The Sacred Wild

Playing Catch with Babies

2008-10-04T09:06:00.001-07:00

Relationships are kind of like playing catch. Impersonal relationships could be like playing catch with baseballs, and personal relationships with water balloons. The closer two people are to each other, the easier time they'll have completing their tosses. Talking face to face might be like standing five feet away, on the phone like 10 feet, and written communication might be like standing 20 or 30 feet away.

A baseball that gets dropped is unfortunate, but it can be recovered with varying degrees of difficulty. It hurts to get hit by a baseball you don't see coming, but the stakes go up exponentially when tossing water balloons because they're messy when dropped, and, in a certain sense, the game has to start over with a new balloon.

Emails loaded with emotion can be like white water balloons printed with a red stitching pattern resembling a baseball. Not a good idea to throw them unless your partner knows exactly what you're throwing. Eye-contact and verbal signals are simply a must, as well as certainty of your partner's willingness and ability to catch.

Marriage is kind of like playing catch with a newborn baby. This one can’t be dropped—at least not without tragic results. In order to minimize that baby’s airtime, those partners/parents need to stand as close as possible. Cushioned gloves might be a wise investment.

In fact, isn't it true that the baby should never leave the hands of at least one parent? Shouldn't those parents be close enough that they can simply hand the baby off to one another, back and forth? What if the parents were so close that they both held the baby at the same time, all the time?

At that point, I think the term "playing catch" takes on a new meaning. No longer a mere game, marriage is an guarantee that might be stated like this: "If you ever start to let go of this baby, I'll be right here to catch her. If this baby ever starts to slip from my hands, I know that you will be holding on and that you will already have caught her. Let's not be afraid, because together we will never let this baby drop."

Many of the weddings I've attended have referenced Ecclesiastes 4:12b, a familiar nugget of wisdom saying that "a cord of three strands is not quickly broken" (NIV). I've generally heard that verse interpreted to mean that the third strand in a marriage is God, and that He'll keep a couple together as long as they remember to include Him on their list of priorities.

I think another, equally Christian way to understand that analogy is in terms of the synergy generated by two people committed to a common goal, a goal whose sum is equal to more than the total of its parts. A marriage is not simply two people who happen to be doing life together. A marriage is a separate entity to whose success both spouses must be wholly committed.

A truly healthy marriage, then, is one in which husband and wife are more interested in the health of the baby than anything else. More than who brings home the bacon, who cooks it, who does the dishes, and who holds the remote control. More than personal autonomy or freedom to leave. More than the baseballs and water balloons constantly flying around as a parts of other, ongoing games of catch. Those things can be dropped.

The baby above all must be caught because that baby, when she grows up healthy and strong, will be capable of amazing things beyond their imagination. She will more closely resemble God than either of her parents. And there may come a time that they realize they have not fallen because she has been the one to catch them.

Poem: Wild Geese

2008-06-20T12:43:00.001-07:00

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

From her 2003 book
Owls and Other Fantasies

Poem: The Lens of God

2008-06-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

Picture the girls
not in red
but white dresses

Standing beside
not pimps
but proud fathers

Picture the boys
not in black
but white armor

Standing among
not drunks
but proud sons

One day I will be
a mere crumble of bones
as once I was before

But in this moment on the hill
beneath the tree
among the many passersby

I see the ivory tower of God
and His golden clock
alive in the bodies of His children

Here is our holy humanity
here is the end of burning lusts
here is the baptism of eyes and breath

Here is our inheritance of life.

Written 6-10-08
Berkeley, CA

Poem: Not Quite the Good Samaritan

2008-05-16T17:01:00.001-07:00

Oh, what a jumbled bag am I
Indeed, and what a growing list
Of contradictions. Yes, I lie
A free man having sorely missed
The purposed point of his free living.
(‘Tis truly not the game of fakes.)
For men find pardon in forgiving
A fool whose faint heart only takes.

The pitied plight of this mistaken
Man yet yields his Truth unshaken:
Though jumbled in a bag, at rest;
Though listed and unchosen, best.

Written 3-11-08
Whittier, CA

Poem: Unintended Inspiration

2008-05-16T16:57:00.001-07:00

Nobody knew
Such a chewy haiku
Would have nothing to do
With the dawn

When we read it instead
With the thought in our heads
That the sun was not dead
Or long gone.

Written 5-16-08
Whittier, CA

Time of Your Life: Green Day Rewritten

2008-05-08T00:36:00.001-07:00

Flew down to Tulum, Mexico, for my sister-in-law's wedding last week. It's a little bit south of Cancun, and Rebecca and I stayed at a hotel on the beach with her family for nearly a week. Turned out to be a huge dose of perspective for me about what truly matters in life. As Ecclesiastes puts it (kind of): know God and enjoy life. Such a breath of fresh air for me during the heaviest crunch of the semester.

The wedding, of course, was beautiful, as were the newlyweds. A couple nights before the ceremony, I was thinking about the couple getting married, trying to appreciate the significance of their event and the surrounding circumstances. I decided to rewrite the words of an old Green Day acoustic number from my high school years into a recap of their story and a look ahead into a bright future of marriage. I had my guitar with me, so I sang this at their reception:

"Todd and Rachelle"
(to the tune of "Good Riddance" by Green Day)

Verse 1:
Todd and Rachelle, you fit so well, two of a kind
An easy laugh, an honest heart, an open mind
This perfect promise you just made in Mexico
Just let it guide you and don't ever let it go

Chorus 1:
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
You know you'll have the time of your life

Verse 2:
Do you remember when you met that day at sea?
It's no surprise those butterflies were meant to be
But did you expect that you would find on that cruise
Not just a lover but a friend you'll never lose?

Chorus 2:
It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right
You know you'll have the time of your life

(Guitar solo)

Chorus 3:
It's something unpredictable, and there's no end in sight
You know you'll have the time of your life

Chorus 4:
It's something unpredictable, don't be afraid to cry
Just know you'll have the time of your life

Written 5-2-08
Tulum, Mexico

Poem: To Hell and Back in an Evening over Macaroni and Cheese

2008-05-07T21:06:00.001-07:00

No, not much approaches the joy
Of a well-made box, cooked an additional minute
With perhaps an extra quarter-stick stirred in.

And then to sit with the steam and savor
Its creamy simplicity, cut, of course, with a barley brew
Whose sharp bubbles serve well the inner child

In assertion of age, sufficiently advanced,
And of autonomous manhood, mustered and wrought
In stubble and plenty of well-worked years.

Musing, I convince myself against the idea
That my non-alcoholic has been emasculated, one often claimed
In the jeers and smirks of those thinking themselves somehow freer.

Only freer to stumble and speak stupidly, I contend.
Alone with my macaroni, it's somehow gratifying to grumble
Against something. A mere effort in avoidance? Could be...

Could be

Because it remains in the room
Beneath bowl, bottle, and alcoholic ambivalence
The same still question constantly imposed by the void.

Driving me to madness, around and around
Like ceaseless rats on rusty wheels, this bloodshot search
Silently steals my sight and sound balance.

No, it doesn't end, though summer come
Though seasons spend and speed me toward my final day
The question remains a threatening doom.

But tonight I hide in the safety of a childhood meal
A soft blanket in the bleak, and my drink, a cane, props me up
To walk another week or year. To reach...

O, to reach

This right arm towards heaven, in hopes
Of more than answers, more than issuance of manhood or destination
More than mere relief of worldly burden

But to find strength and be strengthened
To find freedom and completion and power in release of these commodities
To find the Lord at His table, to recline and to feast

And to behold what wondrous clarity spoke
The light into day, the breath into Adam, the answer into the depths
Of the void and the very soul of Satan, still beloved of God.

And to find compassion for that vicious asker
The one who would offer only death in rhetorical response
The one who so inadvertently shows even the lowliest soul not beyond the reach of love.

So now, in victory, I head to reheat the rest and open another;
For it seems the journey of this evening has again lightened and returned me
To simple and sufficient boyhood joys, such as those of macaroni and a tasty import.

Written 5-7-08
Whittier, CA

Poem: The Brimming Sunset

2008-05-07T21:03:00.001-07:00

The brimming sunset
Seen from above
The cloudy blanket
Is boldly painted
And daintily brushed
Fluffed and crystallized
Within this airplane
Window of pink.

It does its thing
Day out, day in
While we do ours
Hour upon hour until
We happen to fly

Freely we buy cages
Wait for ages
Make like birds
And then return
To the feathery nest
Where sometimes
We are taken in
By the sunset
As it brims

Written 5-5-08
Onboard an AeroMexico flight home to LAX from Cancun

Poem: A Sunday Psalm at the Park

2008-04-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

What a simple desire
Unclouded, clear
Beneath the blue
Around the green
The weekend warmth
And cooling breeze
The twinkling stream
Between the trees.

Breathing, being
Beholding the ongoing
And eternal, momentary
Song of life on the lawn.

Shadows are bridges
To hidden light
This pen is my path
In the back of this book
My messenger of glory
Questioner in the void
Carrying my request
Unspoken, yet known:

To let go of all but You
To fall, no, to dive
Leaving life behind
To find You and come
To truly be alive.

Written 4-20-08
La Mirada, CA

The Joy of Animals

2008-04-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

I found these animal quotes on a website today. They're cute, like something that should be printed on a mug. Something is wrong with life, I think, if you can't smile at these kind of things. Or, maybe I should say, something is right with life when you can. :) Hurrah!

"You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!'" ~ Dave Barry

"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." ~ Abraham Lincoln

"Dogs have owners, cats have staff." ~ Anonymous

"Love the animals: God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled." ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Poem: Listen

2008-04-15T12:57:00.000-07:00

My soul is a valley of dry bones.
No motion or hope of motion.
No sound but the wind overhead.
I used to think that time would fix me.
Then I thought a list would fix me.
But I'm not stuck in a rut.
I'm dead.

I'm dead and it's filthy in here.
There's a mirror in the other room.
That's where the guy I ought to be stands.
He looks taller than me but he's not.
I think he works out though.
I've wanted to hang out with him more often.
The devil on my shoulder isn't really my best friend.
But it doesn't matter because I'm dead.

I'm dead and talking about God is a waste of time.
So is going to church and all that other crap.
Talking to God is also mostly a waste of time.
Because dead people can't talk.
Dead people can only listen.
So I listen.

Listen to the wind, that's God breathing.
God is breathing because He's alive.
And He probably has a lot to say.
But all I can hear is His breathing.
That's because He's not talking.
He's listening.

Then I realize that I'm listening and breathing.
And breathing and listening together with God.
And I'm not in a rut.
And I'm not in a dark, filthy room.
I'm outside in the bright and breezy blue.
I'm the guy in the mirror who shaves and stands up straight.

Now it's time to go to church and talk about God.
Because I'm not dead.
I'm alive.

Written 4-14-06
Oakdale, CA

Poem: The Lament of a Tree

2008-04-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

Uprooted, we grasped
And, gasping, caught not
Breath, nor did our feet
Find hold, but, falling
Blindly, we mined and dug
Desperately into darkness, nearby
Hearts of others, and tried
Any firmament felt within reach.
Forgetting memories
Of roots, we clung
To weary branches
And, breaking, we broke
Those found, while, finding,
We forgot those promised,
Yet left, in the ground. Worlds
Away, we climbed
Foreign limbs, and foolishly
Assumed false newness
Until
Flying, our minds returned
To true embraces, strained but not
Left, only having
Been stretched, holding
In hearts mementos
To give, while keeping
Secret wounds where familiar
Faces, suddenly strange
Had begun to take
Root. Will we
Mistakenly blame oceans
Who were tossed
In the waves, when safely
We could have but floated
Ashore, or made use
Of invisible wings and taken
Claim to strength
Not our own but afforded
Us through other, unseen
Roots, unpulled and untorn?

Lord, have mercy
On this shaken faith. Grant
Restoration to this graft, and bless
This tender branch and its fruit,
Though fallen, undropped. Receive
My return in to full union
With You.

Written 4-9-08
Biola University Library
La Mirada, CA

The Late Mystic

2008-04-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

One afternoon in March, I was in the library avoiding my homework. I was trying to think of a pseudonym or pen name to use for books and music I might publish in the future, one that referenced things that are important to me. I eventually settled on 'The Late Mystic'.

I've been at least a little late to nearly everything for as long as I can remember, a pattern that drives me more crazy than I can even say. "Why don't you just leave a little earlier?" Please.

Anyway, the word late is a pun that has at least four meanings:
(1) tardy
(2) recent
(3) dead (as in, "to self and alive in Christ"), and
(4) pregnant.

Yes, that last one warrants a little explanation. It's from the second Austin Powers movie when Frau tells Dr. Evil she is 'late'. More importantly, it's from Plato's Symposium, in which he says all people are pregnant and desire to give birth: some to babies and some to ideas. I like the idea of being pregnant in mind. That's meaning of the 'Late' part.

The 'Mystic' thing is about my desire to know God in terms of actual experience. I don't merely want to 'find the truth' or 'get to the bottom of things', etc. I'm convinced that life is really about knowing God closely, which is a mysterious thing. You don't get to know a friend by listening to people talk about him on Sunday mornings, but by spending time with him and asking questions and going where he goes and doing what he does. Of course, reading a friend's autobiography would probably benefit that friendship, but having read a book about someone's life doesn't, in itself, establish a friendship with that person. Neither does merely memorizing a few Bible verses and then thinking good thoughts.

So, I don't think knowing God is so much about acquiring data, but rather coming into mystical union with the Creator of the universe. It doesn't really involve the scientific method. It involves probing the eternal quality of your inner being. In St. Augustine's Confessions, he comes upon his own spiritual assent to knowledge of God by first descending into the silence of his own mind, and then, having left his physical senses behind, by ascending through the gateway of his own soul into the presence of the One. He said he believed in the theological truths about Jesus being the Son of God and Lord and Savior and so on long before he considered himself a convert to Christianity.

I affirm historical orthodox Christianity. I also believe that it is through mystical experiences of God's presence that people truly come to know God, often without even realizing it. Life is full of God's fragrance; His unmistakable character is everywhere in smiles and plants and human acts of compassion. Prayer itself is a mystical thing. To know God, not as a mind holding information, but as a whole person joined to another, that is great search of my life. And I think it's the deepest goal of every human heart, regardless of what the mind believes.

That's why I like the name "The Late Mystic".

The Sacred Wild

2008-04-04T22:28:00.000-07:00

Last fall I read something in a book that I really like by a guy named Steve Chaulke. The book, whose shamelessly sales-oriented title makes my eyes roll, is called Intelligent Church. ("Oh, finally! I've always wanted my church to be intelligent! This must be the answer I've been hoping would come! I'll buy it today!") It actually was an excellent summary of ideals that I've felt forming in my own outlook, and I would recommend it to anyone despite its cheesy name. (If anyone's curious, here's a link to the book on Amazon.com.) Anyway, the part I really liked had to do with these geese that live on farms in England, and I don't remember exactly what the book said, but I've thought about it a lot. Here's my version:

So, there are these geese that live on farms in England. They live in pens with fences and gates, and they're fed and overfed and fattened up for Christmas. Nearby the farms are little forested areas where wild geese live, who eat far less and aren't nearly as clean or as pretty. Every year when autumn falls, the wild geese fly south over the heads of the farm geese in big "V" shapes, and when the farm geese see them in the sky, they suddenly remember Mother Nature's voice and hear her calling them. They start running around their pens, flapping and flapping, but they're far too fat to fly, of course, so after a little while they settle down and return to their troughs for thirds and fourths. Then life goes on as it has for as long as they can remember, that is until a few work-weeks later when the wonderfully fat farm geese are wrung. No, not like on the phone.

The spiritual metaphor is nearly perfect. (Except for the part about being wrung. Wrung is a good word though, which is why I used it. Wrung. Good word.) Modern American 'church-ianity' is like pens of safety all across the countryside, stocked with plenty of spiritual food week after week. The two big differences from the story I just told about the English geese is that (1) pastors don't usually kill lazy church-goers, and (2) the gates of our pens are wide open.

God is in the forest. God is in the sacred wild.

And there are a lot of geese out there. And I want to know what's out there and what it's like to explore the countryside and what it means to be a goose. I want to face the treacherous forest, come what may. But most of all, I want to fly south when it's time. I don't even really know what I mean by that, but I know there's something missing in the life of a goose who never flies south.

It has seemed to me that a lot of what happens at mainstream evangelical churches is rather shallow and over-simplified. Like there's the emotional music part, and then the intellectual sermon part, and then come back and do it again next week. Outlines and bullet-points and smooth, formulaic prayers. We get together and listen to a guy up front dispense facts about Jesus in three-step, self-help sermons. It's 'Easy Mac' theology. (You know, the easier version of the easier version of the real thing, which was originally only a side dish anyway.)

[A music-nerd side note: the geniuses of several hundred years ago like Bach and Beethoven, from whose work nearly all of our modern music has descended, didn't first study the rules of music theory and then write their masterpieces. Rather, scholars of music theory studied their compositions in order to discover musical principles. Of course, everyone sees further by standing on giants' shoulders (i.e., Bach and Beethoven were certainly aware of what had already been done), but it was the very nature of human experience--the union of physics, biology, and soul--that begat our understandings of musical truth. Funny how 'truth' pharisaically evolves into 'rules' of how music 'ought' to sound or how life 'ought' to be lived. In this way, rules represent a departure from truth when love (of music, of people, etc.), as their motivating source, is replaced by control.]

Here comes the disclaimer: By now it might sound like I'm mostly all about protest. Not so. My point is not that 'they're wrong, and I'm right.' I'm not here to boycott people who are also trying to do the right thing. Having read countless 'emerging church' blogs over the past few years, I'm pretty weary of 'griping'. Yes, I agree with many of their points, but when their tone lacks the compassion of Jesus, they don't end up sounding much like the voice of Jesus to me. So, I've rewritten this post a few times in an attempt to purge it of gripe.

My point is merely that there has got to be more to life and knowing God than what I've seen so far in the version of Christianity I've known. Yes, the truth of God is there at church; it's everywhere because God is everywhere. But merely going to church every weekend and trying not to sin during the week is a disturbingly unhealthy idea of what it means to live in relationship with God in Jesus.

Along those lines, I must say that I feel no resentment towards the guy up front trying to be as cool as possible, just in case there are first-time visitors who might be, you know, on the fence about coming back next week for part-three of this great teaching series. I've been that guy, trying to attract people to Jesus by being slick and offering the gospel truth in five simple steps. I don't know if anyone who takes the Great Commission seriously will ever fully escape being that guy. I mean, come on, right? Responsible Christians wear khaki pants on Sundays and worry about the unsaved. It's what we do. It's the rules.

Or maybe not. Maybe 'not being that guy' is somewhere in the woods on the other side of the mountain. What if 'not being that guy' actually exists somewhere outside of the pen? I mean, I have poked around out past the gate a few times, out where the grass starts to get tall and bugs buzz much more loudly. So, I can't see it, but it's gotta be there. Maybe venturing out into the sacred wild is a step toward letting go of the endless pressure that runs that guy's life.

That is the hope that has begun to grow in me for myself and for Christians and non-Christians alike. Yes, I think 'not being that guy' is definitely over the mountains to the south. It's there, and someday I'll smell the end of August on the breeze and know that the time is right. Maybe it will be on a Tuesday morning that I'll wake up a little earlier than normal and walk over to the gate without really thinking about it, you know, as if that's just what I do every day. I'll flap a bit, gain some momentum, and climb up onto the misty sky. And there, from the vantage point of God's windowsill, I'll see the sunrise and the countryside and the little forests and farms scattered about the land. He'll point out where to go, and I'll coast for about 20 minutes and find that 'not being that guy' happened miles ago.

Yes, I actually believe the future is a bright, happy thing because I believe that God is empowering people to seek Him in the sacred wild. May you ask Him questions about who He is and what He wants, and may you have the strength to follow where He leads you.

Poem: Not Here Without You

2008-04-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

We sat in the second largest castle
And enjoyed our lattes far from home.
And what fantastic foam! I explained and expounded
The inside corporate Starbucks scoop
And the physics of milk and other (un)important
Second-hand news I heard from you
To overfilled ears quickly losing interest.

And what gracious listeners they were to wait
While I steamed routine memories of you
In my half-empty soul. That is, until
The moment when the misty force of your
Absence overtook those overloaded pleasantries
And my powers of avoidance were spent
And I submitted to silence and the brimming surprise
Of ready tears to (un)ready eyes.

Truly, Love, I am not here without you.

Written 3-28-08
Cesky Budejovice, Czech Republic

Poem: Snow Unmelted

2008-04-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

Snow unmelted in the shadows of trees
Like beds unmade, unslept, are these.
In the still shade of Winter’s late afternoon
It was early morning: a wedding, a moon,
A birth, a death, the newness of age
And ancients, fresh, green country blades.
A youth and young maiden in secret wed;
Their union forbidden, guilt-ridden, they fled.
Ever-delicate Springtime has come into sight;
Left behind is the snow that belonged to the night.

Written 3-22-08
German countryside near Munich

Poem: The Pew

2008-04-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

I touched that pew looking for something. Perhaps I sought
An infusion of life that wood can give having once lived
But stone and metal and glass cannot.
The ruddy pew stood worn and smoothed by centuries of use,
Darkened under oil of countless hands. This modest
Furniture, near the back but not the last, called to itself
No attention, made no claim to glory, caught few eyes
Besides brief glances of those grasping to take use
Of its humble function. As silent slaves unnoticed wait
To offer comforts without demand of thanks
Or gratuity from masters’ hands, this pew
Stands that we may sit and weekly give our weight to it.
How unlike the front, the alter, the gold, and rainbow glass
Meant to represent our God of cross and resurrection. Can it be
More clear in any bright or dimly lit place that these
Pews better portray Our Savior’s heart
Than priestly robes and passing plates?

O lucky pew, so naturally free from this burden of self, praise
With me the One who forgives ungrateful hearts
Like this small trifle I possess. Yes, I am jealous, covetous
Of a position far above my own, and far below,
For I long to be you.

Written 3-28-08
Cesky Budejovice, Czech Republic

Taste The Air (in Prague?)

2008-03-19T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving tomorrow with my school choir on a tour of Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic. It's an eleven-day thing, which will be the longest I've ever been away from Rebecca since we were married April 17, 2004, almost four years. I also will need to spend any down time on the trip doing homework. How can I say that I'm dreading this wonderful experience of some of the most significant places in the history of classical music? I guess I can say I'm both thrilled and scared. Though I did have an enlightening and relieving epiphany-type moment after my voice lesson yesterday about the fact that I can trust God to guide me through the tears of life, I'm feeling an enormous amount of pressure in these afternoon hours prior to the day of departure.

I don't know why, but I was reminded of the lyrics to a song I wrote a couple years ago. Most of the songs I've written are worship songs for use in church settings, but this one isn't. I'm honestly not fully aware of what connection it may have to what I'm going through right now, something to do with moving on and looking forward to future things perhaps, but here it is anyway:

Taste The Air

Verse 1:
Sometimes it’s unclear which way to turn
But will you search the unknown road?
And if you’re unsure of where you’re headed anyway
Remember it’s ahead and not behind that you’ll find home

So used to making a new plan
So tired of suddenly realizing the simple truth
If only all you had to do was truly mean it
But a new routine will never fix the last one or the next one, will it?

Chorus:
Let the things of yesterday stay there
You won’t need them where you’re going, they’ll just get in the way
And let the wings you thought were broken taste the air
You were told they’d never open, but now you’re on your way

Verse 2:
Look around are you caught in your box again?
Who put you there and when will you leave it behind?
You can think about your life but isn’t it time
That you got out and felt the sunshine, it’s a great day to fly

Bridge:
There’s a place where every face you see is smiling
Where you can leave your burdens far behind in the grass
One day, you'll never see it coming
You’ll find a river in the sun
And you'll cross over the to golden streets of ever after

Teaching by Being

2008-03-18T01:23:00.000-07:00

I started taking composition lessons with Prof. Wills a couple weeks ago. Something I've noticed that's been kind of cool is that the lesson materials he has spent time preparing remind me a lot of the lesson materials I developed for guitar lessons that I taught a few years ago. They're very clean and neat, and yet very thorough, offering students not just a basic idea of something but a definitive understanding. It's clearly important to him that his lessons be solidly grasped in a way that leads students to a greater musical fluency rather than a mere passing grade. I've come to appreciate this kind of teacher more and more as I've returned to school for the back end of my 20's.

The different approaches to teaching music (or anything else) that different teachers take is worth considering. I admit that it's been difficult for me not to applaud the teachers I like and, at times, resent the others. My issue really isn't the 'others', whose teaching I've had trouble connecting with, but simply that their style has not agreed with my expectation, which has been mostly based on my own style of teaching from years ago.

It seems natural for anyone to prefer his own style of anything, and it's always easier to like people in whom we see something of ourselves. But I can't help but conclude that a teacher shouldn't have to use the influence of something other than the inherent value of his subject in order to teach it. Teachers shouldn't have to operate in the way of "get them to think I'm cool, then they'll listen when I tell them music (or whatever) is also cool." At least not at the college level, in my opinion. No, a teacher should influence his students by being the very thing he seeks to teach. Wasn't that the obvious distinction everyone noticed between Jesus' teaching style and that of the scribes and Pharisees?

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30 KJV

I'd like to embody the way of Jesus more in the way I live. After all, we're all teachers of something to someone.

God Relational?

2008-03-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

'Why should I think that God is relational?'

A question similar to this was brought up on my school's bulletin-board forum tonight. Someone was wanting to know how to convince a deist that God is relational. The short answer I think I maybe should have offered is that a better approach might rather be to seek to show the person that God is relational by relating to him in the way God would.

The long answer I instead offered is (essentially) below.

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I recently talked with a close friend about this. His perspective was somewhat different but somewhat similar: 'Isn't it kind of arrogant to assume that God is like us in the way of being personal?'

In my opinion, the highest good of life is relationships. That is, the most significant thing about anyone is the personal connections he or she has with other people. Are they strong connections? Are they weak? Are they many, few, close, distant, healthy, unhealthy, etc.? That's why communities are so important and isolation-except-through-internet lifestyles are so dangerous (yet common). Along the same lines, a higher, more mature intellect should (but doesn't always) result in a greater ability to connect with people, however different they might be. Like how Paul said he wanted to become all things to all people, or in other words, he wanted to find a way to relate to anyone and everyone.

All that to say that I cannot imagine God to be impersonal or otherwise non-relational in any way that would not result in a reduction of the character I already believe Him to have. Certainly God's mind is higher than ours. Based on my personal experience of close intimacy with another human being as the highest, most meaningful good of life as a human being, I can only believe that God must be relational and that He wants to know me and everyone else more closely than we can imagine. And, if that's the case, it makes sense that He would become a person and look for us, etc. In my opinion, for God not to be relational would lessen His status as God.

Of course, I suppose that's not really a 'scientific' proof in the sense that the data used to reach that conclusion can't be measured in units, but I think it conforms to honest logic. It might be worth asking your deist friend why he has trouble relating to a personal, relational God. Perhaps he has experienced painful relationships that have caused him think it's better (safer?) not to connect with other people and that God must be the same way. Or maybe he's been hurt by 'cool' people who haven't wanted to relate to him because he's not cool enough, and he assumes that God follows that pattern too: cool repels uncool, high-status repels low-status. If you've read Searching For God Know What by Donald Miller, you can probably see where I've gotten a lot of these ideas. And, of course, pray for him, which I'm sure you're doing.

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I hope that helped.

Meter in Verse

2008-03-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

I attended an excellent lecture two weeks ago entitled "Poetry: the Movement of Meaningful Sound through Time", in which Ms. Schubert discussed the rhythm of Milton and Spenser's verse. (Iambic pentameter, 'feet', 'stichic' vs. 'strophic', etc.) It opened with these lines by T.S. Eliot:

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern
Can words or music reach the stillness...

I took particular inspiration from discussion of the importance of form to Spenser and Milton's work. 'Rules' are so amazingly critical in the crafting of the lines because they establish a defined space in order to reveal the beauty of tension within it. It was said that poetry without rules is like tennis without a net (or lines, I'd add), in that the artistic element of the work is found to be greater as a result of the boundaries. 'Rule breaking' then becomes an artistically meaningful divergence.

Anyway, I decided to try my hand at a few lines within a defined meter last night, which I haven't really done before. The tetrameter I used is more sing-songy and hurried than pentameter would be, but I'm a novice, after all. Here it is:

Not Quite the Good Samaritan

Oh, what a jumbled bag am I
Indeed, and what a growing list
Of contradictions. Yes, I lie
A free man having sorely missed
The purposed point of his free living.
(‘Tis truly not the game of fakes.)
For men find pardon in forgiving
A fool whose faint heart only takes.

The pitied plight of this mistaken
Man yet yields his Truth unshaken:
Though jumbled in a bag, at rest;
Though listed and unchosen, best.

Nothing like I've done before. Hopefully there is more and better to come.