I'm Meat

Following is an exchange between an abbott of a monastary and a novice who is deciding upon his "vocation" or his call to the ministry. I found it to be disturbing, and strangely encouraging as well. This is from "A Canticle for Liebowitz".

"...Are you going to submit to the yoke, son? Or aren't you broken yet? You'll be asked to be the ass He rides into Jerusalem, but it's a heavy load, and it'll break your back, because He's carrying the sins of the world."

"I don't think I'm able."

"Croak and wheeze. But you can growl too, and that's well for the leader of the pack. Listen, none of us has been really able. But we've tried, and we've been tried. It tries you to destruction, but you're here for that. This Order has had abbots of gold, abbotts of cold tough steel, abbotts of corroded lead, and none of them was able, although some were abler than other, some saints even. The gold got battered, the steel got brittle and broke, and the corroded lead got stamped into ashes by Heaven... What are you made of son? What's to be tried?"

"Puppy dog tails. I'm meat, and I'm scared..."

Wishing To Write Like This

"The pain within the millstone's pitiless turning is real, for our love for each other - for world and all products of extension - is real, vaulting, insofar as it is love, beyond the plane of the stones' sickening churn and arcing to the realm of spirit bare. And you can get caught holding one end of a love, when your father drops, and your mother; when a land is lost, or a time, and your friend blotted out, gone, your brother's body spoiled, and cold, your infant dead, and you dying; your reel out love's long line alone, stripped like a live wire loosing its sparks to a cloud, like a live wire loosed in space to longing and grief everlasting... The question is, then, whether God touches anything. Is anything firm, or is time on the loose?"-Annie Dillard from Holy the Firm

The Clampet’s Do Christmas

The family has been enjoying a bit of the classical in Christmas this year.

A week ago Friday we saw “The Nutcracker”, which was the first ballet for all of us except the Queen Mother. We all enjoyed the first act – especially Fritz, the bratty brother. By the second act, the boys had had enough (including me, though I did like the music better). Eventually Coop was sitting with his face shoved into the crease of his seat, leaving his rear-end face up in what I could only assume to be a symbolic of his opinion.

Last night, we saw “A Christmas Carol”. It was a creative and moving adaptation of Dicken’s tale. Coop was sitting on my lap as the Ghost of Christmas Future took old Ebenezer into a part of town he had heard of but never been to. This was Cheapside. The narration went on… “here in this part of London, children struggled against disease, people wandered about half-naked, and…” Quietly, speaking to himself, Coop said, “Huh, naked.”

Here’s to new Christmas traditions.

God Against Me

I am teaching on the incarnation this weekend.

There is this passage in the seventh chapter of Isaiah where God tells Ahaz, the king of Judah, that He will give them a sign – a son born to a virgin and he would be called “Immanuel” which is the Hebrew word for “God with us.”

God goes on to say that before this child is old enough to know right from wrong, Judah and Israel will be laid bare by the Assyrians.

In the next chapter God tells the kings of Judah and Israel to raise the war cry, prepare for battle, and be shattered. All their battle strategies will be useless, thwarted by God himself. Their nations would not stand against the Assyrians because “Immanuel”. Because “God is with us”, Assyria would conquer them and cart them off into slavery.

What kind of “Immanuel” is this? Is this “God with us” or “God against us”? It’s certainly not the comforting “Immanuel” we sing about at Christmas. “O come, o come, Immanuel” and let my enemies burn down my house and cart off my children and put me in chains.

The old tax collector, Matthew, sees the Christ child in this odd prophecy. Indeed, oddly enough God reshapes human history by framing himself in flesh. But this little bundle of joy lying there in the manger is the same God, the same Immanuel. It’s the same child that we have always thought of as bringing hope, love, and healing to a broken place that really needs those things. But there is another side to this kid, a scary side.

Sure, “God is with me” is a nice, warm thing when I am brokenhearted. But it’s not so nice or warm when I’m the heartbreaker (which I happen to be often – especially when it comes to God’s heart).

I don’t know but it sure seems that “Immanuel” means judgment as much as it means peace.

I do know – or at least I believe it to be true – that “Immanuel” means change. I can’t come into contact with the God-who-is-with-me without being challenged or comforted or uplifted or brought low, and if I allow him to, He can recreate me through those things into someone who needs the judgment less and enjoys the peace more.

We’re Surrounded

I think it was Bill Cosby that said all children are insane. I don’t know if that’s true of all children, but it is definitely true of mine.

I have a three year old daughter who often wears boys clothes and goes by the name of “Terry”.

Tonight, I found one of my sons sitting on the toilet talking to his underwear… and they were talking back.

And my other son walked into the kitchen the other day and exclaimed, “Okay. Are you ready for the big prick?” Now he happened to be preparing to pop a balloon with a straight pin, but still. Come on.

As I write this, the Queen Mother and I have locked ourselves in our room. We’ve been surviving on a handful of starbursts and half a bag of Planters that we found in an old winter coat. I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.

So, if you have kids, beware. If Cosby’s right, you could be next.

Beyond Facts

When I was a kid there was a lot that I didn’t understand. I walked on the cemetery ground that held my recently deceased grandfather and said, “Look Mom, I’m walking on Grandpa!” I didn’t know why she did not think this was funny. I did not understand death or her grief, and I knew that I did not understand it.

I didn’t understand it when my older sister in her early teens became moody and most often, crabby beyond comparison. Or why I couldn’t use those thin tubes that turned up in the bathroom garbage can a few days a month as little white grenades for my pretend wars? I was deeply aware that I did not understand women nor did I believe that I ever would.

Then there was the church hayride where I yelled for all to hear, “Hey, let’s have an orgy!” Obviously, there was much I did not know.

Madeleine L’ Engle wrote that one of the reasons to grow up is to understand.

Once, when we were young, we lived with mystery, and we were okay with it. We accepted it. There were simply things we were not going to understand, and yet we could still live and play finding joy and peace without answers.

Jesus, grow me younger like the little child.

There was one who came to earth, “God with us”, motivated by a love so complete He knows the most trivial facts about us– like the number of hairs on our heads and the number of stars above us – as well as our deepest wounds, the tears of which He treasures and saves.

This is not fact. It is more that fact. The facts can only hold so much truth – this is too much for simple knowledge to hold. This is mystery. I do not understand, yet I live under what I cannot fathom, finding joy in the not knowing.

Bare-ly Funny

I used to know a guy in college named Dave. He loved to tell stories like this one.

“Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring…

Except for Santa Clause…
Walking around with a hatchet…
Cutting off little cats, and dogs, and kids heads…

…And cussing.”

Boy was he funny. Except that night when I came back to my room after brushing my teeth and found him naked in my bed. That wasn’t funny at all.

A Dead French Guy and My Surly Soul

Outside my window the wind blows the last of the December leaves, tripping and tinkling along the glass. It is a sad sound. The sound of impending winter.

I keep thinking about something I read on Tuesday. (Actually I read it while my pastor, Tim, was teaching. I should probably feel guilty about this, but then again, I just consider it payback.) I just grabbed a book off my shelf intending to dip my toes into something I wasn’t currently reading. I picked up a book compiled in the 1700’s from the essays of a French Jesuit Priest named Jean-Pierre De Caussade. The book is called “The Sacrament of the Present Moment.” (Sometimes I am forced to wonder what a guy like me is doing with a book like that on my shelf. I think I like to pretend I’m deep or something.)

This book is a sort of classic is spiritual writing. I did what I usually do with that kind of writing – flipped from page to page reading sporadic paragraphs looking for some inspiration. I fell upon these words…

“Let us increasingly impress upon every soul that the invitation of this gentle, loving savior expects nothing difficult or extraordinary of them… God is only asking for your heart.”

I thought to myself, “What a fruitcake! Who in their right mind would call giving your heart away – to anyone, let alone to an invisible God – not difficult or ordinary? Living with a bunch of nuns in a eighteenth century monastery must have turned this guys brains to mush – crazy old monk.”

In retrospect, I may have been a little harsh on the old Frenchman. Something in that line has stuck with me – “God is only asking for my heart”.

The first night that the Queen Mother - who was then still a lady in waiting - and I spent time together, just the two of us, we ice-skated. The next time, we went to a museum. Soon, we were spending more and more time together doing more things, none of which were any more extraordinary than ice skating or wandering through a museum. Yet, slowly, a little bit at a time, we gave our hearts to one another. Over all, this is a surprising and special thing for two people to do, but it also happens everyday to people all around us. It still goes on between the Queen Mother and I – in terribly ordinary and marvelous ways which are not always easy, rarely so in fact.

So, God is asking for my heart. I know that today He has more of it than yesterday. I long for the day that I will no longer cling to what little I have left, when I will release it freely rather than having to pry a little loose everyday. I guess I want it to be easy, but I’ll settle for it being right instead, and if it is ever easy again, so much the better.