Singing My History

I have lived a short history.

Today, I stood in the kitchen making pancakes from a recipe I have memorized, and I thought about how it has come into being through many adaptations, through many kitchens. I know they existed, because this recipe exists.

I started to sing a familiar song. That, too, even more than the pancake recipe, is a continuity with my past. Even though the kitchen bears no resemblance to my past kitchens, the sun and shade, the patterns on the tile walls are all unlike my past worlds: the song is from there, and the song exists inside me and outside me, and is evidence of another world.

I have had lots of different Christmas ornaments, wall hangings, measuring cups, and all of them are gone or packed away somewhere.

Songs carry my stories.

Singer/Soldier

Today in church, the worship leader led some new anthem. It was beautiful, declaring our newness in Christ, our deaths to our old lives. The rest of the worship team followed the leader like a well-trained platoon. That's what our worship team often reminds me of: an army. 

Perhaps it's strange to think of singers as being equal to trained soldiers. Soldiers are so tough and so cool. Singers so often earn their keep by ingratiating and entertaining. But sometimes we sing to God; sometimes we sing declarations to our circumstances. In my church here, the singers lead us into battle, reminding me of Jehoshaphat's army the time it was led by musicians and singers. *

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A gigantic army is facing Jehoshaphat and the Israelites. He calls all of Judah together to fast and pray and call on God. "God, you gave us this land because you wanted to. We've built you a temple where we can assemble when we're in dire need; we'll wait on you here, asking for help, and you can save us.

"Oh, great God! You told us to spare these enemies long ago, but here they are, massed against us, and there's no way we can defeat them. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."

All the frightened families of Judah were there, waiting. 

It's Jahaziel, distant grandson of the famed poet Asaph who speaks up, prophesying, "Listen up, everyone! The Lord says that we will not have to fight this enemy. We must go down to meet them tomorrow and take up our positions, but God will deliver us himself. Do not be afraid! Do not be discouraged! Go out to face them tomorrow, and the Lord will be with you."

The other singers in the Tribe of Levi start to praise God. It gets loud with the many voices, every other child has found a percussive instrument. Jehoshaphat falls down on his face, praising and worshiping the God of his deliverance. I bet they're up all night, praising God, believing and trying to believe in the words of Jahaziel; that is their one and only hope of surviving this encounter.

The next morning, instead of appointing snipers or scouts to surveil the area ahead of their army, Jehoshaphat puts the worship team at the front. The people of Judah sing and drum their way to the site of their enemies, thanking God, lifting up his name with great sound. While they do this, God is ambushing their enemies. God HIMSELF is AMBUSHING their enemies. How? Like, how? With great balls of fire? With fear so that they turn on themselves? How? I don't know. But GOD AMBUSHES all these other armies so that when Jehoshaphat and the worshipers of God crest the hill on the path that leads down into the desert gorge, there's nothing left to do but pick up the plunder of their enemies.

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*paraphrase of 2 Chronicles 20

Song 43

v1
God, would you clear my name?
These people! What the HELL?!
They weigh me down with their tricks and their cruelty.

v2
You are God, and I count on you to be there for me.
It feels like you've abandoned me.
It feels like you've consigned me to walk around with
my heart on my sleeve, despite the danger around me.

v3
Send out a guide to find me here in this mess.
Bring me close to you.

v4
I want to come to your very feet.
I will praise you there, in the only ways I know:
with dancing and singing, O God!
I will write you a song.

v5
Why am I freaking out?
Why am I so sad?
Oh, Soul, trust in God.
Look forward to the time when you will praise him!
Oh, you will!

On This Side

On this side of the Red Sea,
let us lay down our worries.
We do not need to clean
our closets before crossing.

On this side of the Red Sea,
let us look up at eternity
written in the sky with a cloud,
a pillar of fire, blocking our view.

Sing with me, brothers,
dance with me, sisters.

God is with us, and we are breathless.
the seas curl up like living scrolls,
and we walk in unlikely places,
touching ground that living feet have not trod.

Sing with me, brothers,
dance with me, sisters.

If the water or the wilderness consume us,
we will have already
worshiped God
for setting us free.

Sing with me, brothers,
dance with me, sisters.

Fatherless Days

"Take these pieces thrown away

Put them together from night and day

Washed by the sun, dried by the rain, 

To be my father in the fatherless days."

"Always," Newsboys, 1998

I work in a place where I see many kids without parents actively involved in their lives. For the part of the parents, they believe they have done the best thing a parent could do by sending their children to a boarding school. Here they will, in theory at least, learn to speak English, the language of money, and make connections within the United States, thereby increasing the kids' chance of finding a high-paying job and living a life of ease.

In a meeting yesterday, we talked about what our job is as advisers. How much of the students' lives fall on us to care for? The truth? Well, Latin scholars, you tell me, what does in loco parentis mean to you? And how about in loco parentis omni die? Even if we weren't so outnumbered, we wouldn't be able to care for them with the holistic concern and unconditional love of a parent.

On my good days, I have to fight the urge to pity these students. I constantly remind myself that I, too, grew up with a parent in absentia, and I'm okay, aren't I? Because pity only ever reduced me to a victim, when love could have empowered me.

Regarding these lyrics, then, I have been puzzling over them for the past fourteen years. The sun does not wash. The rain does not dry. Except... if everything is backward and upside-down in this world. What's more, most potters start with soft clay, I've heard. But perhaps broken pieces are the only useful form for God to shape? I mean, he raises the dead! (He has strange past times.) He can begin with all these broken pieces, make them soft, and create a thing beautiful to behold in the final light. 

"Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4:16). Things begin working backward from the time we enter his kingdom at Jesus' invitation. We are becoming children to enter into the Kingdom. And such a Father we have! (I have recently added to my list of things I know about him that he is playful and exuberant, the very definition of life!)

So, I grew up without a dad much in the picture. And I'm only okay insomuch as that lack has made me seek out the true Father. And as I find him, I have plenty of pieces to offer him. I'm thinking we only ever bring pieces to the Lord. I'm hoping this will inform how I see my students: people in pieces, like me, with a Father waiting to adopt them.

Everything Natural

I have a hole in my vocabulary: I don't know how to describe landscape. It may be the result of a lack of nature reading. But I am more prone to believe that it comes from a lack of nature. What is a rill? A hummock? What exactly is an escarpment? It sounds like a place where fish might be bred. It gets worse when we're talking about specific types of herbage. As I read James Herriott, a Scottish author, I found myself at a blank when I tried to imagine his environment. I finally gave in and web-searched what peat moss and heather looked like.

My vocabulary hole is even more apparent when I try to write about my environs. I don't even know the name of the tree outside my window. In the summer, its greenery is vibrant enough to obstruct intrusive eyes. In the wintertime, said tree drops its leaves onto our porch from which they are swept into the road to be removed by the street cleaners (which I never see, but know exist, because they are religious about ticketing vehicles). Even after discarding its leaves, long green pods remain on the branches. Throughout the winter, these pods become more and more translucent, revealing small black seeds inside, which obligingly take up the office of the leaves and scatter themselves about our porch, to be swept into the road and then removed by the unseen, yet fastidious, street cleaners. Through my long and fervent commerce with this tree, I have yet to learn its name, or any of its virtues as a plant. As a city-dweller, it merely gets in my way; much like the tree a few houses down which excretes a sap that smells like vomit, and has accordingly been dubbed the vomit tree.

I'm out of touch, you see.
I don't know nature,
and she doesn't know me.
I haven't felt the earth with
my bare, soft feet
in I-don't-know-how-long!
...It may be getting to me.

I remember living in smaller towns growing up. I wasn't so far removed then. I could hike in the woods, and did often. I knew the smaller parks and hiking trails nearby with an almost shameful intimacy. I didn't often feel hungry or tired there. Sometimes, it was a marvel how deeply I lost myself in sunlight and trees. I wanted to be a part of them. Some force would pull me off the trail, to know the outside of the trail, and maybe actually know it... nature, something. Once off the trail, my desire would only grow. There was more, where was it? Knowing tree names wasn't enough, I had to be a part of it, get inside. I would climb a tree, or stoop to the mosses, inspecting the insides of logs. But that tugging does not just go away. Sometimes, in fact, my dissatisfaction rose to anger.

Not long ago, I was visiting Longwood Gardens with my grandparents. While there, I compared it to my first time to Longwood, ten years ago. I had felt that dissatisfied longing to be in nature. I remember how awful it was to be in such an achingly beautiful place, and somehow not really know it. But something was different this trip. As I walked through the conservatory, I felt like singing to God! I felt as though I had to worship and adore the Creator, or I would burst all over the lovely orchids. I smiled dumbly, room after room of incredible colors, each representing a vast framework of design. The longing was still there, but smaller. As I thanked God in prayer for His unrestrained, immoderate beauty, I knew that I was a part of it.

A Deli Christmas

First things first: this is finals week, and the week before Christmas, and there is a lot to do. But at work, there is not a lot to do. By what evidence, you ask? Wayne was inspired by the muses this afternoon and rewrote the Twelve Days of Christmas for me, complete with props, it was beautiful.

an old moldy wedge of brie cheese
two chicken breasts
three french fries
four thawing burgers
five onion rings!
six geese have laid these [eggs]
seven olives swimming
eight pints of milk [that's one gallon, to the layman]
nine honey mustards
ten leaves of lettuce
eleven peppers pepping
twelve hashbrowns browning

Also today, Bill got locked inside the ladies' room for over ten minutes. He always uses the ladies' room, see. And the lock had been finicky for months. But, o fates!, the door has always managed to open in the past, despite great difficulties that the poor customers suffer. He called Leonardo, the prep guy, from his cell phone. Leonardo, doubtless, recognized on the caller ID that it was Bill calling. But he is kind of vindictive. So he let it ring. Finally Gary came to the rescue and opened the door. Bill then posted a sign that read something like: You may enter, but good luck getting out, the lock is broken.

The Fourth of July

My dad turned 50 on the fourth of July, and everything worked out to visit him and my brother, Megan, and Aida. I have to give a shout out to my fruit salad, as I had never successfully made one before. If you've never tried it, don't say it's easy. All kinds of fruits don't mix together well, and who would have thought that orange juice from concentrate is the best base mixture? Not me; that is to say, allrecipes.com has sort of bailed out all of my cooking events.

My brother manned the grill, and Aida did her best to keep herself posted on all the goings on in all the rooms of the house while still watching Phineas and Ferb. She's nearly four. But she acts and speaks like an older child. I often feel that she sort of skipped toddlerhood in favor of childhood; and I wonder just as often if that is a healthy thing for a person. Either way, she's adorable and more interesting than ever. She's at the time in life when she has a working understanding of most conversations and can participate in them to a fair degree. Yet she still manages to ramble on about E.T. and Elliott, her imaginary friends who are, by turns, her fiance or her brother, or non-existent even to her, making you out to be the insane adult.

After dinner I presented Dad with his card and a print-out of "Every Season" by Nichole Nordeman. I have loved that song for a long time and decided that Dad's gift would be an experience rather than a thing to fill his apartment. So I sang it! I've rarely performed alone, and never for a close crowd like that. It felt like I was holding my heart outside my body for a minute and a half. But as I finished, I felt like it didn't even matter if they had liked the song or not. I think I was real. And I now think that that is more precious than I had ever suspected. I see now what George MacDonald was talking about as he repeated that the Lord is not a harsh taskmaster: He teaches humility in creative, not torturous, ways.