The Music of God

Reflections on John 3:1-9 

If you want to see a miracle watch the video below.  I bumped into it on facebook and I was truly moved.  In the church we throw around words like transformation and rebirth and even phrases like born again, but what do they mean and what do they really look like?  This clip, from the Alive Inside Documentary Project sponsored by Music and Memory, details the awakening of Henry, an elderly nursing home resident.  Years of seizures have sucked the life out of Henry and left him curled up and wheelchair bound, depressed and at times incoherent and unresponsive.  But when headphones are placed over his ears and plugged into an iPod loaded with music from his younger years, Henry comes back to life.  The proof is in the video.  Transformation, rebirth, awakening, this is what it looks like.  

“Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about a rebirth, an awakening of the human soul necessary for life in the kingdom of God.  Don’t mistake the kingdom of God for some eternal heaven in the clouds.  Jesus was far more earthly minded than that.  Jesus spoke often of a kingdom of God that was being ushered into a flesh and blood, here and now world that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, but was real nonetheless.  He spoke of a kingdom with no borders or boundaries, limited only by our refusal to recognize it.  A kingdom ruled by love, divine love and characterized by peace and joy, generosity and grace.  A kingdom that is our divine right, our divine call, but which we can’t embrace without an awakening, for who can embrace what they cannot see? 

Jesus answered, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, “You must be born from above.”

Henry’s body kept him alive.  His heart beat and his lungs took in air, but seizures robbed him of the person he was created to be.  He was alive, but there was little to no life in him.  Perhaps that is what Jesus saw in us, in humanity.  We are alive, but there is little to no life in us, for we have made our home in a kingdom with borders, ruled by fear and characterized by greed and selfishness, prejudice and hatred.  A kingdom that is the very human consequence of a broken humanity seized by a one-dimensional blindness which confuses the tangible and the real.      

The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

Who will wake us up?  Who will breath life back into us?  Who will open the eyes of our souls to a greater truth?  Jesus is clear.  It is the work of the Holy Spirit to transform, to awaken, to breath new life into us.  The Holy Spirit is the music of God.  It was the power of music that brought Henry back to himself, back the person he was, the person he was meant to be.  The songs of his youth animated him.  They engaged him physically and mentally.  They lit him up and connected him to others.  Dr. Oliver Sacks, world-renown neuroscientist and author, has been quoted as saying; “music brings back the feeling of life when nothing else can.”  The Holy Spirit does the very same thing for us spiritually.  The Holy Spirit breaths life into curled up, bound, depressed, incoherent and unresponsive human beings.  It restores us to the people we are created to be.  It connects us to one another and to God.  It helps us to see the bigger picture, the greater truths.  It animates us, calling us into action, inspiring generosity and grace. It transforms us in an instant and over a lifetime, in big ways and small as we give ourselves over to the power of the wind.  

Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’

I am with Nicodemus on this one.  I do not know how the Spirit does it, just as I do not understand how music does what it does.  Music moves me emotionally and often physically, even without my consent, I find my foot tapping or my head bobbing to the left and to the right.  Music winds me up.  Music calms me down.  Music inspires me, speaks for me, makes me laugh and makes me cry.  In short, it lights me up.  And just like music, the Holy Spirit, the wind of God, the power of God, lights me up too.  It is the agent of epiphanies, the source of inspiration, the impetus of good works.  I am the person I was created to be when the Holy Spirit has its way with me.  

That is what we mean when we throw around the words transformation, rebirth and born again. 

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Music and Memory is a non-profit organization that brings personalized music into the lives of the elderly or infirm through digital music technology vastly improving quality of life.  

To learn more visit ... http://www.musicandmemory.org/index.html

Inner Princess

Reflections on Luke 12:12-21, 2 Corinthians 9:6 & Robert Frost’s Mending Wall

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’

My youngest niece is a real pip.  When she was five-years-old the whole world revolved around her and she was not shy about it.  Once, at a family gathering, I reminded her that I was not only her aunt, but also her godmother, which she interpreted to mean fairy godmother and immediately sought to make a wish: “I would like to be a princess.”  Not wanting to disappoint her, I replied, “It is done.”  And so we spent most of our week together poolside, where my niece ruled her kingdom … the shallow end.  She was not yet confident in the water, and so she proclaimed the shallow end her area, her kingdom.  As princess and sovereign she granted, and occasionally denied, the rest of the family access to her kingdom, stretching out her arms in a wide sweep to define its borders.  That sort of behavior in a five-year-old is oddly endearing for a day or two, but as the week stretched on, I saw how it wore on her mom and her older sister and the rest of us … her royal subjects. 

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall …

Photo from BBPC Appalachia Service Project Trip 2011

or a border or a boundary when it seeks to keep us out.  And yet it is in our broken and very human nature to build walls, to claim borders and to set boundaries to separate what is mine from what is yours.  

Then Jesus told them a parable:  ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?”  Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

We all have a little five year-old princess or prince inside who longs to build walls, to claim borders, to set boundaries around what belongs to us.  There is a little something in each of us that longs to stretch our arms in every direction and say, “This is mine!  My time.  My vacation.  My space.  My talent.  My opportunity.  My energy.  My relationship. My money.  Mine.”  That little inner princess or prince is self-centered and stingy, wanting to close fists around what she thinks belongs to her, what she thinks she in entitled to.  Sometimes, even adults let their inner princess get the better of them, drawing boundaries and building walls like the rich man in Jesus’ story.  He thought bigger barns meant a better retirement, but who can relax, who can eat, drink, and be merry with their fists clenched?

But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

Of course you can’t take it with you.  It doesn’t matter how tight you hold on, how big your barns or how high your walls.  All the worry and the security put in place to guard what has been gathered means nothing in the face of death. 

So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.

It is what you give away that you get to keep.  You reap what you sow.  If you give nothing, you get nothing.  If you build walls, claim borders or set boundaries, nothing gets out, but also nothing comes in.  If instead we are generous towards others, generous towards God, generous with our time and our energy, our resources, our talents, then in ways we cannot even begin to imagine, we reap what we sow.  Rarely do we reap tangibles, nothing that can be stored in barns or behind walls, but a reaping of great value nevertheless, sometimes even eternal in nature.

The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

The best moments poolside with my family, were the moments when my niece curbed her inner princess and welcomed us in to share fun and laughter in the shallow end, when her kingdom became our playground.  We splashed and played and giggled together, all of us.  Those memories and the relationships built upon them cannot be stored or kept secure behind a fence, but they we will last and even grow ... of that I am sure.  

Defining Moments: A Casserole Epiphany

Reflections on Isaiah 43:1, 4 & Psalm 139

Mary was the fourth of five children and often felt invisible.  Sara was the baby, five years younger than Mary.  Sara was doted on.  Everything she did was “darling.”   Charles was the eldest and heir to the family business.  Jane was mother’s favorite, although mother often said that she didn’t have favorites.  Still, it was obvious to everyone, Jane included, that she was it.  Michael, the third child, was more comfortable in his skin then any child had a right to be.  He played to the tune of his very own drummer, always engaged, rarely flustered.  Mary was just eleven months younger than Michael, but they could not have been more different.  Michael was brave.  Mary was timid.  Michael moved forward in the world, always exploring.  Mary held back, unsure.  Michael exuded confidence.  Mary had none.

But now says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.

The eldest four use to play hide and seek with the neighborhood kids after school.  More times than Mary would like to remember, she was not only never found, she was never sought.  The sun would set and the kids would all have gone home for supper and Mary would still be hiding behind a tree or a shed, waiting to be found or for her name to be called.  It wasn’t that the others were mean or playing a cruel childish trick, Mary was just so quiet that you could easily forget she was there or just as easily fail to notice that she was not there.  The end result was always the same.

I have called you by name, you are mine.

There were plenty of more important moments in Mary’s life, but hide and seek as a child became for her a defining moment.  It was who she had come to believe she was, someone who was neither lost nor found.  Someone easily overlooked.  Someone often forgotten.  It is funny what memories stick and what ones fade to nothing.  And it is sobering to realize how what sticks has the power to shape us for better or for worse.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

Mary did not seem the better or the worse for her memories of hide and seek.  Her life was ordinary and safe, like white toast with butter.  Nothing risked meant nothing lost, but also almost nothing gained.  Mary faded easily into the background at work and at home.  Her colleagues moved quickly by her, up the corporate ladder, making names for themselves along the way.  Her husband lived comfortably in a world that centered around him, his needs, his interests, his friends.  Mary created that world for him and he loved her for that.  Her children, now teenagers, took her for granted, as teenagers are apt to do, expecting from her meals, laundry and cash without accountability.  She never raised her voice, because she had yet to find it.

Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.

One day all that came to an end.  It was silly looking back on it, but it was her watershed disguised as a casserole.  Mary was active in her church’s women’s guild.  Quarterly the guild hosted church suppers.  In theory, they were offered in an effort to draw the whole church family together, to foster fellowship and reinforce the ties that bind all hearts in one accord.  But in reality they were showcases for the fanciest dish and most creative table settings.  Mary always did her duty by these suppers.  She made casseroles and stayed out of the fray … until one night in September.  On that evening, Marsha and Naomi were throwing verbal jabs disguised as compliments in the kitchen as they compared dishes.  Marsha had brought her brown sugar sweet potatoes, topped with miniature marshmallows, lightly browned and served in a speckled blue ceramic dish that had once belonged to her mother.  Naomi brought the very same sweet potato dish, but served in a clear Pyrex dish, nestled in a woven wicker basket with leather handles.  Someone had not checked the sign-up sheet, but who?  This was a huge faux pas and it was clear that the fallout would not be pretty.  Mary, a witness to this crime, quietly dropped off her chicken broccoli and rice casserole and quickly disappeared into the dining hall.  She had yet to rise in the ranks.  She was only welcome to make dishes, not to organize them on serving tables.  That task had to be awarded.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

After the grace was said and guests were invited to the buffet spread, Mary noticed that everything was set as it always was with two exceptions.  First of course, there were two sweet potato dishes, served side by side, where there should have only been one, and her casserole was missing.  It wasn’t on the table.  It wasn’t on any table.  On any other night she would have stuffed her disappointment, unwilling to stand up for herself, but that night something snapped.  For reasons only God knows, a switch was thrown and the gates that seemed to have rusted shut over the course of a lifetime of perceived insignificance, burst open.  Out came anger and indignation aimed in all directions.  Perhaps for the first time in her life she walked with her head up, her shoulders back and her chest out.  Pushing past Naomi and Marsha in the kitchen, she grabbed her casserole and brushed back by them straight to the serving tables.  She plopped her casserole on the main table, making extra room, by dumping both sweet potato casseroles, dishes and all, in the garbage.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; I know that full well.

In that moment, Mary became visible ... to all.  For the first time she was certain of her own worth.   In that moment she was both found and noticed.  In that defining moment, she understood what she had been told since childhood …

… you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.

***Writer’s Note:  Okay, so this is a little tongue and cheek and yet so often the big moments, the epiphanies, the defining moments, come is the midst of the ordinary or even the ridiculous.  And hey, God can find us in the midst of the best and even the worst that church has to offer. 

Angel Unaware ... A True Story

Reflections on Hebrews 13:2 and Amazing Grace

One summer about twenty years ago, Kimberly Borin rode cross-country with fifteen others from Seattle to Atlantic City.  It was a fundraising effort for the American Lung Association.  Her group traveled on average eighty miles a day and made the trip in seven weeks.

On one of those eighty-mile days, Kimberly had fallen behind.  That was unusual for her.  She liked to be out ahead of the pack.  But on that particular day, for some reason, she had chosen to take her time, to slow her pace and enjoy the getting there.  She was traveling through the hills of Idaho, up and down and up and down, truly in the middle of nowhere.  That’s when it happened, or more accurately stopped happening.  Having descended down a fairly steep hill and just beginning to make the ascent up another, her pedals stopped pedaling.  They simply refused to engage.  In a valley between tall hills, Kimberly looked her bike over.  At first she couldn’t find anything wrong.  It all looked as it should, until she noticed the absence of a very small screw missing from her derailleur.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers …

Having passed a small town at the top of the previous hill, Kimberly walked, bike in hand, up the steep incline and found at the top of that hill, in the center of town, an auto body shop.  The shop owner took one look at the derailleur and told Kimberly that he didn’t have a screw that small.  He suggested that she might find one at the sewing machine shop around the corner.  As they talked, Kimberly explained her mission, how she was riding cross-country with a group raising funds for the American Lung Association and added, as an afterthought, that she was from New Jersey.

As if to make sure he had heard her correctly, the shop owner repeated, “You are from New Jersey?!”  Without waiting for confirmation, he continued, “wait until I tell Fred!”  The owner then walked Kimberly across the street and around the corner to the sewing machine shop.  Having explained her situation, Kimberly was invited inside to search through boxes and boxes of assorted sewing machine parts.  Meanwhile the auto body shop owner left to find Fred.  It took quite awhile, but Kimberly did find a screw small enough to fit the derailleur.  Once the screw was in place and the bike was in working order, she returned to the auto body shop where her team’s van was to pick her up and return her to the group.  As she rounded the corner between shops, a group of locals greeted her as if she was a celebrity.  Word of her presence spread quickly.  “Wait until you meet Fred!” they said to her.

It was beginning to feel a little unsetting.  Here she was a stranger, traveling alone in an unknown town with no backup if things got out of hand, and it was beginning to feel like things were getting out of hand.  At the auto body shop, she waited anxiously for the team van to arrive.  As she waited an old, rusted pickup truck pulled into the shop.  An older man, maybe sixty or so got out with two bags of garden vegetables in his arms.  It was Fred.  He approached Kimberly, put down his bags, and gave her an uninvited hug.  “I am so glad to see you,” he said.  “You are like an angel to me.”

… for by doing that some have entertained angels …

Kimberly was taken aback.  Something was happening here and she was a big part of it, but she didn’t know what it was. 

It seemed like a silly question at this point, but Fred asked her where she was from.  She was sure by now that the whole town knew she was from New Jersey, but it seemed important to repeat it.  She replied, “Flemington, New Jersey.”  At the mention of Flemington, Fred’s gaze turned from expectant and hopeful to amazement and awe.  Tears began to form freely.

“I am from Flemington too!” he replied.  Whatever was happening between them, it was getting bigger.  They actually knew people in common.  And as they talked about their hometown, Fred’s story began to unfold.  He had left New Jersey in the late 70’s because he had done something he was not proud of, something he was ashamed of.  He didn’t say what, but it was clear he didn’t choose to leave.  He felt he had to leave.  He had to find a find place far from New Jersey, where no one would find him and where he could start over.  This was that place, an Idaho town, in the middle of nowhere, population 300.  He had been there ever since.  Over the course of his exile, Fred had been praying for a sign of forgiveness, an assurance that forgiveness was possible for him.  He had asked God to send someone from his hometown, from Flemington, New Jersey.  He had asked God what seemed perhaps not impossible, but certainly highly unlikely.  And here was the answer to his prayer standing right in front of him. 

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

Kimberly was a stranger in a strange town, on her way to somewhere else.  Nevertheless, she was also the bearer of grace, through no intention of her own, but clearly by the intention of God and the work of the Holy Spirit.  We cannot manufacture epiphanies for one another, but sometimes we deliver them nonetheless.  Sometimes we are angels unaware.  And sometimes a stranger is the answer to our prayers.

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Writer's note:  I was able to reconnect with Kimberly as a result of this blog.  She granted me permission to use her real name and to encourage you all to visit her blogs and website: 

 http://theencouragingworks.blogspot.com/

 http://seeingbeautifully.blogspot.com/

 http://www.theencouragingworks.com/ 

"A Man Named Fred" will be published in a book by SQuire Rushnell and Louise DuArt.  Their book is called, GODWINK LETTERS: A Devotional and will be published by Howard Books/Simon & Schuster in the fall of 2012.