Ezekiel's Hope and Ours

After helping to get this new blogging site off with a couple posts I have been burdened with a number of things and have not posted anything for a couple weeks. One burden has been physical—I came down with a really nasty virus that I am still not completely over and that past onto one of my children. Another burden has been helping my wife transition out of one job and into a new one that she just started this week. It is an exciting change for us but it has been a challenge to pull off in the midst of the holiday season. Finally, there has been the awful burden that we are all feeling of the Massacre of the Innocents in Newtown, CT. The combination of all these things has left my blogging silent. However, during this time I have been reading a brilliant book called Filled with the Spirit, by John Levison.  I wanted to take this blog post to share excerpts from the book’s chapter on the Prophet Ezekiel that have spoken powerfully to me as I have been living with the grief of Newtown.

The Prophet Ezekiel wrote at a time of intense grief and confusion for the people of Israel.  Of his many visions, the one that has had the most intense hold on Jewish and Christian imagination is his vision of God’s restoration of life to a valley of dry bones. Levison’s meditation on this vision is illuminating not only of the biblical text, but also of our own cause for Hope in the midst of death.

Fundamental to this vision is the overpowering reality of death that must be overcome, a horrible reality which Ezekiel captures as he describes the unthinkable. The spirit transports him, of priestly stock, to the land of the dead, to a valley where the bones lie brittle and bleached by the sun and sands of time: “The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry” (37:1-2). It in the echo of this valley of death that Ezekiel gives ear to Israel’s triadic and tragic lament: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Immediately Ezekiel measures the death around him: very many bones and very dry bones. This is death to the core, to the extent that even Ezekiel—with his fertile imagination…cannot answer “Yes” to God’s question, “Son of adam, can these bones live?” (37:3). Life in such a valley of death is inconceivable even to the boundless imagination of Ezekiel.

And yet, it is in this valley of death that the spirit has deposited him, and it is in this valley, among these very many, very dry bones, that the spirit will accomplish its most astounding act of vivification. In this valley, Ezekiel discovers hope, hope that resides in the presence and the power of the spirit:

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause spirit to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put spirit in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.” (37:4-6)

…These bones cannot, therefore, easily return to life. They cannot be raised as they had been, in the throes of sin and the pangs of disloyalty to God. Their dismemberment is due to disloyalty, and they cannot be brought back simply by being layered with sinews, flesh, and skin. (95-96 of Filled with the Spirit.)

The depth of Israel’s sin, and the totality of its death, could only be overcome by a direct infusion of the spirit of life. The magnitude of their fall, and ours, is such that only a deep work of the spirit could possibly bring about new life and hope. This Advent our Hope is what Ezekiel’s was, our Promise the promise given to Israel:

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O spirit, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the spirit came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.” (37:9-10)

A Reason I Love Being a Pastor... Weddings, Big & Small!

There are a few reasons I sometimes don't love being a pastor, or at least I don't love telling people I'm a pastor... they sometimes get that dumbstruck look and start apologizing, as if I've been recording any curse words they may have used or as if I was thinking of how to use them as a sermon illustration. I do neither. Promise.

But a reason I do love being a pastor is weddings! I love the big ones and the small ones, the formal ones and the informal ones. This week I was blessed to join a young couple in mariage in a small, quiet time, standing between our Advent Wreath'ed altar and Xmas tree... they were radiant, the bride and groom! Teresa and some close friends, Jeremy and Deidra Neeley, witnessed. It was a sweet moment in time, and I am so glad for those moments.


Times like this one are special and shouldn't be taken lightly. Every wedding is beautiful and each is special, but these small ones might be my favorite. This isn't my first informal wedding with a very small group... it's always a blessing to share some thoughts on marriage and encourage love in such an immediate way without the needs of a ceremony. I am praying for their many, joyful years together!

~Todd

Loving Les Miz (and Bishop Myriel)

Victor Hugo, the creator of Bishop Myriel.

The musical production of Les Miserables is absolutely my favorite theater show. It is the only production that I have seen twice live, both times in my hometown of Chicago where it played continually for many years. From the very first moments of my first encounter with the musical I have loved it as a profound expression of Christian humanism. Despite my love affair with the musical I have never read the book by Victor Hugo—until now!! With the first movie production of the musical scheduled for release this Christmas I have decided to try and read the massive book during Advent before seeing the movie while in Chicago for the holidays.

I am only just into the book and I already love it. Unlike the musical the book begins with an extensive portrayal of the Bishop. In fact, the whole of Book One is about Monsignor Myriel, Bishop of Digne, and is entitled “An Upright Man”. Hugo paints a picture of Myriel that is deeply sympathetic, indeed nearly iconic. He locates Bishop Myriel clearly within the tumult of France in the 1800s and elevates a vision of Christian faith and charity timeless in its beauty and deep compassion. While viewers of the musical will be well aware of the Bishop’s act of grace towards Jean Valjean, the book has numerous other stories of Myriel’s witness to mercy. Here, for instance, is a section on Bishop Myriel’s ministry to a man headed to the guillotine for murder:

He [Myriel] went at once to the prison and to the [prisoner’s] cell, where he addressed him by name, took his hand and talked to him. He spent the rest of the day and the night with him, without food or sleep, praying to God for his soul and exhorting the man to have regard for himself. He repeated the greatest truths, which are the simplest. He was the man’s father, brother, friend; his bishop only to bless him...

When they came for the man next day the bishop went with him showing himself to the crowd at the side of the fettered wretch, in his purple hood and with the Episcopal cross hanging from his neck. He went with him in the tumbril and on to the scaffold. The man who had been so desolate the day before was now radiant. His soul was at peace and hoped for God. The bishop kissed him and said when the knife was about to fall: ‘Whom man kills God restores to life; whom the brothers pursue the Father redeems. Pray and believe and go onward into life. Your Father is there.’…

Since the most sublime acts are often the least understood, there were people in the town who said it was all affectation. But this was drawing-room comment. The common people, who do not look for shabbiness where none exists, were deeply moved.

With each page of the novel my love for it grows and my anticipation for the movie builds. The trailers that I have seen for it, and the initial buzz around early screenings of it, give hope that this will be a film worthy of the novel and of the stage production. I can't wait!

Greg (I've written some more on the idea of Christian Humanism and Les Miserables over at my other blog site.)

A Lesson of Gift Receiving

Here's the thing... I am personally scarred by past experiences with the holidays. I want to start with that being stated so that you know I am not fully healthy with the whole gift giving and receiving thing... you can blame my earliest girlfriends.

You see I was always of the opinion that if I ask someone what they want, I should probably get that for them, or at least get them a really good excuse for not getting it and something of fairly equal value. Sounds easy, right? It looks like this:  I ask you what you want + you give me an answer = you get what you want

The flip side is that if I'm asked what I want, then I should be able to rest in a fairly strong presumption of receiving what I stated to be my desire: You ask me what I want + I give you an answer = I get what I want

You see the brewing dissonance? My earliest girlfriends all got what they asked for, and I would get crap. For reals. I would say, "All I want is a cheap remote control car that I can run around the front yard until it breaks." And I'd get a sweater. No apologies. No toy. Just a sweater.

So as I grew into adulthood, especially fatherhood, I have carried an extreme burden of performance anxiety in the gift giving and receiving season. Will I have gotten them what they really want? Will they be happy with it? Will I suck soggy toast at being Dad this year?

For the most part, aside from a few minor setbacks, I have been an Xmas machine! I simply say to my boys, "Tell me what you want." And *poof* they have it on Xmas morning, or they have due notice before hand that they won't.

Sounds nice and manageable, huh? No unnecessary anxiety. Everyone knows the score. Nice and neat, no worries. But for the last Xmas season or two I've had a nagging question in the back of my mind, "Am I missing a crucial lesson, not on gift giving, but on gift receiving?"

I think I did indeed miss that one. The problem with my nice, predictable system is exactly that, it's too predictable, but most of life and it's gifts are not. There's a need for my boys to sometimes get what they didn't ask for, and to learn to deal with it, or celebrate it, whichever is most appropriate to the moment. That's a life skill that will come in handy in many situations from personal relationships to school and work.

Ingratitude is never pretty. They might miss the beauty of a gift not sought, but very much needed. And we all run the risk of missing the other person's vulnerability in giving us a gift, and therefore end up dealing some real hurt to them instead of affirming appreciation.

Be thankful for the least gift,
so shalt thou be meant to receive greater. ~ Thomas a Kempis

Receiving a gift well is a grace given back to the one bringing the first gift, it is a blessed reciprocity. To teach it, I need to first learn it and live it. Discovering that there's a lesson I want to teach my boys that I haven't taught them is the realization that I probably need to learn it first. I told ya I have some gift-health issues.

~Todd

James Taylor and Quyen

James Taylor and his ever-present guitar

One of my great loves, passed on to me by my sisters at a young age, is folk music. I am not a musician myself and I wouldn’t say that music has played a huge roll in my life, but folk music is a real love of mine. I love the way that it blends a poet’s love of words with simple melodies. James Taylor is one of my favorites and listening to his song “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” this past weekend made me think it would be a perfect song to begin my blogging with. It speaks not only to my love of folk music, but much more deeply to my love of Quyen, my wife. We have been married for 22 years and known each other for 28 years. We have been through a lot together, some I’m sure I will share in later posts, and she is getting ready to beging a new stage in her life with an important new job. She brings so much meaning and joy to my life and this song really speaks to that. Here are the lyrics:

How sweet it is to be loved by you

How sweet it is to be loved by you

I needed the shelter of someone's arms

There you were

I needed someone to understand my ups and downs

There you were

With sweet love and devotion

Deeply touching my emotion

I want to stop, and thank you baby

I want to stop, and thank you baby

Yes I do

How sweet it is to be loved by you

Feels so fine

How sweet it is to be loved by you

I close my eyes at night

Wonderin' where would I be without you in my life

Everything I did was just a bore

Everywhere I went it seems I'd been there before

But you brighten up for me all of my days

With a love so sweet in so many ways

An' I wanna stop, thank you, baby

I just wanna stop, and thank you, baby

Ohh yes

How sweet it is to be loved by you

It's just like sugar sometime

How sweet it is to be loved by you

Wo yea

You were better to me than I was to myself

For me, there's you and there ain't nobody else

I wanna stop, thank you, baby

I just wanna stop, and thank you, baby

Oh yes

How sweet it is to be loved by you

How sweet it is to be loved by you

Wo now

How sweet it is to be loved by you

It's like jelly babe, oh yea

How sweet it is to be loved by you

Just like honey to the bee babe

Yea now

How sweet it is to be loved by you

(Na na na)

How sweet it is to be loved by you


Greg

Blogging at "Live Your Loves!" My Inaugural Post

I need to begin by thanking Greg Metzger for coming up with the idea of making a blog effort that simply reflects the things in life that we love, the interests that animate us and the ideas that drive us. It's cool to be asked to write with him, but also to be included in such a positive endeavor.

I have no idea what Greg might start off with on the blog. It's been hard enough deciding for myself. I love many people, many ideas and many things. Choosing one to chat about without a driving necessity of current news or conversations is a little daunting. The question is simply, "What do I want to talk about?"

The answer right now is: my kids. Teresa and I have been blessed with three amazing and amazingly unique boys. They aren't better than your boys or your girls. They aren't necessarily smarter, taller, more athletic or gifted in some or other area of expertise, but each in his unique way has been a huge blessing to our lives. So I think for the next few weeks I will be writing some of my thoughts on my kids, the Xmas season, gifts, blessings, traditions and how we are trying to make sense of it all in a hectic time.

In case you aren't acquainted with them, our boys are Hunter, Josiah and Isaac…

Hunter is now a high school senior and looking at schools where he might make that huge transition next year into higher education and the first tangible steps of independent life. He's a musician who plays the bass guitar and the tuba, and honestly whatever else he picks up after an hour. He's an artist, which is a genetic trait in my family. He is also an honest young man who empathizes with a diverse group of people around him, extending friendship and protection to them in his wake. His main academic interests are in technology, design and psychology, so he will probably one day build Skynet (click for a guide to welcoming our AI overlords), which will achieve sentience and destroy us all. 

Josiah is our second boy, a sophomore in high school and avid gamer of the old school Nintendo breed. If you know our family then you know that Josiah was afflicted in his youngest years with the developmental disorder Autism. Struggling through that obstacle has fashioned him into an extremely intelligent, loving and imaginative young man. The experience of video games is able to find a notch in our son's reality that few people can understand. The game characters, their personalities and dilemmas take on a new dimension of life in our son's imagination. He knows that Mario is not a real person like you and I are, but he also can extend an empathy and relationship to Mario that is robust and engaging. I'll blog about this more later because it has some cool applications to how everyone might interact with faith, myth, imagination and life.

Isaac is our third son, a sixth grader, and mostly known by the monicker "Ike." Indeed. I like Ike. Ike is our reader who has learned the value of the printed page early in life and not only reads for school but for personal joy. He plays percussion in his school band, so yes he'll be one of those cool drum-line kids later on… I'm hoping. Unlike both of his older brothers at his age, Ike is an entertainer in the best sense of the word. He loves to entertain. He likes to pick his own clothes and wear socks that don't match. He likes to dance and share the funniest parts of his favorite cartoons like Adventure Time or internet entertainers like Rhett and Link. Who knows where Ike will head with his life? All I know is that it's going to be a lot of fun to watch.

What does it say about our family that so much of our Xmas shopping is done at Think Geek? I'm not sure, but our boys have requested an array of things from a spatula to an inflatable robot this year. For real. I'm kinda excited about Xmas morning!

~Todd