Books Are My Friends

Cicero said, "A room without books is like a body without a soul." If that's true, I've been gorging myself for years en route to a massive soul.  Whenever I'm in close proximity to books, new or used, I cannot help myself. Something otherworldly takes over in second hand stores, coffee shops, wherever books are sold, and I find myself examining spines, perusing covers, scanning tables of contents, and, more often than not, purchasing. Occasionally, I read electronic editions, but nothing can replace the mystery and lure of a shelf lined with volume after volume, beckoning to me to unlock their secrets with the key of my mind. I confess that almost as much as I enjoy reading books, I love the smell and feel of them, and all the secrets in me conjured up by them. I cannot well articulate this lure of literature, but perhaps it's because it is impossible not to think while reading, and equally difficult not to feel. The barren spans in my life are inevitably periods when I'm not reading. 

Books are my friends and I number among my companions all types of literature, but the genre to which I'm most drawn is biography. This is no accident. One of my earliest childhood memories is of spending summers with my mother in the library at Trinity Baptist Church in Port Arthur. As church librarian, hers was a labor of love, but my experience was anything but work. I thrilled to the rhythm and rhyme of poetry, the uncertainty of mystery, the harrowing escapes of adventure, and my favorite immersion was into the juvenile section and a special edition of biographies written for children. Those orange felt covered hardbacks contained living documents about real American heroes: Walt Disney, Lou Gehrig, Daniel Boone, George Washington Carver, and others. I quickly developed an insatiable appetite for "story." I did not know then, but believe strongly now that I am compelled to inhale biography because narrative is always God-breathed. Created in the image of God who lives in perpetual relationship with himself, we are fashioned for relationship. This explains why it is one another's story that grips us and changes our own. My story is altered in some way by every story I encounter, for better or for worse. 

From where I'm sitting my gaze falls on the following biographies and autobiographies on my shelves: Bonhoeffer, Mandela, Franklin, Buechner, Tillich, Livingston, Einstein, Rockefeller, Wesley, St. Francis, Whitier, Tozer, Dinesen, Lewis, Marshall, Merton, Bush, Hemingway, L'Amour, to name only a few. Through ink on vellum these have been my mentors, teachers, confidantes, comrades, and friends. I suppose this is not so much because of what I have learned about them, but for what they have helped me discover about myself.

Recognizing Ourselves

Funny how little things can lead to bigger things, and sometimes bigger things to still larger truths.  Life has a way of teaching us about ourselves when we least expect it, and this may be the truest path of self discovery that I've stumbled upon. I seldom enjoy great internal awareness when contemplating in silence the reason I am and who it is that's doing the meditating. Instead, insight dawns while crossing a busy parking lot hand in hand with a grandchild, or standing to speak before a small congregation consisting of a mixed bag of struggling individuals, or watching an owl chase a hawk away from her nest laden with owlets. These were the moments this weekend when I came face to face with myself and remembered in a new way that I am Papa--securing for my grandchildren a safe place from which to explore and succeed and fail; I am partner--knowing who I am only becomes important when I see my narrative as helping to write that of others; I am protector-- we protect who and what we love and these objects of our commitment reveal the most about the nature of our own hearts. Like examining baby pictures and debating who the infant most resembles, self-understanding comes into focus gradually and progressively if we are astute enough to recognize ourselves in the commonplace. 

Memorial Day Salute

For a time he was a soldier. With wiry frame and James Dean good looks, he walked first into the heart of Lois Richey and then rode onto the battlefield of Korea. An iron tank was his chosen coat of arms and he commanded well just south of the DMZ. Occasionally, he weathered enemy fire while dishing out plenty of his own. Comrades in the 4th armored division called him Hank; his bride called him Sweetheart, and years later my sister and I called him Dad. His is one story among many, of men and women who sacrificed something or everything for an abstract notion known as "patriotism" or "love of country."  I think, for Henry, it was something far more tangible than that. He had attempted to enlist years before during World War II, but a temporary medical condition made him fail the physical. So, when the world's aggression turned to Korea, Hank was ready. Not eager to leave his wife behind, but driven by an inner sense of loyalty to defend what he had always known and refused to relinquish--liberty, be it ours or another people's--he exchanged oil refinery work clothes for army green and khaki. Dad didn't speak often about those days. In fact, I've learned more recently from his best friend and comrade in arms, Don, than I ever did from Dad himself. Soldiering was something he did because it was right, not something he wore around as an entitlement. Atop my shelf sits what remains physically of his service--a U.S. flag presented to my mother at his death, an officer's chevron, a gold braided cord from his uniform; but something intangible and far greater remains and will endure. His service for family, friends and country are a memorial to greatness forged in distress, and loyalty superseding personal comfort or preference. In a word, Henry Winstead Fowlkes leaves a legacy, one to salute with life and strive to emulate. Thank you Dad. 

Why the Noise?

Why the noise? Why the constant parade of heightened decibels and vitriolic chatter that startles and shatters the serenity of the quiet heart? No possible reason exists apart from this--solitude creates the quiet space for deep reflection, meditation, contemplation. In other words, solitude allows one to think. Herein lies the problem--the vast majority of humanity abhors thought. Thinking is much too complicated an activity for ordinary man. He prefers activity and noise to the quiet pursuit of contemplation. For this very reason Richard Foster writes, "The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people." Depth of personhood comes not from noise but from solitude that makes sense out of both sound and soundlessness. If one creates the space to think, he or she will find him or herself and may indeed be startled at both the brutality and beauty of self. Those who never think never know themselves and those who are never introduced to themselves can never be Christ's disciples as he intended. For, how is it possible to deny one's self in cross bearing if 'self' is an unknown personna? Perhaps the rarity of costly discipleship today (to borrow termonology from Bonhoeffer), at least in the western world, is directly connected to the scarcity of solitude.

Muscle Memory

Is there anything to be said in favor of going through the motions? A response in the affirmative may be stated in two words -- muscle memory. When you need it, the tedious repetition kicks in and gets you through the rough spot. Athletes know that well executed repetition is their greatest ally when the stress level is high and victory on the line. They trust their muscles to flex and respond on demand without conscious effort. Discipleship, too, requires a great deal of 'muscle memory,' holy rehearsal that results in pushing through the monotonous and mundane that constitutes much of what we call spirituality. Habits formed by praying when we don't feel like it, reading Scripture when we're bored with it, and living by faith when all evidence screams and pulls to the contrary, steel us for whatever lies ahead. Sanctification should never be measured by emotion at any given moment, but by the residual effect of spiritual muscle memory.

Participate in Life

What would happen if I literally stopped to smell the roses? Likely, the same thing that happens when I walk instead of drive. Driving forces me to accelerate and ignore, while walking demands that I notice people, places and things that I ordinarily would simply pass, oblivious to their beauty or significance. Pausing allows me to be a participant in life rather than merely a consumer. Life takes on a whole new level of enjoyment when my perspective becomes narrow, not in a negative but a focused sort of way. Participate in life. Remove the filter of distraction. See, smell, touch, taste, enjoy. And in the enjoyment of the ordinary turned sacred, turn quickly to worship the Creator. 

Life Maturing

Have you noticed that intelligence diminishes with age? At least, that's been my experience. I can remember when I knew everything as a much younger person, but now I admit to knowing very little and remembering even less. I doubt that I've ever quoted Oscar Wilde and probably never will again, but he did seem to hit on something when he wrote, "I'm not young enough to know everything." Is there a lesson in light of this generational dichotomy? If there is, it likely is that aging grants one the largesse of not needing to know everything. In fact, one of the characteristics of advanced leadership ability is acknowledging what one does not know or do well, and expending the greatest amount of time and effort in doing that which they're gifted in and most passionate about rather than in correcting areas of weakness and inability. Marcus Buckingham writes of this in "Now, Discover Your Strengths." Leadership development guru Robert Clinton calls this the Life Maturing stage, and describes it as a period of maximum fruitfulness. So, be encouraged my aging friends. Instead of pining for departed youth when we thought we knew everything, embrace this opportunity of doing the one thing we love better than we've ever done anything else.

Gauging God's Goodness

God never gets the blues. For him to be moody would imply that one moment he is better than he is at another, and that would be heresy. "God is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Yet, I wrestle regularly with the self-imposed inclination to gauge God's goodness (or its opposite) according to the transitory and unreliable emotion (my own) of the moment, as if his character fluctuated like the Dow Jones. Why do I insist on attempting to recreate God in my own image? For lack of any better explanation, I'm forced to admit that I do so when feeling powerless because I want a God who knows and is intimately involved, but when life unfolds the way I want, I prefer his mood to shift toward indifference.  I seem to prefer a god who is little more than the elongated reflection of myself.  Father, break through my self-orientation and bend me to the wholly Other. Radically impose your heart and superimpose real faces on your will, but do not allow them to be my own. Open my eyes to recognize you at work in my landlord who is struggling against lung cancer, in the man that I privately distrust at church, in the family members I desperately long to influence toward the Cross, in my wife who I pray detects in me Jesus implementing a towel. Reproduce yourself in me so fully that I embody the hope of glory.

"to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:27 RV1885)

The Anonymous Church

I feel sorry for those believers who've never known anything other than the anonymous church. Sitting Sunday after Sunday in what amounts to the ecclesiastical equivalent of a concert hall, many tread spiritual water midst a sea of strangers--unknown quantities, mutual anonymity. These are they who look like you, right down to the plaid and khakis, but who remain to you a nameless entity. And you remain a cipher in the snow to them as well.  I mourn for you because you've attended "church" all your life, but have never known the pain of dealing with your own honesty while face to face with a group of people who know the truth but love you anyway. You've probably not encountered the rebuke of teaching on spirit fullness and then having someone ask, "Well, why then are you over weight?" You've likely never been held by a chain smoking homosexual who is in the process of coming to Christ, but not still there, and whose scent and searing pain lingers on your skin and in your heart. Odds are you have made it through your church career without wrestling with a church member 's addiction, someone you ordinarily would avoid, but, instead, gladly accept her call at midnight in order to go and retrieve her and get her safely to a shelter. 

I grieve for those who survive a lifetime of Sunday services and Wednesday night 'prayer meetings' without being more than stirred sporadically and never altered on account of another's narrative. The disciple's life is intended as dialogue, not monologue. Church should promote such stark reality among mutual pilgrims or it ceases to be "church" in the New Testament portrayal of the concept.

"Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world... Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community, the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community." (Bonhoeffer, Life Together)

Holy Fire

A. W. Tozer wrote of worship in Alliance Life magazine some fifty years ago as the "missing jewel of the evangelical church." If anything, the American church is stooping to a new lowest common denominator. Earlier this month, church researcher Tom Rainer presented research identifying nine rapid changes in American church worship services over the past 20 years: 

1. Choirs are disappearing. 

2. Dress is more casual.

3. Screens are pervasive.

4. Preaching is longer.

5. “Multi” is normative. (Today, most congregants attend a service that is part of numerous alternatives: multi-services; multi-campuses; multi-sites; and multi-venues.)

6. Attendees are more diverse.

7. Conflict is not increasing.

8. More worship attendees are attending larger churches.

9. Sunday evening services are disappearing.

I do not intend to contradict Rainer's findings, but I do want, very much, to state that his delineation of trends points almost entirely to matters of style and form rather than substance and transcendence. This substantiates my own conviction that we are confused as to the nature of true worship. Choirs, screens, tie or no tie, times and numbers of services -- these elevate the secondary to the place of the primary. However, let me hasten to add that this preoccupation with trifles is not wholly unexpected. After all, how many have been desperate enough to cling to God as our only hope and refuse to let go until He has brought healing to our land? Who among us has allowed passion for Christ to eclipse all else to the extent that life's distractions are relegated to the shadowlands?  When have we been so found in Christ that we didn't lose track of time, but were totally unaware that such a thing existed?  Worship has nothing to do with posture or elements or duration or location; it has everything to do with humiliating brokenness before an all consuming Holy Fire. Father, grant us once again the heart cry of Charles Wesley:

Come, Jesus, Lord, with holy fire,

Come, and my quickened heart inspire,

  My conscience purged by blood;

Now to my soul Thyself reveal,

Thy mighty working let me feel,

  Since I am born of God.

Let nothing now my heart divide,

Since with Thee I am crucified,

  And live to God in Thee.

Dead to the world and all its toys,

Its idle pomp and fading joys,

  Jesus, my glory be.

Now with a quenchless thirst inspire,

A longing, infinite desire,

  And fill my craving heart.

Less than Thyself, oh, do not give,

In might Thyself within me live;

  Come, all Thou hast and art.

My will be swallowed up in Thee,

Light in Thy light still may I see

  In Thine unclouded face:

Called the full strength of trust to prove,

Let all my quickened heart be love,

  My spotless life be praise.

Recovering

We're all recovering from something. That truth should be the great equalizer in any church, but, sadly, many church members go through their religious motions with a numbing strand of spiritual amnesia. Forgetting what it was like to be lost or impaired or in bondage to anything, we slip easily into the mode of both judge and jury. We carry out our sentences with a sideways glance, a subtle turning away, a dismissive word, a rumor started. How in God's name did His church ever become a place of judgment and condemnation when she was created to be the New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament's City of Refuge? Adults behaving badly, and all in the name of Christ. With each passing year, the less certain I become of the importance of much of the pageantry we produce and practice in the name of worship, and the more convinced I am of the necessity of grace as the ground of all true worship. Could there be any clearer celebration of the worth of God than to extend mercy to those who stand or bow or bend in His image, regardless of the beauty or lack there of in the narrative that is their life?

Prayerfully consider the following analogy by Frederick Buechner:

When they first start talking at a meeting, they introduce themselves by saying, “I am John. I am an alcoholic.” “I am Mary. I am an alcoholic,” to which the rest of the group answers each time in unison, “Hi, John,” “Hi, Mary.” They are apt to end with the Lord’s Prayer or the Serenity Prayer. Apart from that they have no ritual. They have no hierarchy. They have no dues or budget. They do not advertise or proselytize. Having no building of their own, they meet wherever they can.

Nobody lectures them, and they do not lecture each other. They simply tell their own stories with the candor that anonymity makes possible. They tell where they went wrong, and how, day by day they are trying to go right. They tell where they find the strength and understanding and hope to keep trying. Sometimes one of them will take special responsibility for another – to be available at any hour of day or night if need arises. There’s not much more to it than that, and it seems to be enough. Healing happens. Miracles are made.

You can’t help thinking that something like this is what the Church is meant to be and maybe once was before it got to be Big Business. Sinners Anonymous. “I can will what is right but I cannot do it,” is the way Saint Paul put it, speaking for all of us. “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). (Listening to Your Life, 1972)

Tired Enough to Listen

At times we pronounce ourselves "tired" because we can't think of exactly how to sort and categorize the mosaic of thoughts that pull down like emotional gravity. While muscles may ache and joints argue against the mental command to bend, I say I'm tired because I don't want to try again or perhaps try for the first time; a convenient cover that sounds much more acceptable than "I'm afraid," or "I'm unsure of myself."  Speaking from experience, what is needed most in such moments is genuine spiritual renewal. While simple things such as eight hours of sleep and a balanced diet may indeed replenish depleted physical reserves and reduce this strain of exhaustion, what transforms resignation into resolve is a fresh encounter with God.  If you are hiding in a cave of your own design, the time has come to listen for the voice of God, but it will likely not be heard in shouts from a pulpit or pious platitudes from so-called self-help literature. No, the voice will come as a whisper from a friend in need, or a child's lonely cry, or a homeless man's story of neglect and demise. Will I listen and in the hearing detect a divine whisper that draws me out of myself and once again into Himself? Spiritual renewal is not for the strong or confident, but for the exhausted individual who is wise enough to stop speaking and start listening. 

(1 Kings 19:1-9, 11-15 NIV)

Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep. All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram."