Jesus’ recorded words about the kingdom of God and the “end times.” That Jesus was not at all like the contemporary, nineteenth-century expressions of Jesus. Schweitzer’s book, to put it mildly, changed the landscape. It also changed his life.
With his research completed, he felt compelled to put his faith into action. And so in 1905 this thirty-year-old organist, Bach expert, philosopher, and theologian resigned his faculty position and walked across campus to enroll in medical school. Eight years later he and his wife established the clinic in Lambaréné, French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon).
But I digress. I’ve found a good home for the album. If I spend this much time on each of the others, though, I’ll be in big trouble.
End Quote
“Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan.” —Albert Schweitzer
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December 2008
A Giant Rummage Sale
Way back when stockbrokers and investment bankers were held in higher esteem than they are today, a TV commercial proudly asserted, “When E. F. Hutton speaks, people listen.” I won’t go into the sordid downturn in the financial-services industry, but I’ll bet we’ve all had our own “When … speaks, people listen” moments. I did last April, while attending an Associated Church Press convention in Texas.
The lunch speaker, Phyllis Tickle, is well-known among religion editors. She co-founded the religion department of Publishers Weekly (the bible of the publishing industry) in the early 1990s. She has since turned her primary attention to the sociology of religion, and that was her topic for us. Instead of reading a speech from behind a lectern at the far end of the ballroom, she came out in the center of the room and spoke for forty minutes without so much as a note card. In short: Phyllis spoke; we listened. Then we asked questions.
She talked about the “big picture” of Christianity, looking back for two thousand years and ahead to what the twenty-first century may hold. Every 500 years or so, she explained, Christianity cleans out its attic and has a giant rummage sale. Each time that happens, something new is added to the Christian church. The word “great” ties all these tumultuous events together.
The Great Reformation in the sixteenth century led to Protestantism and a renewed, counter-reformation Catholicism. In the eleventh century, the Christian church split into Eastern and Western branches, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic, with the Great Schism. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great ensured the church’s survival through the so-called Dark Ages by institutionalizing monastic orders. The first century, of course, brought the Great Transformation from Judaism to Christianity. Now, as we enter fully into the twenty-first century, there is something else stirring, which some are calling the Great Emergence.
Here’s the thing: It’s easy to look back on previous eras to understand what’s happened. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to understand what’s going on when you are still in it. There’s turmoil and upheaval everywhere, with “Chicken Littles” running around screaming, “The sky is falling!’ And that’s where we are today. Something incredible and amazing is emerging, and our first task is simply to hang on for the ride.
Phyllis Tickle promised us religion editors she was putting the finishing touches on a book. Because I was so struck by how her ideas aligned with some of what I think is going on in the Community of Christ, I knew I had to get it. The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why lives up to its author’s promise. I found it fascinating and absorbing (but then, I am a “big picture” kind of guy). Do I think she’s right about what’s ahead? Maybe, maybe not. But something’s definitely emerging, and it’s well worth our time to join the discussion.
End Quote
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
