William Stafford

William Stafford is a genuine Oregon treasure, in many ways as important to our state as Crater Lake or our beautiful shoreline.  He spent almost his entire career teaching at Lewis and Clark College.  He composed nearly 22,000 poems during his life; 3,000 of those were published.  In 1970, he was named Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, a position that is now known as Poet Laureate. In 1975, he was named Poet Laureate of Oregon.

Stafford died of a heart attack in Lake Oswego on August 28, 1993.  That morning he wrote a poem that contained the lines, "'You don't have to / prove anything,' my mother said.  'Just be ready / for what God sends.'"  He shows us something about what that means in his poem, "The Way It Is."

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

Woody Allen and the Great Checkmate

I loved this post from Randy Adams, the Northwest Baptist Convention Executive Director.  Since I couldn't have "said it better myself," I'm just going to re-post it. . .

Woody Allen and the Great Checkmate by erandalladams Woody Allen is best known as a prolific movie director and husband of ex-wife Mia Farrow’s adopted daughter Soon Yi Previn.  A recent interview with Oliver Burkeman focused on his movies and his “shameful marriage,” but the article concluded with a deeply troubled Allen discussing aging and death. Now 76 years old, Woody Allen says of ageing, “It's a bad business. It's a confirmation that the anxieties and terrors I've had all my life were accurate. There's no advantage to ageing. You don't get wiser, you don't get more mellow, you don't see life in a more glowing way. You have to fight your body decaying, and you have less options." Burkeman observes that Allen’s coping response to the anxieties and terrors of life is to keep his mind distracted from life’s realities.  As Allen says: "The only thing you can do is what you did when you were 20 – because you're always walking with an abyss right under your feet; they can be hoisting a piano on Park Avenue and drop it on your head when you're 20 – which is to distract yourself. Getting involved in a movie [occupies] all my anxiety … If I wasn't concentrated on that, I'd be thinking of larger issues. And those are unresolvable, and you're checkmated whichever way you go" (The Guardian, Sept. 13, 2012). Allen’s assessment of ageing and death reveals the thinking of a thoughtful unbeliever.  His melancholy does not result from misunderstanding our existence in flesh and blood.  No, he understands things quite well.  His fear is the reasoned response of hopelessness.  And we should never forget this.  Unbelievers with whom we share Christ may not state their anxieties so clearly.  They may not admit their need for distraction from the “larger issues.” But this is where unbelief inevitably leads, to hopelessness smothered by distraction.  Or, as Allen expresses it, unbelief ends in the knowledge that you’re checkmated and there is no way to win the game of life. As I listened to Allen’s heartbeat through his words, I thought of a favorite novelist, Ernest Hemingway.  Like Woody Allen, Hemingway lacked faith in Jesus and grew despondent as he faced death.  Rather than succumb to the “biological trap” accelerated by cancer, he chose to end his life with a shotgun blast.  This was Hemingway’s final act in determining his life through his own choices, rather than life and death being determined for him.  If death was going to checkmate him, he decided to place himself in checkmate and end the game on his terms. Despair by “thinking unbelievers” is the reasoned response of hopelessness.  How could a thinking person not feel fearful and checkmated when they look into the eyes of their spouse and children, believing that death will separate them forever?  How does unbelief not produce unending despair when tragedy strikes?  Without Jesus the only way to cope with life’s greatest sorrows is unending “distraction.” I have discovered that hopelessness is helpful as we share Christ.  And if an unbeliever isn’t hopeless, and doesn’t feel checkmated, we should help him feel that way!  If hopelessness is smothered by distractions, we should pierce through the distractions, and lance the boil of hopelessness so that it spills out and runs all over.  Because as Woody Allen says, when the distractions are removed, one is left with the “larger issues.”  However, Allen is wrong when he says that the “larger issues” are unresolvable. As believers we know that death is not checkmate.  The spit and blood of the Roman Cross seemed to the world and the underworld to be the final checkmate when Jesus gave up His life. But Jesus’ death was followed by the Great Checkmate when on Sunday morning Jesus Christ rose victoriously, checkmating death and the devil.  The resurrection of Jesus, to be followed by the resurrection of the dead in Christ, resolves all of the “larger issues” that grip Woody Allen in fear.  “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.… Death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Cor. 15:52b-54).  This is the good news with which every thoughtful unbeliever must be confronted.

The Importance of Grace-Saying

I love what Anne Lamott says about the simple act of saying grace. . .

No matter how you say it, grace can transform an ordinary meal into a celebration—of family, love, and gratitude.

We didn't say grace at our house when I was growing up because my parents were atheists. I knew even as a little girl that everyone at every table needed blessing and encouragement, but my family didn't ask for it. Instead, my parents raised glasses of wine to the chef: Cheers. Dig in. But I had a terrible secret, which was that I believed in God, a divine presence who heard me when I prayed, who stayed close to me in the dark. So at 6 years old I began to infiltrate religious families like a spy—Mata Hari in plaid sneakers.

One of my best friends was a Catholic girl. Her boisterous family bowed its collective head and said, "Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. …" I was so hungry for these words; it was like a cool breeze, a polite thank-you note to God, the silky magnetic energy of gratitude. I still love that line.

I believed that if your family said grace, it meant you were a happy family, all evidence to the contrary. But I saw at certain tables that an improvised grace could cause friction or discomfort. My friend Mark reports that at his big southern childhood Thanksgivings, someone always managed to say something that made poor Granny feel half dead. "It would be along the lines of ‘And Lord, we are just glad you have seen fit to keep Mama with us for one more year.' We would all strain to see Granny giving him the fisheye."

I noticed some families shortened the pro forma blessing so they could get right to the meal. If there were more males than females, it was a boy chant, said as one word: "GodisgreatGodisgoodletusthankHimforourfoodAmen." I also noticed that grace usually wasn't said if the kids were eating in front of the TV, as if God refused to listen over the sound of it.

And we've all been held hostage by grace sayers who use the opportunity to work the room, like the Church Lady. But more often, people simply say thank you—we understand how far short we must fall, how selfish we can be, how self-righteous, what brats. And yet God has given us this marvelous meal.

It turns out that my two brothers and I all grew up to be middle-aged believers. I've been a member of the same Presbyterian church for 27 years. My older brother became a born-again Christian—but don't ask him to give the blessing, as it can last forever. I adore him, but your food will grow cold. My younger brother is an unconfirmed but freelance Catholic.

So now someone at our holiday tables always ends up saying grace. I think we're in it for the pause, the quiet thanks for love and for our blessings, before the shoveling begins. For a minute, our stations are tuned to a broader, richer radius. We're acknowledging that this food didn't just magically appear: Someone grew it, ground it, bought it, baked it; wow.

We say thank you for the miracle that we have stuck together all these years, in spite of it all; that we have each other's backs, and hilarious companionship. We say thank you for the plentiful and outrageous food: Kathy's lox, Robby's bûche de Noël. We pray to be mindful of the needs of others. We savor these moments out of time, when we are conscious of love's presence, of Someone's great abiding generosity to our dear and motley family, these holy moments of gratitude. And that is grace.

From Anne Lamott's newest book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

Dealing With Hatred

Followers of Christ know that we are supposed to "turn the other cheek" when we are personally attacked.  However, what action should we take when a group of people are the target of hatred and persecution?  And how can we resist evil without getting caught up in a never-ending cycle of eye-for-an-eye retaliation?

The following children's story shows that there is an alternative to violence on the one hand and passivity on the other:

 

A Sacrifice of Praise

One short biblical phrase--four words in English--intrigues me.  What does the Bible mean when it talks about "a sacrifice of praise" (Hebrews 13:15)?  I think it means praising God when we don't feel like it. 

If I praise God when the sun is shining and all is right in my world, how is that a sacrifice?  However, if I praise God when life is cruel and crummy, then I maybe I am making a sacrifice.  I'm choosing to worship in faith instead of going with my natural inclination to complain.

Joni Eareckson (Tada) experienced "a sacrifice of praise" after a diving accident left her a quadriplegic.  Up until the accident, she had been an excellent athlete and very active person.  Now she stewed in bitterness because she couldn't understand why God allowed the accident to occur.  A friend read to her from I Thessalonians 5:18:  "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."  He then said, "Joni, it's about time you got around to giving thanks in that wheelchair of yours."

Joni retorted, "But I don't feel thankful," to which the friend responded, "The verse doesn't say 'feel thankful.' It says 'give thanks.'  There's a big difference."

Joni gritted her teeth and with tears found things to thank God for.  And that was a turning point for her.  The practice of thanksgiving began to change her until she eventually was able to feel and express gratitude.

It is humbling for me to look at her website and to see what Joni has been able to accomplish from within the confines of her wheelchair.  She truly has learned how to make "the sacrifice of praise," and most of us could learn a lot from her.  If you're someone who struggles with chronic pain or depression, I highly recommend her resources (http://www.joniandfriends.org/blog/pain-and-depression/).

Song from the last episode of "In Plain Sight"

How do we show gratitude to God?

Mother Teresa advised:  "The best way to show our gratitude to God is to accept everything with joy.  Never let everything so fill you with sorrow that you forget the joy of Christ risen."

"Being happy in Jesus means loving as he loves, helping as he helps, giving as he gives, serving as he serves, rescuing as he rescues, being with him twenty-four hours, touching him in his distressing disguise."

Did this work?  Does it sound grim rather than joyful?  Malcolm Muggeridge didn't think so.  "Their life is rough and austere, yet I never met such delightful, happy women, or such an atmosphere of joy as they create.  Mother Teresa, as she is fond of explaining, attaches the utmost importance to this joyousness.  The poor, she says, deserve not just service and dedication, but also the joy that belongs to human love.  That is what the sisters given them abundantly."

What is your joy quotient today?

From the film "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"

Why Are People So Unhappy?

In his book, Knowing God, J. I. Packer illustrates why so many people are confused and unhappy.  He asks what would happen if you took a member of a primitive tribe from the Amazon basin and flew him to London and dropped him off in the middle of Trafalgar Square.  With no knowledge of the language and culture, how would he fend for himself?  And even if you dressed him in modern clothes, wouldn't everything he said and did be nonsensical to those around him? Surely none of us would be so insensitive!

However, as Packer says, "We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is.  The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place...for those who do not know God."  Later he writes:  "As our knowledge of God increases, so does our peace, our strength, and our joy."

Are you confused and unhappy?

   

Relationship or Religion?

Henry Blackaby may be the most spiritually sensitive person I have ever known.  I met him long before he became well-known as the author of Experiencing God.  He spoke at some of our regional college retreats when he was a pastor in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

I love reading the devotional thoughts that he and his son, Richard, wrote for Experiencing God Day by Day.  They are short but pithy.

Here is what they said in a recent devotional:  "Christianity is an intimate, growing relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.  It is not a set of doctrines to believe, habits to practice, or sins to avoid.  Every activity God commands is intended to enhance His love relationship with His people . . . Religious activity apart from fellowship with God is empty ritual . . . Don't settle for a religious life that lacks a vital relationship to Jesus Christ.  When God is present, the difference will be obvious." 

If that made you think, maybe you should get a copy of the book.  Or, you could access it online at http://www.blackaby.net/.

A Prayer for Today

Soren Kierkegaard's prayer is my prayer for today:  

"And now, Lord, with your help I shall become myself."

Indeed, come quickly, Lord Jesus.  Let Christ be formed in me. 

After Christmas

Katharine Lee Bates was a 19th Century professor of English literature at Wellesley College.  She authored many volumes of poetry and children's books but is best known for the lyrics of "America the Beautiful."

Four of her lines from another poem describe how we should know and experience Jesus Christ today:

          Not the Christ in the manger,
          Not the Christ on the Cross;
          But the Christ in the soul,
          When all but love is lost.

Isn't this what Jesus meant when he said, "I am with you always..." (Matt. 28:20)?  Isn't this what the Apostle Paul meant when he wrote, "I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20)?

Or as Charles Allen has said:  "the Christmas message should bring home to each of us not that we must still seek a Babe in a crib He outgrew, not a Teacher who has now moved from the classrooms of Galilee, nor an exhausted Savior stretched upon a cross, nor a Leader wrapped in the soft linens of death, but rather "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27).

Thoughts for a New Year

We often become discouraged because we measure our Kingdom efforts by the enormous needs that we see all around us.  Jesus' Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mt. 13:31-32) reminds us that "the smallest of seeds" grows up to become a tree.

Lord, help me to stop complaining about my "lack of resources" -- inadequate time, money, or energy -- and to utilize the resources you already have placed at my disposal.  Then, when you do a "mustard seed miracle," I will know that it was not because I was so smart, spiritual, or resourceful, but because You are the God who gives abundantly and disproportionately. 

Josh Garrels

I wonder how many of you are familiar with Josh Garrels, a Portland-based indie singer/songwriter.  I wasn't, but I ran across his new album this week.  Here is a cut from it.

"White Owl" is the first song on "Love & War & the Sea In Between."  It is CT's album of the year and can be downloaded for free ( http://joshgarrels.bandcamp.com/ )!  If you like his music, you also might be interested in the article about him @ http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/music/interviews/2011/fartheralong-december20.html.

Have a great 2012!

There Is No Rose

One last Christmas "note" before turning to the New Year . . .

I have heard the carol, "There Is No Rose of Virtue" several times before, but I never paid much attention because I couldn't understand the lyrics.  However, after listening/seeing this piece performed as a part of "Christmas at Belmont," I decided to check the words for myself.  I discovered that this simple 15th Century song has tremendous theological depth.  See what you think:

There is no rose of such virtue

as is the rose that bare Jesu;

Alleluia.

For in this rose contained was

heaven and earth in little space.

Res miranda [Wondrous thing!]

By that rose we may well see

that He is God in persons three,

Pari forma [Of the same form!]

The angels sung the shepherds to

"Gloria in excelsis Deo!"

Gaudeamus. [Let us rejoice!]

Leave we all this worldly mirth,

and follow we this joyful birth,

Transeamus. [Let us go!]

I love the wondrous last lines of the song:   "Follow we this joyful birth.  Transeamus. [Let us go!]"  Isn't that what we need to do -- for after we have "wondered" and "rejoiced" isn't it time for us to get up and go, to follow Him?

 

A Christmas Favorite

                                 

                            After  Annunciation

             This is the irrational season

                 when love blooms bright and wild.

             Had Mary been filled with reason

                 there'd have been no room for the child.

                                                             Madeleine L'Engle

A Foretaste of Glory

The philosopher, Peter Kreeft, says that touching eternity in this life is like hearing an echo. The old hymn, "Blessed Assurance," calls this "a foretaste of glory divine."

We smell the salt air of the sea, even here, far upstream in the river of time.  Whenever we touch wisdom or love, we swim in salt water.  Earth is God's beach and when we are wise and loving, we are infants splashing happily in the wavelets of 'that immortal sea.'  But when we are spiritually full grown, we will buoyantly plow its breakers of wisdom and be borne up by is bottomless depths of love.  Boredom, like pain, will be remembered only as a joke when we are drenched in joy.

                                              (Kreeft, Heaven, 1989; p. 96)

 

Do You Believe in Aliens?

The Apostle Peter describes "God's elect" as being "strangers in the world" (I P. 1:1).  The Apostle Paul says this is because our "citizenship is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20). 

Have you had the experience of "earthly alienation," a sense that this earth is not your final home?    A Puritan prayer describes it this way:

O Lord,
I live here as a fish in a vessel of water,
only enough to keep me alive,
but in heaven I shall swim in the ocean.
Here I have a little air in me to keep me breathing,
but there I shall have sweet and fresh gales;
Here I have a beam of sun to lighten my darkness,
a warm ray to keep me from freezing;
yonder I shall live in light and warmth forever.

(From Arthur Bennet's The Valley of Vision as quoted in Joni  Eareckson Tada's Heaven: Your Real Home, 99).

How Close Is Heaven?

I think most of us think of heaven as something that's "out there," i.e. both from the standpoint of distance and time, it is far off.  But I can't help wondering if that's an illusion.  Maybe heaven is much closer than we realize.

Several years ago I read a book by Karen Mains called The Fragile Curtain.  In it she told of her extended visit to a refugee camp in southeast Asia.  Several times while she was there, she felt she could almost see through "the fragile curtain" that separates this life from the next.  She talked about those times when the curtain fluttered. 

In a similar way, Celtic Christians used to speak of "thin places," those locations where the distance between heaven and earth had been "thinned out" and where a person could simply sense that God was near.  These usually became pilgrimage destinations.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning once wrote:

    Earth's crammed with heaven,
    And every common bush afire with God;
    But only he who sees takes off his shoes . . .

How close is heaven for you?

Higher Ground

Here is an excellent review of the new film "Higher Ground."  It's a movie I plan to see.  I have copied Frederica Mathewes-Green's review in its entirety from the August 26 edition of CT Entertainment:

When evangelicals hear that there's a new movie about their brand of Christianity, they get nervous.   All too often they are presented as idiots or villains. Stereotypes about narrow-mindedness, intolerance, cultish mind-control, and harsh subjugation of women abound.

Carolyn Briggs' 2002 memoir, This Dark World: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost, hit a number of those notes. When their church leaders counsel her not to get a college degree; when they counsel her husband to forgo a plum job opportunity because they instead need the headship of the church leaders; when she refused medication during a complicated pregnancy and scoffed at taking shelter during a tornado—well, it sounds to many evangelicals like a pretty kooky church, if not a cult. But don't expect the general public to make that distinction. CT's review of the book said it was "likely to win plaudits for its savaging of evangelical Christianity as the source of one woman's oppression, and her abandonment of that faith as a fount of liberation."

Vera Farmiga as Corinne

News that This Dark World, retitled Higher Ground, was coming to movie screens did not cause Christians to throw out the red carpet. And yet—what a surprise. This movie presents a church that is really endearing. It's a small community, and we meet them first in the 1970s as a gang of Jesus Freak hippies, gathered for a joyous, noisy river baptism. The guys are long-haired and bearded and have amiable, sweet expressions. The women wear prairie dresses and have personalities.

Corinne—the lead character played by Vera Farmiga, who also directed the film—is extra-bright but subdued, an observer. When, in an early scene, her boyfriend makes love to her in a meadow, he has an ecstatic experience while she waits it out, occasionally furrowing her brow.

The character in the film who lights up the sky is Annika. She is funny, creative, shapely, sensuous, and mischievous. Her husband describes her as loving "drama, art, and nature." She counsels Corinne not to let the sexual fires in marriage die, and imparts that she likes to draw pictures of her husband's penis. (We see Annika's bedroom later on and yes, she certainly does.) When a cop pulls the two over and tells Corinne she was exceeding the speed limit, Annika puts on a foreign accent and explains to the cop that she was having an underwear emergency and that Corinne was trying to help her.

Annika (Dagmara Dominczyk) brings much joy to Corinne's life

When the two are relaxing in a boat on a river, Annika begins to pray aloud in tongues. Whatever your opinion of that gift may be, it certainly sounds beautiful here. This is a Hollywood movie, and a woman is praying in tongues, and it is beautiful, and she is beautiful. Wonders never cease.

In fact, prayer and worship are consistently shown as inviting, peaceful, and joyous. A small group sits in a living room singing "The Sweetest Name I Know," and they're practically floating away. Any viewer would get the impression that those who don't love Jesus and pray with others are missing one of life's great joys.

Realistically enough, there are a couple of negative figures: an overbearing pastoral counselor who announces "I consider myself a prophet," and the pastor's wife, who corrects Corinne a couple of times about proper feminine behavior. But even she is well-meaning, not vile. The tension here is not between Corinne and an oppressive church, not at all. The tension is within Corinne.

Corinne often turns away from Ethan (Joshua Leonard)

She can't make her faith work the way she thinks it should. She can't pray with relaxed whole-heartedness, like Annika does. She can't grab hold of the gift of tongues, though she stands in the bathroom coaching the Holy Spirit as you would a little league batter: "Come on Holy Spirit. Come on Holy Spirit," followed by a stuttering, but self-extinguishing, blast of consonants.

She can't hold still when her husband wants to kiss her—she can't keep herself from turning her lips away at the last moment. And, when tragedy strikes, she has a hard time fighting her way through to a survivor's faith.

Bill Irwin as Pastor Bud

This is, to some extent, a movie about doubt, and that's a topic most Christians already know about. It's a commonplace around churches that "everybody has doubts," and knowing that it's common actually helps. So we support each other when we're struggling. We pray for each other. We just keep on showing up for prayer and worship, even it seems God doesn't. Sometimes, we just have to wait it out.

So Christians will empathize with Corinne's struggle. When she pours out her heart to the church she says, "I need all this to be real but I don't know how to make it real," and the camera cuts away to show us the pastor nodding. It's a blessing to see that—to have permission to admit that.

Some reviewers have compared Higher Ground to Robert Duvall's The Apostle (1997), and it is a similarly positive portrayal of Southern evangelical faith. But before you organize a congregational outing with the church bus, note that R rating. Among the tools employed by this clever and sometimes very funny movie are flashes of raunchy humor that are definitely not for children, and probably not for every adult at your church either. Apart from that, this is a movie that will be touching for anyone who ever asked Jesus into his heart, and years later felt, as Corinne confesses, "I'm still waiting for him to make himself at home." Yet, she concludes, "I won't let go until he blesses me."