Play, repeat.
Loving the Truth: Sunday Sermon
The pastoral staff has made the series for the season “Summer of Love.” I find this apt and appropriate for me at the moment. I hope and pray for hope in love these days. I hope for truth and light and deep, sincere, lightness of heart. I seek it in reality. This weekend, Pastor C. John Steer lead us to love by the path of truth. He pointed to John’s use of the word know in his epistle of love (I John). It is important to know what God says about us in order to belief in his love. It is important to know the words in order to know the reality, the reality that God loves us.
John (I John 4:1-6) tells us to think, listen, and watch when we are hearing others’ words about God. Are the ideas from God? Does it acknowledge that Jesus is God? Is there evidence of the truth being lived out consistently and honestly in the speaker’s life?
John (I John 4:-12) tells us that God is love and God loves us. We see evidence of God’s love in our personal transformation from failing to victorious people. We see it in our transformation from fearful to hopeful, peaceful people. We see evidence of God’s love at Calvary, where Jesus gave up himself to create a new covenant with us. We see evidence of God’s love in other Believers as they feed, clothe, and care for one another, among many other beautiful ministries.
John (I John 4:13-21) tells that we can be saved from separation from God. We know the truth of our salvation by the gift of the spirit, even when our own spirits rejoice in the company of God. That is when we realize we were meant to be God’s children. We see evidence of salvation in the gift of faith, knowing that faith is ours for the taking. And we see evidence of salvation by the gift of love.
And we know what love feels like. Love is secure. Love is peaceful. Love is full and makes you whole. Love is deeper than our imaginations, visualizations, and even our far off dreams of a one day.
*Enlarge the copy of this Sunday’s notes to see who Pastor Steer quoted in his sermon.
To the Not Impossible Him
How shall I know, unless I go
To Cairo and Cathay,
Whether or not this blessed spot
Is blest in every way?
Now it may be, the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose;
How shall I tell, unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
The fabric of my faithful love
No power shall dim or ravel
Whilst I stay here, –but oh, my dear
If I should ever travel!
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Collected Lyrics
*I’m sensing a personal theme here. Staying, going, signing contracts, settling down, seeing, experiencing, itching, scracthing. Are free spirits always this way?
A Lesson From Tom Willett
Here is the most memorable life lesson I learned from one Tom Willett back in 2003 during my stint at The Real School of Rock/Are you for serious?: Generously use the phrases “right now” and “to me” pretty much in every conversation. I am 8 years into this advice and I think I’m using those words more than ever.
- “At this time, I feel apprehensive about that.”
- “Right now, I am more than upset about this situation.”
- “In this moment, I see myself as out of place and I see you as where I want to be, but I’m really unsure.”
- “To me, I feel comfortable with that right now.”
(Tom extended the lesson to encompass beliefs, belief systems, and theology, but feelings are quite big enough for me today.)
These conditional words are not cop outs. In fact, they are a hard opposite. They permit free and complete ownership of thoughts and feelings, while humbly allowing for error and growth. These words promote change in the person, which is the general idea as a Christian.
Insert nervous shaking, “What?! I have to change something about myself?!” Absolutely!
But I cannot do that, I cannot change, if I am not honest with where I am at. I cannot go somewhere without knowing where I’m starting. A good point would be that Abraham did not set out on a journey without knowing where he started. Abraham set out, by faith, not knowing where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8)
I, also, set out by faith not knowing where I am going in this journey of self. Oh, I have vague ideas, like Abraham. My ideas don’t include descendents as numerous as the stars, but they do include health, graciousness, and maybe an honorable mention in someone’s graduation speech.
I used these words at least 6 times today and they totally helped me laugh my way through a sticky conversation. Self, don’t take yourself too seriously. At least, that’s how I feel today.
*Please note that this is meant to be used when discussing real feelings, concerns, nervousness, etc, not petty grievances like “I don’t like they way you load the dishwasher; it makes my life feel unstable.”
Lessons from Malcolm McLaren
I may never be so brash or so forward or so boldly brazen as I make my art, but the ideals of punk rock will always remain philosophies I cannot and would rather not escape. There is nothing so valuable as truth and honesty–those old buzz words. Transparency and authenticity–those new(er) buzz words.
Real art comes from reality. It draws from real perceptions and communicates in clarity and stand alone-ness.
Here are some lessons I gleaned today from Malcolm McLaren’s TED (not sure it was actually at TED) talk in October 2009:
- Better to be a failure than a benign success.
- Do not lose the ability to see the artistic value of the banal.
Here is McLaren, who famously led the British punk rock fashion (with Vivienne Westwood) and rock scene (managing the Sex Pistols) in the 1970’s, discussing authentic creativity verses karaoke culture. This talk was given about 7 months before his death in April 2010. If you’ve ever wanted to know how someone ends up in a certain way, McLaren explains his path of development in a rather interesting way.
Let there be no karaoke art from me.
*Note McLaren’s beautiful and classic sweater in the video–a far cry from 1970’s punk rock.
The Concert by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Concert
No, I will go alone.
I will come back when it’s over.
Yes, of course I love you.
No, it will not be long.
Why may you not come with me?–
You are too much my lover.
You would put yourself between me and song.
If I go alone,
Quiet and suavely clothed.
My body will die in its chair,
And over my head a flame,
A mind that is twice my own,
Will mark with icy mirth
The wise advance and retreat
Of armies without a country,
Storming a nameless gate,
Hurling terrible javelins down
From the shouting walls of a singing town
Where no women wait!
Armies clean of love and hate,
Marching lines of pitiless sound
Climbing hills to the sun and hurling
Golden spears to the ground!
Up the lines a silver runner
Bearing a banner whereon is scored
The milk and steel of a bloodless wound
Healed at length by the sword!
You and I have nothing to do with music.
We may not make of music a filigree frame,
Within which you and I,
Tenderly glad we came,
Sit smiling, hand in hand.
Come now, be content.
I will come back to you, I swear I will;
And you will know me still.
I shall be only a little taller
Than when I went.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Undeniably, music is a force that pursues the soul and catches it in order to grow the soul inch by taller inch of true being.
[Christianity]
“[Christianity] exists outside of cool–it’s the sort of thing you come into when you’re done trying to redeem yourself with people.”
–Donald Miller
On Age and Agelessness
PROLOGUE
Numbers are no one’s age. It is true
I was born on July 22nd in eighteen
hundred and eighty-one, but that
is nowhere near how old I am.Numbers are not
how old anyone is. Since that day,
I have married and traveled and married again
and had children and friends and grandchildren,
even a lover or so . . .la la
. . . and once,
at Covent Garden, Mr. Swinburne
bowed to me, or to my sister, and
we both curtsied back and that
is exactly how old I am.Before
this century began, I made
some faërie stories Mr. Lang
thought well of and the men
who printed them and sold them and the children
who drifted asleep with those books in their arms
are all, nearly all, worm farms now,
or stripped too bare to be maggots’ meat.And all those absences and bones
are how old I am.I have tried to survive
and keep track of my life, I have tried to deal
with each year as it came over me,
and have failed . . . and all those names
and faces have become my age.And everyone
I used to know has gone into the darkness
and my hands quiver with the grief of their
departures, my lovers and my friends no more.
For a very long time now, from when
I was a little child, I have been
dying, and that is exactly how old I am.-David Dwyer
“Ariana Olisvos: Her Last Works and Days“
University of Massachusetts Press (c) 1976
Clog #4: At the Mall
C: “When offered a snack, take it.”
S: “When offering good advice, take that as well.”
We believe in eating.
Let The Great World Spin
Corrigan told me once that Christ was quite easy to understand. He went where He was supposed to go. He stayed where He was needed. He took little or nothing along, a pair of sandals, a bit of a shirt, a few odds and ends to stave off the loneliness. He never rejected the world. If He had rejected it, He would have been rejecting mystery. And if He rejected mystery, He would have been rejecting faith.
Let The Great World Spin
Colum McCann
(c) 2009
I’m currently giving McCann and his fictionalized Dublin to New York brothers’ tale space to teach me something I have yet to discover. How could I know what I need to learn anyway? The world is a mystery of faith.
Naphtalia 