No Other Prayer

To Be Near Unto God by Abraham Kuyper is a series of devotional reflections on Psalm 73. Today I read number ten, "Seek Ye My Face," in which Kuyper meditates on the various ways and depths of experience of knowing God. He distinguishes between knowing God in a doctrinal and in a mystical way.

In looking at the language that we use to speak about knowing God or knowing another person, Kuyper says, “The face, the countenance speaks; speaks by its entire expression, but especially through and by the eye. The eye is as a window of the body through which we look into another’s soul, and through which he comes out of his soul, to see us, scan, and address us.” It follows, he suggests, that the “face of God” is a prominent image in our seeking Him and his seeking us: “…our walk with God could not be illustrated otherwise than by the privilege of being permitted to meet God face to face.”

In the sweaty, selfish, rude world that I inhabit, a world of physical realities like dirty dishes and sore knees and the smell of urine on the bathroom floor, I have to bring myself to a full internal mental stop before I can change gears and find meaning in metaphorical and anthropomorphic language about God. God does not look like George Burns. I get that. “The imagery which here must lend support remains wrapped in mystical dimness,” Kuyper wrote. “A visible face exhibits what is corporeal, and God is spirit.” We are merely using the image of a face.

Kuyper urges us to employ this image to put ourselves in the way of being close to God, close enough to see His “face”—so that “he looks at us and we at him”:

“The main thing is that we no longer satisfy ourselves with a conception of God, a scientific knowledge of God, or a speaking about God, but that we have come in touch with God himself; that we have met Him, that in and by our way through life He has discovered us to ourselves, and that a personal relation has sprung up between the Living God and our soul.”

In my reading and in my prayer, in my spiritual life, in every aspect of my life at this point, I am all-consumed with grief. I mostly cannot care deeply about anything else but about how much I miss Aidan. I find moments of delight with M. Peevie and Mr. Peevie, and rarer ones with C. Peevie because he’s not at home and often out of touch. But those moments are fleeting, and the minutes and hours in between are filled with either longing for Aidan and missing him, or intentionally trying to push that ache to the background so I can concentrate on something else. Trying to push the grief away is like trying not to notice that Benedict Cumberbatch just walked into the room. It's just not going to happen.

So when I read Kuyper, and remember that God is here, God is All, God is personal, and God offers me a relationship with Himself—I think to myself, I should try to act like I believe this, instead of behaving like a practical atheist. If I take this heavy burden to God in prayer, if I seek God’s face, maybe I will find some comfort there.

My prayers are so selfish and self-centered. Really, pretty much 98 percent of my thoughts, actions and words are selfish and self-centered. I’m just trying to get through the day without breaking up into a million Aidan-missing pieces.

Kuyper concludes this meditation with these words: 

“There is a moment in the life of the child of God when he feels the stress of the inability to rest, until he finds God; until after he has found Him, he has placed himself before Him, and standing before Him, seeks His face; and he cannot cease that search until he has met God’s eye, and in that meeting has obtained the touching realization that God has looked into his soul and he has looked God in the eye of Grace. And only when it has come to this the mystery of grace discloses itself.”

This makes me wonder, and hope, that perhaps if there is a God, He is somehow available to me, and that I might actually find comfort and relief by seeking His face. It does not make sense to my troubled, messed-up mind, which only wants Aidan and misses him and cannot fathom the egregious wrong of his sudden, traumatic, and premature death. It does not make sense that anything but Aidan can salve this wound—but I do believe, or at least I want to believe, that this is what God wants to do for me, and can do for me.

Maybe these words can be my prayer, because I have no other.

Poem in Your Pocket Day

For Poem In Your Pocket Day, here is my selection:

A Warning To My Readers:

Do not think me gentle 
because I speak in praise of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace 
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I 
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

--Wendell Berry

It's not too late for you to grab a poem, print it, and put it in your pocket. Then it's ready for you to pull out during the day and read to a friend or to a stranger on the train.

What poem did you put in your pocket today?

Hashtag FFWgr

Ninety-nine percent of you won't know what that title means--which is sort of the epitome of bad communication. Nonetheless, I'm starting there, because I ended there--at #FFWgr. 

#FFWgr, the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a biannual conference of writers and readers of faith: about finding faith, leaving faith, and returning to faith; about the connection between faith and writing. I make my pilgrimage there to find inspiration and motivation. I'm completely positive (in the ironic sense of those words) that I will eventually be one of the speakers there, talking to the little people about getting up at four a.m. and sitting down in front of the computer and waiting for God to show up.

Actually--that was James McBride's line. My perspective will be more of a p.m. perspective, because mornings give me hives; and my topic will be Why I Keep Writing Even Though I've Never Been Published; And As A Matter of Fact, Why Would You Even Listen To Me?

I'm going to give you two kinds of #FFWgr candy: motivational and/or interesting quotes from some of the talks I went to; and a reading list. I kept notes as I listened, and wrote down the names of books and authors that the speakers mentioned. I may have missed a few, but I've still got a pretty good list.

So first, the quotes, in order of their appearance:

Daniel Taylor:

"Everyone should write their own apologetics--how do you tell this story of faith to yourself?" This is a riff, he said, on Milton's idea that everyone should write his own theology. I tried to confirm that Milton actually said or wrote something like this, but could not. Internet, could you do me a solid and let me know a) did Milton ever say/write anything like that and b) what's the source?

The topic of Taylor's talk was The Use of Story in Apologetics. He said, "stories defend faith by making it desirable, powerful, winsome. Stories don't just tell truth. Truth can be a sledgehammer. Stories can make faith not just reasonable and believable, but also attractive."

"Stories are convincing; they require us to change, and tell us how to do it."

"Stories don't prove anything, but stories prove everything that's important."

"Don't just tell anecdotes, tell stories. Anecdotes are reduced; they lack personal experience and emotion." I'd like to learn more about this distinction.

"Look for evidence of the divine in the mundane and even in the profane." 

John Suk talked about something called "perspective by incongruity," an idea of Kenneth Burke's which I didn't quite get but will add to my growing list of Things I Want to Know More About.

(Sigh. #FFWgr always leaves me with the existential exhaustion of realizing ever more clearly how much I don't know.)

From James McBride: 

"Most of what I do fails. Learn to fail. Fail--then forget it." I'm not sure I believe this. Maybe it's hyperbole? I would like to know, operationally, what that looks like.

"I wake up at 4 a.m. and just sit there waiting for God to come into the room." Many speakers at the conference mentioned the productivity of the early morning hours, which discourages me a tiny bit.

"Skepticism is good, but cynicism is a killer of dreams." Ooooh, this was good. (And by the way, how do you spell "ooo" that rhymes with "mood" rather than ooooh that rhymes with "road"? Because I was aiming for the oo in mood sound there, but it just didn't look right without the h.)

Shannon Huffman Polson: 

"Grief and loss are lonely, but they connect you to humanity." I think this is why suffering is such a useful tool for an artist, writer, musician. Dammit.

"I wanted to suffer, wanted the pain of grief--because it would keep me closer to those I had lost." This certainly resonated with me, even though I remember when I said it to a friend, she looked at me strangely. I saw other heads nodding--and I was glad to see that this counter-intuitive feeling of wanting to hold on to the pain of grief was not merely a glitch in my otherwise well-adjusted persona, but that it had universal resonance.

"If the grief ebbed, did it mean that the love and connection were not that great? There is a lot of guilt in grief." This, too; both the question and the statement.

Andrew Krivak:

"Take small acts--actions outside of the interior life of grief and loss--and write them into your story." This is actually a paraphrase, but I like the notion that small acts have great value. I think he was making a reference to the book Small Acts of Resistance: How Courage, Tenacity and Ingenuity Can Change the World. 

Peter Marty

Peter Marty (whose appearance reminded me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer):

"If you want to be a better writer, become a deeper person." I wish he had offered Seven Steps to Becoming a Deeper Person.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"We keep on outsourcing our brains--we know and remember less. We externalize our knowledge, our taste, our experience, and our faith. We reference and rely on the faith and experience of others. In Genesis, by chapter three they stop talking with God and start talking about God."

"Is it possible for some people to miss their lives in the way that they miss a plane?"

"Tell me what you love, and I can tell you what you believe." Oof.

"We identify our center through suffering." More on this, please.

Anne Lamott:

"Life and writing are very, very hard. I don't think we're here to figure things out."

"There is perfect healing, but people die anyway. Frankly, if I were God, I would have a completely different system."

"I think if there is a God, he probably looks a lot like Isaac Stern. Or Bette Midler."

"We were taught to stay one step ahead of the abyss. If the abyss opens up at your feet, go to Ikea. Get an area rug."

"It's OK to admit that you're crazy and damaged. All the better people are."

Hugh Cook offered practical advice about writing fiction:

"Your character must desperately want something; but something thwarts her. She must make specific, decisive actions."

"Use dialogue not for narration or description, but to show your characters."

"Reveal your character's age early on."

Brett Lott:

Start a story with what you know, and head into "what if"--what if this happened, or that?"

Suzanne Woods Fisher:

"Answer the call to write; keep the calling at the forefront of your vision all the time."

"Living for the opinions of others is seductive; don't do it. Remember who you are."

I have no quotes from James Vanden Bosch, but his presentation on corpus linguistics was one of my top three sessions. Who knew. I might even sign up for the eight-week MOOC in September.

Miroslav Volf:

"Atheists point to ways that religion and Christians have failed and malfunctioned."

"We must listen to the voices of our brothers and sisters from around the world to penetrate our own self-deception. We must listen to the wisdom of saints and critics."

"We are restless for God; we reach for the transcendent. The orientation of our selves to the Divine is the primary function of faith."

This next quote is from an audience member who might have been quoting someone else, but it struck me as worthy of inclusion: "Christianity has become so sentimental and shallow that we can't even produce good atheists anymore!" This was connected to the part of the interview in which Volf said something to the effect that he'd take Nietzsche over Dawkins any day.

"I don't bemoan the marginalization of the Christian faith. There are strengths in the margins. When Christians were in the center of power we were used, and the faith was abused. Like the band of twelve followers on the outskirts of Jerusalem, we can testify to the beauty of Jesus Christ from the margins."

Rachel Held Evans:

"Every challenge--the challenge of writer's block, distraction, discouragement, fear, lack of ideas--is solved by getting back to work. In writing, that work is paying attention, naming things, telling stories." 

"Remember that God is generous, and grace is scandalous. God has called us to this work. There is no scarcity principle at work in writing--there's plenty of work to do, plenty of stories to tell."

Now, I bet you can't wait until #FFWgr2016! I know I can't.

Stay tuned for Hashtag FFWgr, Part Two: Reading List.

Eulogy: Alfred Charles Meyer

I’m not an expert on my dad, but I can tell you a few stories that will give you a pretty clear picture of what we have lost and what heaven has gained with his passing.

First of all, we know that dad and mom had the most perfect of marriages, and never had an argument in 64 years, one month, and one week of wedded bliss—or at least, not one that they would admit to. Their marriage was a union of best friends, and they always presented a united front in parenting us five kids. This meant that sometimes they were both wrong.

Dad had some fun dating an identical twin. You’d have to look pretty close at mom and her twin, my Aunt Jean, to tell the difference. Somebody once asked dad, “When you go to pick Joyce up for a date, how do you know you’ve got the right twin?” and dad said, “Who cares? They’re both cute.” Mom hated that story. Probably still does.

Dad was not a believer when he first started dating his cute girlfriend, Joyce. After they had dated awhile, mom told him she could not go out with him any more unless he came to church with her. So he did, and he fell under the spell of the great preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He heard the gospel, and believed it, and turned his life over to Jesus.

Dad loved to tell the story of how Pop-Pop, mom’s father, gave his permission for dad to marry her. Pop-Pop said he would not give his permission until dad went to Bible college for one year, so mom and dad both enrolled in classes at Philadelphia College of Bible. Dad ended up continuing there not for one year, or two, or three—but for nine years. That nine years laid the foundation for 40 more years of Bible study, and an unshakable faith.

Not only did mom’s influence bring dad to the gospel, but she took good care of him in every other way as well—and even at the very end of his life, as he held her hand in the Intensive Care Unit at Grandview hospital, he wanted to make sure she knew how much he loved her. “I love you, Daddy,” she said to him, and even though his voice was weak and blocked by a tube down his throat, we could all hear him say, “I love you, sweetheart.”

Dad was not a perfect parent, and each of his five children is messed up in his or her own way. But we don’t need him to be perfect to remember him with deep love and admiration, and miss him. He was ahead of his time as a hands-on dad who changed diapers and did housework. He would load all of us into the car on a summer Saturday morning, pack the cooler with sandwiches, fill the thermos with sweet iced tea, and drive us to Ocean City for a day on the beach. Every time he’d bring his garden spade and dig a giant sea turtle in the wet sand, and kids would come from up and down the beach to admire it and climb on it. The day on the beach would be followed by an evening on the boardwalk with bumper cars, skee-ball, Taylor’s pork roll, and salt water taffy.

I’m grateful for these kinds of growing-up memories of my dad. There are other images of dad emblazoned in my mind as well: Dad pulling weeds out of the yard, muttering about “bodacious dandelions” the whole time. Dad playing ping-pong with us in the basement. And then, in December, setting up what we called The Platform—that’s Platform with a capital P—a flat plywood table, with trains and winter scenery and battery-powered racecars with hand-held controllers. Dad setting up the artificial white Christmas tree year after year until it was actually sort of yellow, controlled by the kind of frugality comes from living through the Great Depression.

If you knew dad for very long, you learned that his faith was his top priority. I often found him, in his bedroom, on his knees, praying. Or he was sitting in his chair, reading his Bible, and perhaps referring to a devotional guide. He made some notes about his preferences for how we would remember him after he was gone, and these notes included a reference to I Corinthians 15. This chapter contains an eloquent summary of the gospel: Christ died for our sins. He was buried, and he was raised on the third day. And then this: “By the grace of God I am what I am,” Paul wrote, “and his grace toward me was not in vain.”

Maybe dad was thinking of this chapter in his last hours. He was resting peacefully; his eyes were closed. Mark said, “I wonder what he’s thinking about.” I leaned over Dad and asked him, “Hey Dad, Markie wants to know what you’re thinking about.”

He opened his eyes and looked in mine and said, “The cross.” Maybe he was thinking of these verses in I Corinthians 15:

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

 “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

 “O death, where is your victory?

  O death, where is your sting?”

Later that same day I asked him, “Dad, are you looking forward to seeing Jesus?” and he answered without hesitating: “Amen.”

I am Jonah

I am Jonah.

My pastors have been preaching on Jonah, and every single week I leave church thinking, "I am Jonah. I am just like him."

Jonah gets a bad rap because, well, he's an idiot. Just like me.

First, he runs away from God. Dumbass. You can't run away from God, Jonah. You can act like God can't see you, can't hear you, can't find you--but duh! Of course he can. He can find you on the ship to Tarshish when you're supposed to be traveling to Nineveh. He can also find you when you're holed up in your bedroom with an open bottle of wine and a high-def TV. And he can find you when you're just minding your own business, trying to be a good person, but deep down beginning to realize that that's not good enough. (Hello, Roseanne?)

Of course God can find you--and the truly amazing thing is, he's actually coming after you. He'll stir up the sea until your shipmates threaten to throw you overboard. Or he'll allow a different kind of storm in your life--maybe cancer, maybe a sick child, maybe unemployment or a really horrible boss, depression, or a million other storms that, if you're smart, will make you remember that God wants you, or wants you back.

He's waiting for you to look up and say, Um, God? Can I get a hand, here?

He's also waiting for you to remember who and what you are. You are Jonah, the guy God called to do a really important job, like preach to the Ninevites, or raise a child, or be an honest cop, a loving spouse, a generous friend, a talented musician, or a million other callings that, if you're smart, will make you remember that God is the one who gave you that calling and is going to help you follow it.

He's waiting for you to look up and say, God? Thanks. And help, please.

God is also waiting for you to remember that you are not God. You do not get to decide what justice looks like. You do not get to point to other people and say, Smite them, God! They are bad, bad people because they worship idols, or take drugs, or fail to live up to your own exceptionally high standards of housekeeping.

But that's what Jonah did, Reverend Moses Butcher told us today at church. He became annoyed at God because he wanted to see justice done to those sinners of Nineveh--just like I become annoyed at the sinners around me, who don't parent like I think they should, or don't obey me as promptly as I want them to, or have the right opinion about social justice issues.

I am such a Jonah.

Jonah was miserable. "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry...Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me for it is better for me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:1, 3). Why was he miserable? Because he was waiting for the fireworks of God's destruction of Nineveh. He wanted Nineveh to pay for their sins; he wanted justice.

But, Reverend Butcher pointed out, Jonah's notion of justice does not look anything like God's justice. God is (thank God!) "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster" (Jonah 4:2). Jonah wants people to pay for their sin; God wants people to repent, and be brought back into relationship with Him.

Like Jonah, I often want people to pay. I want to hear them say, "I was wrong, I am a worm." I want them to pay if they've wronged me, or someone I love. This is how I often deal with Mr. Peevie, with my kids, with my co-workers--not to mention the stranger who has just cut me off in the street.

But wouldn't it be better if Jonah and I, and all of us, were more like God, slow to anger, and willing to wait and work for reconciliation and redemption? God said to Jonah, "Should I not pity Nineveh?"

I am always telling my kids that retaliation is never the answer. But, boy it sure is an instinctive reaction. On Saturday, a bigger boy was sitting on his bike near M. Peevie, who was minding her own business playing with a skip-ball (one of those ankle-jump-rope things), and as he moved his bike to get past her, he said in a tough-guy voice, "If that thing hits my bike, you're gonna pay."

After a decade of telling my kids, "Retaliation is never the answer," I wanted to get up and knock that little boy right off his bike. This is my instinct--not to gently help him understand that bullying and threatening a smaller person is wrong, but to hurt him for trying to intimidate my baby girl.

I am Jonah. But I want instead to be like Jesus, the literal epitome of God's mercy. That's my prayer.

I picked up the images from Biblical Art on the WWW.

The Alabaster Jar

This is Holy Week, when Christians remember the events leading up to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. My Esteemed Reverend Moses Butcher preached from Mark 14 about what he called The Beautiful Waste--the woman who broke a valuable alabaster jar and poured the rare and costly ointment over Jesus.

The alabaster jar, Rev. Moses said, was probably a family heirloom; possibly the most expensive thing the woman owned. It was her family's financial security, worth almost a year's wages: if they fell on hard times, they could sell the jar and live off the proceeds until their circumstances improved.

The alabaster jar did not have a resealable flip-top; the jar had to be broken, destroyed, in order to pour the perfume. The ointment itself was rare and powerfully fragrant. Imagine the ointment running down his clothing, and making sweet-smelling puddles in the dirt floor.

This woman--Mark doesn't name her, but John says it was Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus--intentionally broke and poured out her most valuable possession without regret or hesitation. She gave no thought to what the onlookers might think of her or her action. The intent of her heart, Jesus discerned, was to do a beautiful thing to honor him.

When the dinner guests criticized Mary for her wasteful extravagance ("the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor!"), Jesus rebuked them. His words may seem uncompassionate ("the poor you will always have with you") and self-promoting ("you will not always have me")--but Jesus merely reminded them who he was--the divine, long-awaited Messiah (Mark 8:29). He pointed out that Mary had her priorities in the proper order: First Jesus, then everything else, including her own wealth and security, her reputation, and the important social concern of caring for the poor.

Mary's gesture was extravagant and beautiful. She probably didn't realize the significance of her act--that it symbolized the annointing of Jesus' body for burial--but she did what she was able to do, and gave what she was able to give.

I want to have the kind of faith that is extravagant and beautiful. I want to offer up my treasure and my security, so that I can find them again in Jesus. This Holy Week, to tell the truth, I feel far apart from God and from grace. There's nothing extravagant or beautiful about my faith at the moment.

Luckily, or rather, providentially, my feelings are not a factor when it comes to Jesus. I know who and what I am. I know how unfaithful I am, how self-centered, angry, idolatrous. But I also know I can lay the ugliness of my sin at the foot of the cross, where the ransom was paid; I know I can believe this crazy, scandalous story because of the empty tomb.

This is Holy Week. Welcome to the infamy of the cross, and the hope of the resurrection.

Christmas Meditation

In the spirit of Christmas, here is a beautiful yet little known and infrequently sung Christmas carol that depicts the vast humility of the incarnation:

Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor,
All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendor
All for love’s sake becamest poor.

Thou who are God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest Man;
Stopping so low, but sinners raising
Heav’nward by Thine eternal plan.
Thou who are God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest Man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship Thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling
Make us what Thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love, beyond all telling,
Savior and King, we worship Thee.

(I tried to find an audio link, but I only found one not-very-good rendition on YouTube. Sorry about that.)*

This hymn comes from II Corinthians 8:9, where Paul writes, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

At this time of year, we sing about a baby born in a stable, laid in a manger, on a silent, holy night. Our view of this baby, of Jesus, is what makes us Christian. Do we understand this incarnation of the only begotten Son of God? Do we often consider what the incarnation meant to Jesus—and what it means to us? What does it mean when we sing about the birth of a baby in the little town of Bethlehem?

It means that Jesus chose to cloak his glorious deity in the humbleness of humanity. Jesus, the exalted one, the king above all kings, the Lord of all Lords—shed his majesty to become a man. Jesus, who is called Immanuel, which means “God is with us,” willfully limited his limitless power and glory to come to the earth as a human child. This is the incarnation. This is humility. This is love.

Another not-very-well-know Christmas hymn reminds us that

Empty he came as a man to our race
Equal with God, yet forsaking his place.
Humbly he served in our world.
Humbly he served in our world.

This hymn is based on Philippians 2:5-8:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus,
Who, being in very nature God,
Did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
But made himself nothing,
Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance a man,
He humbled himself
And became obedient to death—
Even death on a cross.

Jesus, who had every reason not to be humble, in humility took the form of a man. Not an emperor, or a king, or a president—but a poor and uneducated carpenter, a member of an oppressed minority.

Jesus, who is almighty God, gave up the prerogatives of his Godhead, and said, “I can do nothing of myself.”

Jesus dwelled in unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and yet he chose to come to earth as a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He said of himself, “I am meek and lowly in heart.”

Jesus, who had every right to feel and act superior, in his interactions with other people never did so. In humility Jesus respected all people, never claiming his divine rights, but always living in dependence on God the Father.”

This Christmas, join me in focusing on the humility of the incarnation—on what that meant to Jesus, and what it means to us. Let’s say with John the Baptist, “He must become greater, and I must become less.”

[*Updated: I found an a capella performance of the French version of the hymn here.]

Sermon on the Mount: Manifesto for Kingdom Living

I'm teaching Sermon on the Mount, Part 2 (Matthew 6 & 7) starting tomorrow, and I thought I'd post weekly (or sporadic) updates on what I'm learning in the process of teaching.

In the spring we studied the first part of the Sermon, Matthew 5. That's all I was able to cover in nine weeks. I reminded my class that there is nothing more ironic than me teaching other people about meekness, being pure in heart, and hungering thirsting for righteousness. (Just ask Mr. Peevie, or any of the Peevies, for that matter.)

Fortunately--blessedly!--the Sermon is all about grace. It's not about my own level (or lack of) spirituality. It's not about how Jesusy I am. It's all about grace, about knowing that--thank God!--what Jesus wants is not for me to grit my teeth and swear I'll be more pure in heart tomorrow. Jesus wants the Sermon to bring us back to the reality of the cross.

Look at the beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) if you don't believe me. I like to call them a Manifesto for Kingdom Living. The manifesto is a description of the character of the believer--and yet none of the characteristics and behaviors it describes are natural human tendencies.

None of us is naturally poor in spirit. We don't automatically mourn over our sin, or meekly put the well-being of another person ahead of our own well-being--especially that guy that just cut me off in traffic.

Instead of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, we pursue substitutes that we desperately hope might fill us. Sometimes these substitutes are legitimate, harmless, or neutral in themselves--like watching TV, or drinking wine. But for me, these substitutes often spoil my appetite for righteousness.

We'd rather punish than show mercy; and we are painfully aware that our hearts are far from pure. Look at our world--at the relationships between nations, between partisan segments of government; look at our violent cities, our segregated neighborhoods, our broken relationships. We are not natural peacemakers in any sense of the word.

None of these characteristics is a natural personality trait or temperament. Each one is produced by grace alone. They are fundamentally spiritual, and they can only be produced by the Spirit.

OK, I've gotten carried away. I didn't mean to preach a sermon. (Jesus already did that!) I'll keep you posted--but in the meantime, I'd love to know what you think.

The Remedy

Today my pastor, the Esteemed Reverend Moses Butcher, spoke to my sad and stressed-out heart from Psalm 77.

"I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted."

I'm overwhelmed, sad, distressed, and anxious. I'm experiencing the kind of emotional and spiritual fatigue that makes me want to browse the chip aisle, watch Monk marathons, and consume mind-altering substances. This, apparently, was the emotional state of Asaph when he wrote this psalm.

Pastor Moses pointed out that we don't know the source of Asaph's distress. It could have been something awful from his past that still haunted him; a terrible choice he made that hurt someone; a besetting sin he could not let go; or possibly the illness or death of someone he loved. It might have been the universal feeling of emptiness that every honest human being admits to feeling at times in his life, that everyone recognizes but can't name.

We don't know why Asaph was feeling distress, only that he felt it. The source doesn't matter, because the remedy is the same.

"I remembered you, O God, and I groaned; I mused, and my spirit grew faint. You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak."

Poor, pitiful Asaph. He seems to be doing the right thing--remembering God; but it only brings him more sorrow. He remembers God, and then he groans. He's thinking and pondering, but he only grows weaker and sadder. God is even "putting toothpicks on his eyelids", as Rev. Moses described it, not letting Asaph find brief respite in sleep. He can't even put words to his distress.

"Has God forgotten to be merciful? Has he in anger withheld his compassion?"

It reaches that point, sometimes, doesn't it? You begin to wonder if what you believe about God is true. You may not say it out loud, but when you're alone, when you pray, you wonder, like Virginia, "Are you there, God? It's me, E. Peevie."

So what's the remedy? What's the tonic, what's the spiritual penicillin that cures the desperate heart?

"Then I thought, 'To this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.' I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works, and consider all your mighty deeds."

The remedy is remembering. Asaph remembers God's deeds, miracles, holiness. He ponders the greatness of the God who rescued the people of Israel from centuries of slavery. He reminds us to remember God's greatest Rescue, to contemplate the cross, to soak ourselves, as my pastor expressed it, in the gospel.

What is the gospel? It's the good news that I can be right with God because of what Jesus did on the cross. It's the good news that this empty feeling, this guilt, this distress or sorrow or fear or whatever weighs down your heart like a bag of sand can be lifted because Jesus fought the battle for my soul and your soul, and He won.

Remembering, observed Esteemed Reverend Moses Butcher, is not a fast-acting cortisone shot. Remembering is a spiritual discipline. It's like physical therapy that restores gradually, healing years of dysfunction through re-alignment, restoring strength and mobility after months of atrophy. Remembering is the remedy for a sorrowful, weary, oppressed heart.

Transparent Dreck

I am so tired. I'm tired of my kids. I'm tired of other people's kids. I'm tired of conversation, of human society.

I think I have reached my threshhold for engagement, and now I need a retreat into a dark, quiet place. Preferably a place with cable TV. (But we know that's not going to happen, don't we, Mr. Peevie? Whatever.)

Usually I like the fact that our house is the command center for the block. All the kids show up here, play here, eat here, make noise here. Now that we have a pool, they also change clothes here, swim here, and eat even more here. Many of them don't bother to bring their own bathing suit or towel. They don't eat before they come over, and they have no qualms about asking for food. Hell, they don't even have qualms about opening the 'fridge and helping themselves!

As I said, on most days, this does not bother me. I'm glad my house is a safe, fun haven for kids, that I know where my kids are. I'm happy to give some extra loving to some of these kids who really are in need of extra loving.

But I have pretty much reached my limit. This week two neighbor kids slept over two nights in a row because the AC was out in their house. My kids left for camp at 10 in the morning, but the extras stayed around most of the day. The second day, not only did they stay around all day, but when it was time for them to go home, nobody was there. They ended up staying at my house for about 27 hours straight.

Another neighbor child is having problems at home, and shows up needy: underfed, underclothed, under-loved. What am I going to do, send her home? And even if I did, the door is sometimes locked and nobody's at home. Today she got out of the pool, came dripping into the office and announced, "J. and I are hungry." I meanly said, "Well, then you both need to go home and get something to eat." She looked shocked. Every single other time she has asked for food at my house (and God bless her, at least she asked!), I have said, help yourself to fruit, it's on the counter.

And then the other neighbor kid shows up with a plate of hotdogs from her grandpa. Instead of being grateful, I was annoyed. I was ready to send these kids home, but now I had no excuse for not feeding them! I harrumphed and growled about how I didn't want to feed a hundred kids, that I had things to do--but I sent them out onto the deck, all the while thinking, hey, if you want to feed the whole neighborhood, then invite them over to your house and feed them and clean up after them.

I know that little episode is going to show up on my heavenly report card with a big red N on it (for Needs Improvement, in case you haven't seen a report card in awhile).

My oldest spawn does not have camp, so he's home during the day. Often his buddies will hang out here with him, and even though they are only 11 and 12, they eat like NFLers. Then they leave their bowls and bottles and messes laying around until I harass them into cleaning up after themselves.

What with the dropping off, picking up, feeding, doing 50 loads of towels and bathings suits, grocery shopping, cooking, doing dishes, maintaining the pool (which is only about 1250 gallons but still needs attention--just like a pet!), and picking up shoes and socks and jock straps and cleats--my relaxing summer is turning into a summer of Doing Lots of Insignificant Crap.

And what with the herd of kids charging around my house and yard all day long, my quiet summer with my kids at camp is turning into a summer of Noise and Stomping and Door Slamming.

I'm laying all this ugly shit out here so you know who and what I really am, and what I am capable of being: selfish, fallible, mean, whiny, shallow, and just plain sinful. Thank God that grace is bigger even than all the dreck I can dredge up from my miserable, self-centered heart.