the great satchmo

I spent the weekend in New Orleans with my husband and friends. The last time I visited the Mardi Gras Museum in Jackson Square, I recall being absorbed all day after with just a handful of photos and captions displayed there. They pertained to the Zulu tradition within Mardi Gras, and when I went back this week to discover a whole exhibit on the subject, it was automatic that I should go. I have compared this compulsive interest to my affinity for flamenco music, which strikes me as having a similar role in Spanish culture as that of jazz in America. Arising from the marginalized, vilified classes of Moors, gyspies, and Jews, flamenco became part of a rich oral tradition that preserved their answer to the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition. Flamenco is achingly beautiful in a way that is kindred to the blues in my ear, and I linked the two almost from the first time I heard it, while in Spain. Growing up, my music teachers taught us the haunting antebellum spirituals, "Follow the Drinking Gourd" and "Wade in the Water," right along with the Americana of "Git Along Little Doggies," "Shenandoah," and "Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal." My husband, who is far more attuned to the latter collection, as he is to the plight of Bob Dylan's "poor white man," to the State's Rights argument of the Civil War, and to the dignity of all things Southern, obliged me and went along. We had very different but complimentary reactions, as I might have predicted. The photo above is one of three that I cannot shake from my mind, but which disturbed my husband in a way he would rather dismiss as counterproductive.

The photo is of “King Louie” Armstrong, honored with the title of Zulu King during the 1949 Mardi Gras festivities. The Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club was born out of a dark, bitter parody of black stereotypes held by whites, as displayed in blackface shows. Black revellers known as the Tramps began painting their faces in the fashion of one famous vaudeville sketch, titled "There Never Was and Never Will Be a King Like Me." Mimicking its portrayal of the African Zulu tribe, the Tramps at once embraced and turned upside-down white fears of blacks as overly sensuous, violent, less civilized. They even began choosing and parading their own parody of Rex, the white king of Carnival, calling him King Zulu and giving him a lard-can crown and a banana-stalk scepter. When the group was officially founded, Zulu served as a social/civic club and Mardi Gras krewe for blacks. Because of its connection with the owners of Geddes and Moss Funeral Home, who were donors and members, the club also ensured that duespaying club members would receive a decent burial. The krewe's parade for many years was confined to the "black streets" of New Orleans. For a time after the Civil Rights movement it was boycotted by many blacks as a demeaning, backwards tradition too evocative of years under slavery and Jim Crow, and full of farcical customs that might reinforce white stereotypes of blacks. Nevertheless, the krewe was and has remained a beloved tradition and social network for many African-Americans whose love of their city, neighborhood, and traditions has weathered each uncertain decade of oppression, sociopolitical turmoil, or disaster with the spirit of laissez les bons temps rouler intact. This clip from TIME magazine on Feb. 21 of ‘49 sums up the glee on the face of the beloved “Satchmo” during his reign as Zulu king: “The brown-skinned man with the golden horn pursed his scarred lips, blew a short stream of incredibly high, shining notes and then carefully laid the trumpet down. "There's a thing I've dreamed of all my life," he graveled, "and I'll be damned if it don't look like it's about to come true--to be, King of the Zulus' Parade. After that, I'll be ready to die.“

(For the uninitiated, it is thought that Louie Armstrong's nickname, "Satchmo" is short for “Satchelmouth,” which, suggestively derogatory, actually evokes his ample cheeks and broad smile.) I think it appropriate to note here that the classic "King of the Jungle" jazz tribute by Disney in "The Jungle Book" is akin to the mixed bag of feelings we will get if we understand the significance of Louie Armstrong returning to his childhood neighborhood to become the Zulu King. Listen as an adult to the lyrics:

Oh, I'm the king of the swingers oh, the jungle VIP
I've reached the top and had to stop
and that's what's botherin' me--
I wanna be a man, mancub
and stroll right into town
and be just like the other men,
I'm a-tired of a-monkeyin' around!

These lines painfully remind of the racial epithets used to refer to blacks, to include "zoo ape," "gorilla," and "porch/ghetto monkey." Growing up in different times and places, it might be difficult to believe these words were used in this way, but a quick trip to the Racial Slur Database at www.rsdb.org may prove enlightening. Tell me you can hear your old favorite lines sung as a kid the same way in this light: "...I wanna be like you-ooh-ooh / I wanna walk like you choo / talk like you choo-choo-oo-oo / an ape like me-ee..." Like all things early Disney, this number is woven from the good, the bad, and the ugly of American culture and history, and sterilized-for-children. It draws from a set of stories not incompatible with a framework like Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. The proverbial apple has fallen very near indeed, as many of the same intercultural and economic realities resident, latent, and subconscious in Kipling's portrayals of the British Empire have played out on the American continent.

While the photo above is full of unabated glee and revelry, King Louie's face suggests something else, too--a deep hurt, a sadness and a melancholy under wraps that may become ready, eventually, to burst into the streets with new rage and vengeance that would be entirely justified. Maybe it's the paint. Maybe it's the face under the paint. Whatever it is, it goes beyond the hurt of black entertainers who were often forbidden to patronize the same white clubs where they performed, and whose renowned talents were treated as "acceptions to the rule" of black inferiority. Beyond the resentment of black workers whose socioeconomic impoverishment first at the hands of slavery, then under the Jim Crow South, then in the "wage slavery" of industrial northern cities, this hurt is part hot tears of frustration, part laugh-out-loud disbelief. It is the desire to fulfill all the negative prophecies put on one man by another, in hopes that the absurdity of this act will shock the other into remorse. It is also the desire, in case this self-abasing parody of stereotypes should fail to communicate, to kick up one's heels in temporary, reckless abandon. This face seems to say, "If you're gonna put me in a box I can't crawl out of, I might as well enjoy it for a day."

till we have faces

I would like to post here a re-worked version of a conversation held recently after reading and posting on "Letters from the Earth" with attention to the modern (American-Protestant, in particular) church model. What came to my attention is that we don't all agree that developing a sense Christian aesthetics is as important as evangelism, discipleship, acts of compassion, etc. I submit that it is essential to all of these functions that we do aim to image the beauty of heaven and of God himself even as we feed the hungry, worship in song, speak of heaven and hell, and baptize disciples. In his reworking of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche, "Till We Have Faces," C.S. Lewis choses the traditional narrator for the tale, Psyche's unnattractive sister, Orual. The title references a quotation in the book from Orual: "How can the gods meet us face to face till we have faces?" In the work, Lewis posits that a person must become real before he/she can expect to receive [I would also add "before he/she can expect to transmit"] any message from superhuman beings; "that is, it must be speaking with its own voice (not one of its borrowed voices), expressing its actual desires (not what it imagines that it desires), being for good or ill itself, not any mask, veil, or persona." When we do not strive for our very best in speech, in music, in art, and in presention, or when we imitate someone else's best without having their skill or seeking to add to what they have already revealed, we chose to wear a mask. I would call much of the put-on shoddiness, the kitschy definitions of what is "excellent or praiseworthy," and the lack of esthetic vision and discipline in many churches a mask we present to the world--not the true face of Christ, nor of his bride.

In the same vein as Twain's criticisms in "Letters from the Earth," I find it impossibly distracting that people should talk about heaven, for example, which figures so prominently into our motives and bylines for evangelism, while neglecting to make the place of worship, and the music and message offered therein, beautiful. To neglect the form in favor of the substance is tending dangerously toward a disembodied, gnostic rejection of the five senses. How are we to convince people that the resurrection of the body, for example, is anything exciting at all, if we are not continually striving to give them a taste of what a new heaven and a new earth would smell/taste/feel/sound/look like? (This is NOT to be confused with a Thomas Kinkaid-like attempt to paint the world "without the fall": saccharine, idealizing a bygone era of a more predominant cultural Christianity. Art, music, and speech can be redemptive without being cast in so many pastel shades of innocence.)

If anyone thinks that this endeavor will inevitably lead to idolatry, to a focus on the form and not the substance of the body of Christ and the gospel itself, then they have too high an estimation of their earthly talents. If we are to truly pursue the divine image in corporate worship, in form as well as in substance, we will never be able to feel as if we have arrived, as if we have wholly succeeded in reflecting Beauty himself. Beyond this, if anyone thinks that this endeavor will lead to artificiality in worship as believers strive to pursue a particular convention in music, speech, etc., then they have missed the fundamental process by which beauty is revealed in the world. Sometimes effortless, sometimes quite involved, beauty is constantly being perfected, reevaluated, discovered in unexpected corners: excellent artists are relentless, not satisfied with mere imitation of a thing but always striving to capture the essence of the thing as they see it. If a flower, a melody, or a phrase can elicit this kind of commitment from the artist, shouldn't the goal of becoming the body of Christ spur on the community of Christ-followers toward the essence of bearing his image in all things?

In addition to thinking of ourselves as the body of Christ, we are told to think of the Church as the Bride of Christ. Think for a moment about the aesthetic component of romantic love. Participating in church is like marriage, in that you shouldn't abandon the endeavor once you're in it, and you have to continue to find redeeming things about the Other even when you become disenchanted. Using the marriage metaphor, it would be like a wife who, having secured the marriage vow of love and faithfulness from her husband, got lazy and let herself go. Her husband would still love her, but why settle for good when you can aim for the best? This, far from being a Barbie-like, impossible and untruthful ideal, would involve what many self-respecting women strive for: a healthy, balanced body that is still kept attractive for their enjoyment and their husbands'. It is not an either/or proposition: either he loves me for who I am or he loves my body. Clearly, as the Song of Solomon and many other god-fearing texts on erotic love would indicate, he loves her for both. Many husbands whose eyes wander and lead them to be unfaithful would still say that they love their wives, who are good to them in so many other ways. Let's not even introduce the idea of porn here, but talk about men who just go and lust after other, real women in their workplace, neighborhood, or local strip joints. The wife who has let herself gain that 50 pounds and quit caring about her hair and skin being healthy, and who refuses to present her best to herself and to her husband deludes herself that this is not an integral part of showing her love for him, and is in for a rude awakening. She has settled for less than her best, thinking her good intentions will carry her the rest of the way in her husband's heart. And it might work, but this is not a method we would ever recommend or encourage someone we love to pursue. It is a fallback. We wouldn't, at the end of the day, want to imitate her treatment of her marriage. We would find it gratifying if her husband is faithful anyway, or if he was somehow able to see her through the lens he did when she was young and beautiful. But we would always rather emulate the woman who retained both her good intentions and her ability to age gracefully by caring for her body as an act of self-love and devotion to her husband, who loves her all the more because she is both good and beautiful. So the church must strive to be both good and beautiful for the coming of Christ.

Yet what of the imperfections we each possess in one degree or another--our lack of natural talent, beauty, underdeveloped esthetic sense, lack of resources or education--do these disqualify our offerings before God? Christ's love of the poor, marginalized, and broken people he touched in his ministry is an emphatic "No!" Poorly wrought words, melodies, and buildings can considered beautiful, if they are clearly examples of someone's best work at a particular juncture, the first steps in a journey, an earnest plea for restoration, or the promise of a grand undertaking to cultivate a specific talent in the Lord's service. We would not say that they are compelling at all if we knew that the speaker/artist had decided that that was the best he/she could do, and that now there was no need to try for anything more. We would call it mediocre, and say that that person had settled, as it would seem that Cain did when making his offering to God, for less than our best. This is important, because Christ himself was not content to pass by brokenness without bringing restoration, healing, and beauty back into the lives of lame, leperous, blind, and oppressed people. He only did so where he was welcomed to, however. Does he perhaps extend the same to us: "You not receive because you do not ask"? While the Living Christ may not always employ miracles in every situation, does his Spirit not close and open doors before us, leading us in the way we should walk? If God were leading me to step down from a position of musical leadership, for example, because I am not really gifted in that area, or perhaps to cultivate another gift for the good of his people, would I listen? If God created an opportunity for me to participate in a artistic, philanthropic, scientific, or civic venture with non-believers which might grow me in my understanding of his Truth in a particular field, would I embrace it, or find myself too busy, too afraid, or too lazy to do it? If another believer brought to my attention that our Sunday school curriculum, decor, choice of music, or anything else about my church were somehow out of tune with what that person took to be the image of God, would I engage the criticism in a manner honoring to God? Or would I take offense, entrench, coopt others to reinforce my modus operandi, boycott that person's endeavors, transfer churches, step down in a huff from my position as if to say "Can you do a better job? Let's see it!" I believe to do so is to operate without full use of another part of the body: to put a blindfold on, to ignore pain or nausea, to favor one foot over the other. Anyone who's ever incurred a serious injury by ignoring small symptoms knows how foolish this approach is. Who in their best state of mind would override the very sensations that tell us something is wrong and demands our attention?

What many in the church do is just this. We reason with ourselves that there is no need for change if we overlook these "small" disturbances. We settle, before even struggling much to work through, by discipline and training, the cacophany, the shoddy workmanship, and poor communication that naturally result from not putting much effort into things. That premature resignation is what I cannot stand, and what repulses people who pay attention to such things: we wonder, if this preacher/layperson/worship leader feels that they have no further progress to make towards a better offering to God and his people, than why should I follow/go along with him/her in the pursuit of Perfection Himself? It is already human nature to stop trying once people have recognized some measure of success in your work, to rest on one's laurels and squeeze by without continued efforts toward even further inspiration and skill. It's the "good enough" mentality which people perpetuate in church because they have the false idea that because we are sinners and cannot be perfect this side of eternity, that we are absolved from aiming at perfection with the help of the Spirit. There is nothing transformative about this mindset, yet we are to be the body of Christ, continually made new by his Spirit, committed in love to presenting a blameless Bride at Christ's return.

What seem to be secondary questions of "mere" aesthetics, seen in this light, are not secondary at all. We do the body and bride of Christ no favors if we let ourselves and the Church off the hook for so often accepting such poor musical, verbal, or structural renderings. As long as there are non-believers who can paint better, sing better, build better, and speak better, it is an example of even the stones crying out. We may think we are communicating all we need to about the gospel. We are not reaching, however, a great many people who are sensitive to the bruised beauty of the world around us. We must suggest more often and more convincingly that this world God created bears his image and seal of approval ("It is good"), which in its fallen state it is only a shadow of the real, incarnate splendor of the world to come. It may seem counter-intuitive that paying close attention to this world should draw our minds and hearts into anticipation for the next, but that happens to be my view, an orthodox one, of the incarnation and the resurrection of the body.

PAIN has an element of blank

I was recently astonished to find that my mother's life had been recorded in eight, brief lines. At least, I found what many of us close to her took to be the central struggle of her life. I knew this when I first marked it sometime last year in my Emily Dickinson anthology, and I thought of it today. Whether speaking of psychic or physical pain, this poem captures the reality of those who suffer chronically. Scripture calls Jesus "a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief." Johnny Cash decided that his own personal scars were so deep that he needed to wear them on his sleeve and become the "Man in Black." He made his own troubled past into a new cause, as he championed the "poor and beaten down / livin' on the hungry side of town... the sick and lonely old / the wreckless ones whose bad trip left them cold..." Emily Dickinson, on the other hand, while a creative genius, became a recluse with strange, whimsical habits, a deep melancholy, and an acute, almost morbid sense of mortality after suffering the deaths of many close family and friends in her early life. She was also faced with her mother's chronic illness as an adult, which kept her home as primary caregiver, and in her last years her own decline due to what was probably chronic nephritis. I've heard it said of her that no one writes more authentic consolation poetry. I'm never sure where that line is between normal, healthy pain--the so-called "anxiety of becoming," the fallout of living in a fallen world--and the kind of pain that warps you for good.

PAIN has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

a handful of juicy ones

Allow me to ennumerate, as if to dangle my can full worms one by one in front of your face, some of the things that most turn me off about the defunct church model my friend addressed in the previous post.

1. Why are most churches so ugly? The expense of the building has nothing to do with it. They often smell dank and moldy, or too new. There are ways to make florescent bulbs look nice--am I the only one who knows this? A church can be quite plain or elaborately ornamented, but the question is whether it is beautiful in an enduring way, that draws the mind heavenward toward Beauty Himself. Kitschy decorations and theologically simplistic banners do the opposite, in the same way that a stained glass window meant to glorify some wealthy church patron would have distracted a worshipper centuries ago.

2. Why does the vast majority of Christian music leave you feeling like you've been hustled? One friend in college who sought refuge in the old hymns described contemporary worship music as spiritual masturbation. The silliest variation of this that I've ever heard, was a name-it-claim-it preacher who got in our faces one Sunday morning about the spiritual disciplines. Naturally, he made his own practice of them the focal point, and kept admonishing us to follow his example of Saturday nights in worship at home with his "intimate cds." He could not have known, in light of my friend's comment, how crass and self-absorbed that sounded to me. Whatever happened to "He is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few"? Theologically bereft mantras of "Yes, Yes Lord" leave me with serious doubts about our commitment to "whatever your hand finds to do, do it heartily as unto the Lord." To present God and his church with a better offering we should trouble ourselves more consistently to do our best. Many of these songs focus on the self, and plop their verses, riffs, and bridges like so many piles of excrement along an otherwise delightful path. Singing is delightful, though often awkward in a corporate setting. But this is made worse by worship leaders who fancy themselves the next David Crowder, blasting their team over speakers in sanctuaries whose acoustics may or may not cooperate, as if to drown out the tone-deaf faithful. With few exceptions, these musicians can not compete in the marketplace of sounds or ideas, yet they sell us their cds as if they do. We imitate these substandard performers and songwriters in our services, as if a catchy electric baseline can makeup for the fact that our church is half empty--half irrelevant.

3. Why do many pastors who are so clearly not gifted at public speaking feel compelled to preach, out of their star, a standard 45 minute sermon each week? Far be it from me to limit the Holy Spirit's voice at any time of day, but usually I am a fan of the 15-20 minute homily administered in most liturgical churches. It is easier to ensure that your message is well thought out, fully subjected to the leadings of the Spirit, and far more digestible (personally, I don't think many people pay attention much longer than that, anyway). I have been sitting in church since the second Sunday of my life, and by now I am an astute rhetorical troubleshooter. I find myself having to hush the voice that automatically says, "Well, that was a blanket statment/mixed metaphor/straw man/false dilemma/exegetical misfire, but I know what he meant." Yes, there is a temptation for devotees of Sunday morning church to adopt a spirit of criticism rather than of worship. But without that voice to help me sift through so much disappointment and bullshit, I probably would have left the church a long time ago.

4. Why do so many corporate experiences of the Holy Spirit seem to be just textbook manifestations of social psychology? Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it best when he describes our "psychic," human desire for community, in which we constantly seek to remake others in our own image:

"It is the deep night that hovers over all human action, even over all noble and devout impulses. ...In human community of spirit there rules, along with the Word, the man who is furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities. ...here spheres of power and influence of a personal nature are sought and cultivated. It is true, in so far as these are devout men, that they do this with the intention of serving the highest and the best, but in actuality the result is to dethrone the Holy Spirit, to relegate him to remote unreality. In the spiritual realm, the Spirit governs; in human community, psychological techniques and methods...the searching, calculating analysis of a stranger. ...[the] desire of the human soul seeks a complete fusion of I and Thou, whether this occur in the union of love or, what is after all the same thing, in the forcing of another person into one's sphere of power and influence. ...Here human ties, suggestions, and bonds are everything, and in the immediate community of souls we have reflected the distorted image of everything that is originally and solely peculiar to community mediated through Christ. Thus there is such a thing as human absorption. It appears in all forms of conversion wherever the superior power of one person is consciously or unconsciously misused to influence profoundly and draw into his spell another individual or a whole community. Here one soul operates directly upon another soul. The weak have been overcome by the strong, the resistance of the weak has broken down under the influence of another person. He has been overpowered, but not won over by the thing itself." Life Together: a discussion of Christian Fellowship pp. 30-33

To quote the pop artist JEM in the song "They":
...
And it's ironic too
'cause what we tend to do
is act on what they say
and then it is that way

I'm sorry, so sorry
I'm sorry it's like this
I'm sorry, so sorry
Why do we live like this? ...

Since eighth grade, I have had a bad taste in my mouth about public displays of Holy-Ghost power. First, a youth pastor at a junior high retreat tried to "slay me in the Spirit" by surrounding me with older, cooler teenagers who coaxed me to "let go and let God," while he applied enough sudden pressure to catch me off guard, pushing me over. I wasn't in a position to call his bluff: I earnestly wanted the experience he was so enthusiastically proposing. I remember spending minutes on the floor in a daze, debating whether my epiphany or nap time would come first. In college, a close friend became embroiled in a strangely Salem, Massachusetts-like covey of Christian dorm mates that specialized in late night prayer sessions where they would engage in rigorous spiritual warfare to the exclusion of their studies. I knew something was up when this friend uncharacteristically checked a book out of the library: "Can a Christian Have a Demon?" Most recently I suffered through a particularly distracting, let-it-all-hang-out-at-the-top-of-our-lungs-everyone-praying-over-each-other experience I had in church, praying silently on my knees in the pew "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy." Now there is a mantra that could decimate the fluffy "Yes, Yes Lord" faster than a fat kid on a cupcake.

5. Why do church leaders spew about abortion and gay marriage with such zeal, yet fumble so badly when it comes to other pressing social and political issues of our time? Most are either too afraid to broach these subjects, conveniently sterilizing those passages in the bible that clearly indict such socially pervasive sins as economic injustice, poor environmental stewardship, gluttony, and the love of money. Others spew their opinions as gospel, eager to proselytize the uninformed, blissfully unaware that their bastions of common sense are really products of their socioeconomic upbringing (and therefore neither infallible nor objective). A perfect example: those people who are always railing against how corrupt and immoral our country has become (nevermind how much so it was when the founding fathers were in their heyday) and then are incised that other nations resent or hate our influence in the world. You have to remind them that some of those countries are currently more pious than we have ever been (not always in a good way, granted) and that they see us as the new Babylon, exporting our avarice, licentiousness, deceit, and hubris everywhere we go. Newsflash: there is nothing new under the sun. People have always been corrupt, and for that very reason every social and political issue that faces us is complex, full of minefields and therefore not easily answered or put right. For once, I would like to hear a preacher engage that reality without shrinking from it on the one hand, or being cavalier on the other. I know it can be done in conversation--why not from the pulpit?

I think that is enough for now, though I have not even touched the bottom of this can of worms. It is just possible that I agree with my friend: our model for church is broken. All of the things I have listed wouldn't be nearly so pernicious if they hadn't bred in that custom of waking up early on Sunday to go expectantly to that steepled building. The expectation that it will be transformative in any real sense of the word is perhaps misplaced, and unrealistic.

stirring the can of worms

The can of worms I about to dive into has already been opened--by a close friend of mine. Of course, she is not the first to do so, but her angle on the conversation is rather unique, and well-grounded. She did not arrive at anything she is thinking right now by taking shortcuts. Nor is she an aimless wanderer: she would agree with C.S. Lewis that "questions were made for answers." I have to admire that, because sometimes I'd just as soon not find the answers. I might not like them.

My friend is a missionary in a third world country. She grew up in the church in small town America, and while she is beloved by many in her hometown, she never really seemed to me to fit there. She is about as qualified as anyone to open this can of worms. I'll let her speak for herself, then stir the can a bit myself:

I grew up in the church. My parents and their parents were Christians. The small mostly Christian town that I grew up in was, and sometimes still is, fairly conservative. I have learned to think outside of my own world, and box. While I've attended church my whole life, I am serious when I say I did not learn about Christ's love and how deep it is for us in church, but rather through my family and through Emmaus, a parachurch organization. While I've learned much about God and his teachings in church over the years I've mainly come to know God in a real way outside of church, with friends family, on my own, and in my educational studies. I have experienced the love of God and seen his disciples in the local church, however, that is not something I find regularly in most organized churches. And like many who have worked in the church closely, I've been extremely hurt by the local church. While there are some true, whole hearted followers of Jesus in most churches, what I've observed after being in, attending, and visiting NUMEROUS churches, not to mention making ministry my full-time job and having worked in churches in the past, I've come to the conclusion that most churches and their current structures are broken!!!!! Their focus is on themselves: bigger better buildings, more services and programs that are not really accomplishing anything. In the 21st century, in a postmodern world, the current model is NOT functioning. Churches are filled with shallow "Christians" who don't really know God nor want to know him more. We are wasting resources and giving Christians a bad name worldwide with our broken models and broken Christians. I'm not saying God can't and doesn't use churches for good even in their current condition, but that in general they are counterproductive and causing problems and disbelief among non-believers as well as reproducing shallow Christians.

After talking to various friends of mine whom are not Christians, I realized that the church the way it is stands today is not functioning. Non-believers think that church is boring, counterproductive, and doesn't offer them anything that will make a difference in their lives. (Correct me if I'm wrong). And from what I've seen in most churches, I'd have to agree! There is good news. I'm excited that many Christians, especially in my generation, are starting to "get it." Get the point of living, learning, growing, seeking, and transforming our communities in community! Going against the current model is cross-cultural and not common, but maybe it could become the norm? A sad reality is that right now for many of us there is no church or group of Christians with which we can feel at home, discuss the Bible, love one another without being overly judgmental, and live a new kind of Christian life. So many of us find ourselves discouraged and disillusioned with the typical way of doing church, and for good reason. I know many who don't even attend anywhere regularly even though they are strong Christians. But, when you live in community with others, do away with the programs and money spent on ourselves, when you focus on the Bible and learning from one another, life is different. God becomes alive and so do our lives! And there is power in a community of believers and seekers.
From what I've studies read, and seen in my life, I have decided that we cannot wait any longer! The pastors and people are drowning in mediocre Christianity and poor models. It doesn't matter in what country, I'm speaking on a global scale. At this time I'm not going to go into our ideas or models at this time, but I will soon.

People are hungry, hungry for truth, hungry for change! We must ask ourselves "Are our lives valuable? Is what we are doing working? Do we experience the real love of Christ in church? And are we producing transformed people and leaders? Are we really making a difference on a big scale in our neighborhoods, jobs, and communities? Are we reaching the poor?" If not shouldn't we take a hard look at what we are doing and change?
We need new kinds of churches, new kinds of Christians. I think if Christ came today he be saddened by what he saw in the Church. It saddens me and it saddens many. So, what are we going to do? God has slowly been placing the possibility on our hearts of possibly starting a new kind of church one day and to teach pastors a new kind of model. We want that to be part of our job description because it is a burden we carry.

I plan to make my next post a hearty "Amen" to much of what she's said here. But let me close by saying that it is a sad day when believers raised in the church, who know the intrinsic value of its propositions and the dire necessity by which it must succeed, are driven from the church in droves, while the ones who stick it out are tempted to leave at every turn, as if they know they have hunkered down in a sinking ship. I never expected that attending a Christian college would be unsafe for my faith as I knew it. I have never wanted to leave the church so badly in my life that I almost lost faith permanently. It turns out that my college experience was a catalyst for many things I needed to address. I began saying that I wanted to get to the kind of "simple faith that lies on the other side of complexity," and my professors and peers--some thoughtful and insightful, some unwitting--helped me to begin that process. I thought it pointless in high school to cloister myself in a Christian college, reasoning that the "salt of the earth" ought to spread out from its saltshaker. What I did not know is that there are few things as pernicious as the dark underbelly of human desire for relationship when it crawls into the kind of hopeful, unsuspicious community that strives to collectively imitate Christ.

letters from the earth

I am, as it may readily appear, up to my ears in a quagmire of a conversation about the shortcomings of the Christian church. In writing today I was taken back to a casual reading encounter I had last year with Mark Twain. In his Letters From the Earth, a satirical work in which Satan is the narrator, exposing human pathologies with his hellish sense of humor, there is a sharp criticism of the popular Christian construct of heaven. It happens that much of our image of heaven is not based on any particular scriptural reference, but is a cluster of extrapolations based upon certain texts in both the old and new testaments, not to mention some of the apocrypha. Satan debunks the popular tradition of heaven systematically, exposing the irrational, disembodied, and almost gnostic, masochistic strains that run through the most fluffy-white, cherished images of the celestial realm.

What I would like to postulate is that, in church, we acknowledge that we aim to experience some of heaven: the kingdom of God is "already and not yet," as postulated by theologian Gerhardus Vos and others. Participation in church is therefore an attempt to invite or create the experience of that "already" more frequently, in anticipation of the "not yet." To this end, we fashion church services and Christian community on what we think Scripture tells us about what heaven will be like. In the text below are some striking clues about how impoverished our view of heaven might really be, given our attempts to prepare for it in church. Please be warned that there are moments of what may seem like incredible prejudice, exoticism, and cheap racial shots that were more coherent to Twain's contemporaries. If you won't let that get in the way--nor the fact that the speaker is Lucifer himself (Twain's construction of him)--proceed, and be provoked/amused:

[Man's] heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque. I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven. Isn't it curious? Isn't it interesting? You must not think I am exaggerating, for it is not so. I will give you details.

Most men do not sing, most men cannot sing, most men will not stay when others are singing if it be continued more than two hours. Note that. Only about two men in a hundred can play upon a musical instrument, and not four in a hundred have any wish to learn how. Set that down.

Many men pray, not many of them like to do it.

A few pray long, the others make a short cut.

More men go to church than want to.

To forty-nine men in fifty the Sabbath Day is a dreary, dreary bore.

Of all the men in a church on a Sunday, two-thirds are tired when the service is half over, and the rest before it is finished. The gladdest moment for all of them is when the preacher uplifts his hands for the benediction. You can hear the soft rustle of relief that sweeps the house, and you recognize that it is eloquent with gratitude.

All nations look down upon all other nations. All nations dislike all other nations. All white nations despise all colored nations, of whatever hue, and oppress them when they can. White men will not associate with "niggers," nor marry them. They will not allow them in their schools and churches. All the world hates the Jew, and will not endure him except when he is rich. I ask you to note all those particulars. Further. All sane people detest noise. All people, sane or insane, like to have variety in their life. Monotony quickly wearies them.

Every man, according to the mental equipment that has fallen to his share, exercises his intellect constantly, ceaselessly, and this exercise makes up a vast and valued and essential part of his life. The lowest intellect, like the highest, possesses a skill of some kind and takes a keen pleasure in testing it, proving it, perfecting it. The urchin who is his comrade's superior in games is as diligent and as enthusiastic in his practice as are the sculptor, the painter, the pianist, the mathematician and the rest. Not one of them could be happy if his talent were put under an interdict.

Now then, you have the facts. You know what the human race enjoys and what it doesn't enjoy. It has invented a heaven out of its own head, all by itself: guess what it is like! In fifteen hundred eternities you couldn't do it. The ablest mind known to you or me in fifty million aeons couldn't do it. Very well, I will tell you about it.

1. First of all, I recall to your attention the extraordinary fact with which I began. To wit, that the human being, like the immortals, naturally places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys -- yet he has left it out of his heaven!"

At the risk of heresy, I plan on making a separate post to address point #1 that Satan makes. For now, let's proceed:

2. In man's heaven everybody sings! The man who did not sing on earth sings there; the man who could not sing on earth is able to do it there. The universal singing is not casual, not occasional, not relieved by intervals of quiet; it goes on, all day long, and every day, during a stretch of twelve hours. And everybody stays; whereas in the earth the place would be empty in two hours. The singing is of hymns alone. Nay, it is of one hymn alone. The words are always the same, in number they are only about a dozen, there is no rhyme, there is no poetry: "Hosannah, hosannah, hosannah, Lord God of Sabaoth, 'rah! 'rah! 'rah! siss! -- boom! ... a-a-ah!"

Twain may here be referring to the fact that people don't experience all the touted pleasure and uplift from corporate worship because they aren't that spiritually inclined in the first place. He may also be suggesting, as I believe, that church music can be saccharine, oversimplified, and ugly. It should be noted, since I have railed elsewhere against the monotony and fluff of modern praise choruses, that this problem is not new. Just as all modern praise choruses are not necessarily poor musical offerings, not all hymns, by virtue of being old, are useful for bringing the faithful into a frame of mind conducive to true worship in song. What should be sought, however, is the song that has endured some sociopolitical and theological reversals of fortune with its communicative power and Truth intact. This requires for it to have contained the Truth to begin with, in both lyric and in tone, whereas many emotional, self-centered worship songs contain truths perhaps applicable to an individual--a certain time and place--but have little staying power when removed from that context. Some people would call that bad art in general, but I will leave room for dissent and just say it is not a great hymn, not a good handrail to follow when going before the throne of God in private or corporate worship. Back to the devil:

3. Meantime, every person is playing on a harp -- those millions and millions! -- whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or ever wanted to.

Consider the deafening hurricane of sound -- millions and millions of voices screaming at once and millions and millions of harps gritting their teeth at the same time! I ask you: is it hideous, is it odious, is it horrible?

Consider further: it is a praise service; a service of compliment, of flattery, of adulation! Do you ask who it is that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane compliment; and who not only endures it, but likes it, enjoys it, requires if, commands it? Hold your breath!

It is God! This race's god, I mean. He sits on his throne, attended by his four and twenty elders and some other dignitaries pertaining to his court, and looks out over his miles and miles of tempestuous worshipers, and smiles, and purrs, and nods his satisfaction northward, eastward, southward; as quaint and nave a spectacle as has yet been imagined in this universe, I take it.

It is easy to see that the inventor of the heavens did not originate the idea, but copied it from the show-ceremonies of some sorry little sovereign State up in the back settlements of the Orient somewhere.

All sane white people hate noise; yet they have tranquilly accepted this kind of heaven -- without thinking, without reflection, without examination -- and they actually want to go to it! Profoundly devout old gray-headed men put in a large part of their time dreaming of the happy day when they will lay down the cares of this life and enter into the joys of that place. Yet you can see how unreal it is to them, and how little it takes a grip upon them as being fact, for they make no practical preparation for the great change: you never see one of them with a harp, you never hear one of them sing.

As you have seen, that singular show is a service of praise: praise by hymn, praise by prostration. It takes the place of "church." Now then, in the earth these people cannot stand much church -- an hour and a quarter is the limit, and they draw the line at once a week. That is to say, Sunday. One day in seven; and even then they do not look forward to it with longing. And so -- consider what their heaven provides for them: "church" that lasts forever, and a Sabbath that has no end! They quickly weary of this brief hebdomadal Sabbath here, yet they long for that eternal one; they dream of it, they talk about it, they think they think they are going to enjoy it -- with all their simple hearts they think they think they are going to be happy in it!

It is because they do not think at all; they only think they think. Whereas they can't think; not two human beings in ten thousand have anything to think with. And as to imagination -- oh, well, look at their heaven! They accept it, they approve it, they admire it. That gives you their intellectual measure.

4. The inventor of their heaven empties into it all the nations of the earth, in one common jumble. All are on an equality absolute, no one of them ranking another; they have to be "brothers"; they have to mix together, pray together, harp together, Hosannah together -- whites, niggers, Jews, everybody -- there's no distinction. Here in the earth all nations hate each other, and every one of them hates the Jew. Yet every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get into it. He really does. And when he is in a holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he were only there he would take all the populace to his heart, and hug, and hug, and hug!

He is a marvel -- man is! I would I knew who invented him.

5. Every man in the earth possesses some share of intellect, large or small; and be it large or be it small he takes pride in it. Also his heart swells at mention of the names of the majestic intellectual chiefs of his race, and he loves the tale of their splendid achievements. For he is of their blood, and in honoring themselves they have honored him. Lo, what the mind of man can do! he cries, and calls the roll of the illustrious of all ages; and points to the imperishable literatures they have given to the world, and the mechanical wonders they have invented, and the glories wherewith they have clothed science and the arts; and to them he uncovers as to kings, and gives to them the profoundest homage, and the sincerest, his exultant heart can furnish -- thus exalting intellect above all things else in the world, and enthroning it there under the arching skies in a supremacy unapproachable. And then he contrived a heaven that hasn't a rag of intellectuality in it anywhere!

Is it odd, is it curious, is it puzzling? It is exactly as I have said, incredible as it may sound. This sincere adorer of intellect and prodigal rewarder of its mighty services here in the earth has invented a religion and a heaven which pay no compliments to intellect, offer it no distinctions, fling it no largess: in fact, never even mention it.

By this time you will have noticed that the human being's heaven has been thought out and constructed upon an absolute definite plan; and that this plan is, that it shall contain, in labored detail, each and every imaginable thing that is repulsive to a man, and not a single thing he likes!

Very well, the further we proceed the more will this curious fact be apparent.

Make a note of it: in man's heaven there are no exercises for the intellect, nothing for it to live upon. It would rot there in a year -- rot and stink. Rot and stink -- and at that stage become holy. A blessed thing: for only the holy can stand the joys of that bedlam." (from Letters from the Earth, Letter II)

He and Emily Dickinson might have gotten along famously.

if ida been a terrorist

I snuck up on my husband today. This is noteworthy only because he is not easily surprised. Famous for saying things like, "If that'd been a terrorist, you'd be dead by now," to jab at my lapses in situational awareness, he prides himself in choosing the seat with a vantage of all doorways in a public place, placing his back to the wall whenever possible. He knew I would be in the field until Friday morning, at least. When my Soldiers and I were allowed to complete training and return to garrison sooner, I did not apprise him of the change. I didn't think I had a great chance of pulling it off, but I wanted to have an aromatic supper cooking, and be shower-fresh when he got home from work. Thursday is deadline day for him, and it can be brutal.

I called him to acsertain whether he would head straight home or grab fast food on the way--it happened that I was still bathing when I heard him walking through the front door and still on the phone with me. I thought there would be too many clues that I was home: the dripdrop of the full tub with me in it, my car parked in the lot, the clear path from the doorway to the kitchen, his mother's spaghetti sauce recipe simmering on the stove. He was so tired, he missed all of it. He even wigged out that the air conditioning was back on--he knew he'd turned it down before leaving for work. I extracted myself from the bathroom and made my way down the short hallway, convinced that my very next move would betray me. In our game of hide-and-seek, I was unsure who was the hunter, who the hunted--had he known for minutes I was in the apartment? Was he now poised to jump out and terrify me? I finished my sentence on the phone while leaning over the back of the couch until he could see me. He didn't move, and I didn't know whether to gloat until he blinked out the slightest bit of disbelief. Only after that passed over his face did he smile, and I knew the unthinkable had occured: my husband had been caught off guard. These small intrigues are an occasional source of unexpected pleasure, as if we had burst into each other's world all over again.

night vision

Few things in life can give you the sense that you have superhero powers. Night vision goggles are one of those things. Rolling out for a live fire training exercise in blackout mode recently, I detected a crisp uptake in my adrenaline that caused both stomach and heart rate to register unexpected excitement. The world is just many shades of green, and what was pitch black becomes plain as day. The stars show themselves in full force: minions spread throughout the sky that were too dim to see with the naked eye. There actually seems to be more starlight than sky, some nights. Tracer bullets whiz with the visuals and sound effects of an intergalactic battle, crisscrossing the target field. The occasional flare or star cluster threatens to blind, but makes a spectacular show. It is dizzying, to see clearly what was a black void moments earlier. If not for the heaviness of the monacle mounted on my helmet, I could see myself as a night raider, insect-like in my ability to seek and exploit the landscape. Like some bird of prey or masked hero, I would burgle its unsuspecting inhabitants. You know, just another hungry nocturnal prowl, my personal vigil against evil forces--the usual stuff.

mother's day conspiracy

I experienced the vulnerability of Robert Frost's poem Bereft during the weeks prior to Mother's Day. I was breaking the sabbath and shopping on a Sunday in Texas, when I became suddenly oppressed by a window display blandishing passersby to buy "the gift she'll never forget." I swallowed. I entrenched behind my sunglasses. I riled at American consumerism, looking for a way to condemn the advertisement. I knew the sign couldn't be blamed for its insensitivity toward my situation.

I recalled these lines:

Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,

It is a kind of pain you relish--the exposed, but secretive feeling that a nerve which only you know about has been hit by some external force. I knew that no passerby could possibly intuit how the loss of my mother was causing me to feel compromised, even in the bright sunlight of the parking lot. Even so, as I walked down the row of stores, I found myself scanning with my peripherals, as if expecting some kind of ambush.

bereft

This poem by Robert Frost made me aware that pain, if artfully communicated, can be exquisite. When I first read it in a sophomore literature class in college, I had not yet experienced true bereavement, though I had experienced the death of three grandfathers and one high school classmate. Each was somehow removed from my innermost affections, either by distance or by degree of intimacy. I remember almost looking forward to experiencing the pain of loss at some point in my life along these lines.

Bereft

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and the day was past.
Sombre clouds in the west were massed.
Out on the porch's sagging floor,
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.