The fruit of silence is prayer,
The fruit of prayer is faith,
The fruit of faith is love,
The fruit of love is service,
The fruit of service is peace.

Mother Theresa
———————————
Simple, yet M. Theresa’s “simple path” is worthy of contemplation and careful consideration. The starting point is one which I have found few appreciate. But when we find that transforming furnace of silence, we discover new perspectives, our passions, a new person (our true identity) and most important we become more acquainted with the person and presence of God. This leads us on down the “simple path” for the fruit of silence is prayer…

Although this week we are supposed to get some real heat finally here in Western Pennsylvania, on Saturday I was out getting ready for winter. As I wielded a chain saw and helped run the splitter and stacked firewood - I thought to myself, “Tell me again Doug, why do you choose to do this?”

Why do I choose to heat with wood? Why did I spend a considerable amount of money to put an efficient, EPA approved wood stove in my home? Why do I spend hot and humid days outside getting ready for winter?

There are actually alot of reasons and benefits (not the least of which I need the exercise!). I think it comes down to the fact that - it is good for me to stay close to the seasons. I need tangible and regular reminders of the heat of summer, the harshness of winter, the beauty and harvest of fall and the new life of spring. In my everyday - I can run from climate controlled environment to climate controlled environment completely oblivious to rain, snow, heat or freezes. I can easily fall into the trap of doing my own thing; living in my world (but absent from the Creator’s world).

So - beyond a host of other reasons (using the resources around me, the need for wood to dry out to evolve into good fuel, becoming a little less natural gas reliant, involving myself in the land around me, investing in and being mindful that heat costs us something [it isn’t as easy as flipping a thermostat], etc.) I sweat in the summer and work to heat my home in the winter to stay rooted to the creator’s world.

It seems as I look around this world we call home… that often what motivates action is fear, guilt, or vengeance - or some combination thereof. I know that is pretty cynical. But it seems that from congress to the school house too often (how about that) we hear underlying building programs and new initiatives this motivation mix of fear (someone is going to out do us), guilt (it has been a long time coming), or vengeance (never again!).

I know that few things happen from pure motives (meaning only one motive) - it is most often a mix of motivations - but it has me thinking, what motivates youth ministry in my church?

Is it guilt? Are we attempting to make up for some past failures by providing “the best” for the next generation?
Is it fear? Are we trying to provide an alternative to the world in order to protect our children?
Is it vengeance? Are we trying to prove something to someone?

What are the motivations that move us or our church into ministry with teens? I am sure it is a mixture of all kinds of inner forces. Though, I am coming to learn and be convinced of this - if love is not a growing factor amidst those other competing factors, it’s not worth much.

God, may a holy love infuse our desires and motivations as we minister to others. May the love which moved Jesus from heaven to earth be the mark of your bride. May love rain on your church and be the fragrance she is known for. On earth as it is in heaven.

Amen.

This July is the first time in at least 15 years that I have not traveled on a ministry trip. It has been nice to be home as peppers and tomatoes ripen in the garden and to stop for ice cream with the family. It has been odd, as well. For the past ten years I had spent at least one week at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore with Merge. It had been a time to catch up with friends and colleagues and to watch God at work in my life and the life of teens. I really miss the late night conversations, the laughter, the stories, facing challenges together, solving problems and celebrating victories (small and significant).

I was talking with a close friend yesterday. We were reminiscing and dreaming toward the future. He mentioned something that I have been considering. It was a great question. During the summer in youth ministry many of us find ourselves as spectators for part of our experience. We often find ourselves at camps, conferences and the like going through ministry experiences with our teens (while others lead the larger experience). We can often put on our “evaluation hat” as other adults present or speak or facilitate ministry among us.

How do we know when we come across those issues that we don’t like or that we would handle differently whether it is the result of a personal preference or a deep seated conviction?

– does it matter?
– do we discuss it with others?
– is the Bible the final arbitrator?
– is there a gut feeling? intuitive sense?

Love to hear of your experiences and how you wrestled or are wrestling with your inner critic this summer.

early morning hours

stillness lingers on
not a drop spills over top
Mystery filling

awakened to find
each moment flashes your touch
new eyes moving slow

confined to God speed
brings a fresh way to be now
stillness lingers on

greeting a new day

For a variety of reasons - the meditation quoted below in this post has been on my mind of late. We can easily be consumed by the failures of others, ourselves, and by the evil and darkness that pervades - this is a helpful correction to such myopia.

“How can you hope to make the imperfect things perfect, unless you keep before your eyes the vision of God, who is perfection? The prayer that is only against evil destroys itself. If you look at nothing but sorrow and sin, your heart may be at first full of love and pity, but presently anger — righteous perhaps, but still anger — will enter and begin to crowd out love; and then despair will come and deaden pity, and at last will even smother righteous anger. And then there will be silence for the heart that is filled with despair cannot pray.

It is not enough to know that the world is full of evil, we must also know that God is good.”

Florence Converse, The House of Prayer (meditation from the Celtic Book of Daily Prayer)

random facts meme

I’ve been tagged by Len Evans (who was tagged by THE Marko) to participate in the following deal… so here are the rules:

1. players start with 8 random facts about themselves.

2. those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.

3. players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

My 8 Random Facts:
1. I preached my first sermon at The First Presbyterian Church in Port Charlotte, FL when I was 16 years old (it was “Youth Sunday”) - my text for the message was Isaiah 55. I think I spoke for over 45 minutes (they only scheduled 20 minutes for the sermonette)! It’s a great memory. I did get invited to preach at my home church again a few years later when I was in seminary, I spoke there during Advent.

2. I love eggplant! One of my favorite meals is from Copelands of New Orleans - a wonderful dish on their menu called, Eggplant Pirogue.

3. I have been a Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan since 1976. My family had season tickets and witnessed 16 straight home losses the first two seasons - it was all worth it in 1979 when they went deep into the playoffs. I still faithfully follow the bucs - a loyal rider on the pewter bandwagon.

4. I married a wonderful, beautiful and really cool lady in 1987 (yup - I have been married 20 years!) and our first humble abode was a condo on Indian Rocks Beach on the gulf coast of Florida. Pretty amazing to wake up to look out our sliding glass door to watch dolphin playing in the surf!

5. I was once on a nationally syndicated television program (back in ‘86?!).

6. At one time or another I have played the following instruments trumpet, baritone, trombone, bass drum, guitar, and bass guitar. (Oh, and I was a marching band nerd in high school - and I still dig marching band!! Anyone heard of DCI? One of the highlights of my year is to either catch a competition or watch the finals on television.)

7. I did my master’s degree program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, for one reason: to study with Mark Senter (and I was not disappointed).

8. One of the ways I love to spend an afternoon is outside on my property, with this.

So now I tag, eight… hmmm…

Sonja
Dino
Justin
Brian
Chris
Dan
Rustin
Monty

and just cause I can - One to grow on…
Snoop

Yesterday I had an internal meltdown. It came out of nowhere. The next thing I knew I was brooding, obsessing, reliving, rehashing, stewing, fuming, angry, frustrated, and thinking about what I could have said. I lived and relived in the past and was blinded to anything that was going on right here, right now. It didn’t last too long and then it subsided (I take heart that such episodes are less frequent and more short-lived).

It was interesting that in the midst of all these regurgitated bad feelings about bygone eras - I was able to “observe myself.” I was able to think, “hmm, where is this coming from? Why am I reliving and fuming about this? It really isn’t that big of deal. Why am I so angry?”

A low simmering anger and frustration that occasionally erupts and taking trips down memory lane are two of my not so pretty sides. It is a side I show to those I love most dearly - but seem to hide fairly competently from others. So yesterday, as I relived one of these petty incidents of the past I realized, I have a long way to go on the road of transformation. Yet I was also strangely encouraged, because although I am not transformed, I am on the right road.

For years (I have called myself a Christian or Christ follower for over 25 years) I thought transformation would result from my belief - correct assumptions and rightly understood certainties grounded in an orthodox theology. I thought it was my mastery of God and His revelation that would somehow enter my synapses and begin to change my behavior. You know for a while this did work - I began to think differently and some of my behaviors changed. But if I am honest transformation along that “right thinking” road slowed not long after I started trudging down it.

The road to transformation is a winding road that certainly includes our minds but it also must engage our emotions, our will, our relationships and our behavior. The road to transformation I have now found and am stumbling down winds through doubts, conversations and a realization that my attempt to “master God” is a climb up an infinite mountain (and one can be awed or despair in the frustration). Ahh, mystery - embrace it for at least on the road I am on - it is ’round every corner!! (Certainty is way over-rated, anyway).

The mysterious road to transformation is a road where we encounter doubts, set-backs, and frustrations, but also it is a road that slowly changes us as we engage in conversations (with soul friends), journey for a time with fellow pilgrims (enjoy community and hitchhike on the notes left behind by others who have been this way), encounter new ways of traveling (discover and try new spiritual practices), study the map (bad metaphor - don’t sue me!), and take new steps in the direction of the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.

I am a person in need of transformation - but I am encouraged by the road God has helped me to stumble onto. I don’t have it all figured out - this soul stuff is weird. I trust God, He is good - so sometimes even though I feel like I am in the fog - I figure the cloud of mystery has merely enveloped me for a time! I take courage in the following quotes from Chesterton’s, Orthodoxy:

“Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.” He elaborates on this observation by saying, “Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea and so make it finite.” Later, he adds, “Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as there is mystery, there is health.”

So, have you found yourself on either of these roads (road of “right thinking” or the road with mystery round every corner), or have you discovered some other roads that have led you into the ever evolving relationship with God?

I want to strongly recommend that if you are in youth ministry in any fashion, that you read Dino’s post over at Z Life. I have been guilty of the tactics he mentions in the past - and he called me to task and I would encourage us all to listen to his challenge.

Check it out - Motivational Advice.

This is the third installment of a series of posts looking at Spirituality and the Arts. Quick links to check out beauty and spirituality part one and two.

Some cliches just capture the truth. One such cliche that fits the bill, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Cliche - yes. True - undeniably. Or in the case of where I am heading in this post, “Beauty is in the ear of the beholder.” Music has held a profound place in my spiritual development. Some of my first memories surrounding coming to faith and developing new spiritual insights are connected to music. I came to faith while listening to Jesse Dixon loudly singing, “you must be born again, you must be washed in the blood of Jesus.” I was taught spiritual truth early in my Christian experience laying on my bed listening repeatedly to albums by Resurrection Band, Keith Green, Petra, Jerusalem, Steve Taylor, Phil Keaggy, 2nd Chapter of Acts and many others.

Music connects with most people on many levels (thus it’s universal power and appeal). It is able to engage us at the level of the mind, emotionally touch our hearts and I think at an even deeper level - it connects with us spiritually (think 1 Samuel 16:23 or tribal rituals). Music is powerful. Through melody, harmony, rhythm, time changes (meter), instrumentation and lyric - it is a medium which provides a palette that can transform a mood, unify a nation, set a church “on fire” or move the world (e.g. the Olympic Theme). Music is also a medium that because of it’s great potential for creativity; also brings great debate (over it’s appropriateness, it’s value or it’s beauty).

——— be warned a little bit of a rant (Danger, danger Will Robinson)———-
Music in popular culture has become a disposable commodity. A goods and service that acts as a “jingle for the moment” - seemingly with no concern towards lasting value - making the “artist” nothing more than a “part-time” salesperson or momentary icon of TODAY’S fashion. Unfortunately this “top 40″ mentality has become a part of too many “contemporary churches” and I think it has had a detrimental effect on what is offered and pawned off as “music” on our church platforms and considered “special music.” (refer back to the cliche which begins this post - but my ear does not find beauty in most top 40 offerings or what is commonly referred to in Christian circles as “ccm”).

Good music, to my ear is exemplified by:

thoughtful, memorable and often intricate melodies

The main themes don’t sound familiar from the first hearing - there is a uniqueness and over repeated listens the musical ideas are still filled with surprises, beauty, and emotion that transports the listener.

harmonies

Counter or complimentary musical ideas that enhance or even takes over the melody. There is a variety and musical intricacy that challenges, soothes or creates a tension in the selection. I think this component is what helps a song or musical piece have sustainability - and is most absent from popular Top 40 tunes.

meter

The issue of time. How fast? How slow? Variations. To my ear… variety is nice - it applies to time (speeding up and slowing down) and to dynamics (which has nothing to do with meter - but I thought I’d throw that in) - I enjoy the change in volume and intensity.

rhythm

Rhythm has to do with how you subdivide the music. The beat. The pulse. The drive (remember the discussions of rock music and the power of the beat?). To my ear… it is all about the rhythm - whether it is classical music, jazz, progressive, fusion, rock or gospel - I tend to gravitate toward music with a strong impulsion.

employing clever or thoughtful poetry

If a song has lyrics - they better be thoughtful. It is very rare that I enjoy a song where the lyric is:
predictable, (if you know the next word before it is sung on the first hearing it’s just not going to hold my interest or “speak to me”)
trite (if you can say it in a hallmark card - then you don’t need to write a song about it!!),
sentimental-istic (sentimental is fine if it connects - sentimental-istic is when they cross the line to manipulation; manufactured sentimentalism),
cheap (once in a while this can work [I think it has to do with another subjective measure - authenticity] but for the most part great music to my ear doesn’t spring from the cheap shot or lowest common denominator),
cliche,
poor theology/worldview (I guess this could also be a subjective measure, eh?)
hurried,
blatant (leaving nothing to the listener… overly explained - art should allow room for the response of the observer)
I could go on… but I will refrain.

So I end this with some recommendations from my musical library. Some music that my ears love to behold. Music that moves me. Music that inspires. Lyrics that challenge. Music I find to be enriching each time I listen. I share this as a view into my world - and also to encourage you to share the beauty your ears behold.

Finally I share this to help all of us consider:

1. What draws my ears to some artists? What does that say about me?
2. What place does music have in my spiritual development?
3. What should guide my choices in the use of music with teens in the church? (do I just throw up what came in the latest YLO Subscription - or is there more to consider?)
4. What place does youth ministry/youth workers have in guiding and helping to shape the future musical artists? What will be of primary concern as the church models and/or becomes a patron of the arts?

On with what my ears love to behold…

Music that nurtures my soul
Kemper Crabb - The Vigil
Steve Hindalong - City on a Hill, Sing Alleluia, The Gathering
Iona - The Book of Kells and The Circling Hour
Jeff Johnson - Benediction and Prayers of St. Brendan
Mike Roe - Say Your Prayers
John Michael Talbot Be Exalted, The Lord’s Supper and Troubadour of the Great King

Rock Music that is Meaningful
77s - honest, gripping, diverse - one of my faves.
Adam Again find dig or perfecta - great antidote when you got the blues…
Aunt Bettys - sometimes - this is the only thing that fits the bill - raw, hard, infectious, crass, irreverant.
Boston - if you have to ask - I don’t understand.
Chagall Guevara I just dig it…
Daniel Amos I love it all - but you must hear their release, Motorcycle.
Eric Johnson the ultimate guitarist - check out Ah Via Musicom or Tones
LSU the rockin’ persona of Michael Knott… not for the faint at heart - it probably breaks every rule that I made above about “good music” - suggestions - Fluid, Grape Prophet, or This is the Healing
Charlie Peacock a great artist… I really dig West Coast Diaries I, Everything That’s On My Mind and Kingdom Come
Michael Roe Mike will take you on a auditory tour of the history of rock n roll… check out Safe As Milk or Fun with Sound, it won’t disappoint.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers he definitely is the basis of THE RULES above - simple stuff - arranged amazingly, great lyrics, king of melody and harmonies… check out Wildflowers, Damn the Torpedoes, or Greatest Hits.
Vigilantes of Love this is heart in your hand - honest - wonderful music, period.

Acoustic/Country/Folk/Alterna Folk I enjoy
Johnny Cash - REAL. Check out The American Recordings; Unchained; Solitary Man; The Man Come’s Around; 100 Highways; and Unearthed
Patty Griffin - beautiful (I only know her live recording - what a band!)
The Lost Dogs a “super group” of unknowns - they deliver great music - if you can find it don’t hesitate to grab Scenic Routes and Little Red Riding Hood - you will thank me. Also noteworthy - Real Men Cry and their latest is pretty good - The Lost Cabin and the Mystery Trees (Lost Cabin is shorter - and a definite indie release - but if it is all you can find - it is a fine find).
Bill Malonee - mellower stuff from the VOL frontman… not to be missed - Friendly Fire and Fetal Position

Progressive Rock (check out Bob Robinson for definitions and timelines - we could do a long car trip no problem!)
The Flower Kings recommended Stardust We Are, Unfold the Future and Paradox Hotel
Genesis I love everything from ‘70 - ‘84.
Transatlantic Brilliant.
Rush Played early and often. Especially love the recordings between Fly by Night and Signals… but it is all enjoyable.
King Crimson Stretches you in many ways. Worthy of a listen.
Kansas words that come to mind: beautiful, lush, grand.
Peter Gabriel one word - ARTIST. This guy’s discography is BRILLIANT - pick anything up and savor.
801 this Roxy Music offshoot is heavily in rotation right now.

Jazz I GROOVE on

Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Al Di Meola
Bela Fleck and the Flectones
Wynton Marsallis
Charles Mingus
Charlie Parker
Weather Report

Classical that Inspires (no surprises - in almost every case I am most drawn to the following composers orchestral/symphonic works)
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Anton Bruckner
Aaron Copeland
Gustav Holst
Gustav Mahler
Modest Mussorgsky
Pyotr Ilich Tchaikcovsky

Share some of your raves about some of your favorite aural art!