Asking the Wrong Questions About Masks

It’s happened again. Something rather innocuous has become the latest battle in the ongoing culture wars; this time the fight is over wearing masks. How did a question of the best way to address public health become a partisan cage match with both sides throwing rhetorical Molotov cocktails at each other? One side says wearing masks is political correctness run amok that infringes upon personal freedom. The other side says not wearing masks is ignorant and irresponsible behavior with fatal consequences for society. At its most extreme people who refuse to wear masks have reacted violently when stores require them to do so, and those wanting everyone to wear masks in public have aggressively intimidated people who refuse. Our society may respond this way to questions of wearing masks or not, but these are the wrong questions (and actions) for anyone seeking to follow Christ.

As with every other question, Christians pondering the question of whether or not to wear a mask in public should first look to the life and teachings of Jesus before all other considerations.

No, Jesus never gave instructions on whether or not to wear a mask in public during a viral outbreak, but he did provide instructions about how Christians should treat the most vulnerable in society. COVID-19 has shown itself to be the most dangerous for people who are elderly, people who are non-white without access to quality healthcare, people in prison and people with compromised immune systems—in sum, the most vulnerable in our society.

In his ministry to the sick, poor, hungry and outcasts, Jesus demonstrated how his disciples should show love. From the beggar Lazarus on the rich man’s doorstep to the man beaten and left for dead helped by the Samaritan, Jesus taught to be his follower means to care for those who are most vulnerable in their physical condition. In one of Jesus’ most startling teachings, he declares whoever welcomes a stranger, provides food, drink or clothing to one without, or cares for the sick or imprisoned person has done the same for Christ himself! In other words, Christ is incarnate in every vulnerable member of society (Matthew 25:31-46).

Building on this Christ-like ethic of caring for the vulnerable, the apostle Paul dealt with questions of individual freedom and responsibility for one’s fellow person. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul addresses a dispute over eating food sacrificed to idols, a commonplace custom in the Greco-Roman world and maybe the most nutritious food the average person could get. Paul says you have the freedom to do so, after all idols aren’t real, but if by doing so a fellow Christian sees you doing so and is influenced to return to a non-Christian religious practice, then it is your responsibility to consider that person’s well-being before you exercise your own freedom.  He addresses a similar issue in Romans 14 and says, “If your brother or sister is being injured by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love.”  In other words, you may have the freedom to do something, but if it negatively affects your neighbor you shouldn’t do it.

Jesus said the second greatest commandment after loving God is loving your neighbor, and Paul declares, “The whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14 NRSV)  In other words, if one wishes to follow Jesus and take Christ’s name as a part of one’s identity, the first question to ask in making decisions is how does this choice affect others around me, especially those who are more vulnerable than I am?  Just because I have the freedom to do something does not make it right or good in and of itself.  Furthermore, as Christians who claim to follow Christ’s example of sacrificing our own comfort and convenience for the sake of others we are called to do likewise (see Paul’s discussion of having the “mind of Christ” in Philippians 2).

So when it comes to wearing a mask or not when we are outside our immediate family or our “bubble” or safety, the question that Christians should ask is what shows love of my neighbor, wearing or not wearing a mask?  I have the freedom not to wear one, but what if I am an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19 and without meaning to I transmit droplets of moisture by breathing or speaking onto someone else, especially someone who’s immune system cannot fight off the virus? 

For me, the answer is clear, however effective or ineffective wearing a cloth mask may be, the people who are medical experts sayit is better to wear a mask than not if I want to avoid unknowingly spreadingCOVID-19 to others, especially the most vulnerable.  So, as a Christian, I have the freedom not to wear a mask except when it may hurt others. Let the culture warriors rage, I am not basing my decisions upon what either side says anyway. 

The question of wearing masks or not reminds us that for this and every question of behavior the choices of Christians should be grounded in Jesus’ clear demonstration of love for others, especially the most vulnerable.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Facing Our Inner Fears

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear
1 John 4:18 NRSV

One of the books that has most shaped my spiritual journey is Parker Palmer’s LetYour Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.  In my years of ministry, I have routinely shared it with people discerning what kind of work they should go into or struggling with careers that have left them burnt out and empty inside.  It’s a short book, and one could easily read it in an afternoon, although reflection upon its words takes much longer.

In one of its later chapters (you can read the entire chapter here, but I recommend reading the chapters that lead up to it first), Palmer writes about the kind of spiritual work we resist the most: examining the shadow sides of ourselves.  Any worthwhile spiritual journey “will take us inward and downward, toward the hardest realities of our lives, rather than outward and upward toward abstraction, idealization, and exhortation. . . Why must we go in and down? Because as we do so, we will meet the darkness that we carry within ourselves—the ultimate source of the shadows that we project onto other people. If we do not understand that the enemy is within, we will find a thousand ways of making someone ‘out there’ into the enemy.”

Palmer illustrates this truth with a story from his own life.  He attended a week-long experience with Outward Bound and found himself at the top of a cliff side about to rappel down.  It was the challenge he feared most.  He stepped off the cliff and immediately slammed into a ledge a few feet down. 

The instructor explained, “The only way to do this is to lean back as far as you can. You have to get your body at right angles to the cliff so that your weight will be on your feet. It’s counter-intuitive, but it’s the only way that works.” 

Palmer writes, “I knew that he was wrong, of course. I knew that the trick was to hug the mountain, to stay as close to the rock face as I could. So I tried it again, my way—and slammed into the next ledge.” 

The instructor explained things once again, and slowly Palmer leaned back and began inching down the cliff side.  At the halfway point, the instructor at the bottom of the cliff alerted Palmer to a hole in the cliff side he was headed for which meant he must change the course he had worked so hard to find. 

Palmer describes what happened next.

     “I knew for a certainty that attempting to do so would lead directly to my death—so I froze,      paralyzed with fear. The second instructor let me hang there, trembling, in silence for what seemed like a very long time.

Finally, she shouted up these helpful words: “Parker, is anything wrong?” To this day, I do not know where my words came from, though I have twelve witnesses to the fact that I spoke them. In a high, squeaky voice I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then,” said the second instructor, “it’s time that you learned the Outward Bound motto.”

“Oh, keen,” I thought. “I’m about to die, and she’s going to give me a motto!”

But then she shouted ten words I hope never to forget, words whose impact and meaning I can still feel: “If you can’t get out of it, get into it!”

Then Palmer describes the miracle that happened next:

“I had long believed in the concept of “the word become flesh” but until that moment I had not experienced it. My teacher spoke words so compelling that they bypassed my mind, went into my flesh, and animated my legs and feet. No helicopter would come to rescue me; the instructor on the cliff would not pull me up with the rope; there was no parachute in my backpack to float me to the ground. There was no way out of my dilemma except to get into it—so my feet started to move and in a few minutes I made it safely down.”

The fears we carry within us too often leave us paralyzed on a cliff side or trying to climb back up the cliff.  We will do almost anything to avoid the difficult work of facing our fears and trusting God will help us move past them.  Our refusals to “get into” the fears we cannot avoid causes great harm to ourselves and those around us, especially those whom we love most.

Palmer writes, “there is no way out of one’s inner life, so one had better get into it. On the inward and downward spiritual journey, the only way out is in and through.”

Loving God, help me to face the fears I most want to avoid.  Help me to trust that on the other side of my fear lies freedom and relief.  Amen.

Grace and peace,

Chase

A Progressive Minister Rethinks Fear

 “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”

--1 John 4:18

In my first ministry job, I was a youth director for a summer, and one of the youth had a mother with severe mental illness.  The woman was so consumed with anxiety she could not leave her home, and it was an act of great love for her to allow her teen to go to youth camp and other activities.  Giving permission meant overcoming her mind’s constant alarm bells about the dangers outside her home.  She couldn’t make the same choice for herself, but out of love for her child, she would sign the permission slips.

During this time, when many of us feel trapped in our homes for legitimate reasons, it is perhaps a good thing to reflect on the role fear plays in our lives.  Fear can be a gift which can help us avoid danger, but the problem comes when our fears trap us in literal or spiritual dwelling places that diminish our lives. 

In order to survive as a species, our ancestors had highly developed senses of fear.  Those who weren’t cautious when they met a new kind of snake or found a new type of mushroom didn’t survive long.  This sense of fear dwells in our instinctual brain, sometimes called the back brain or lower brain or even reptile brain.  Anatomically, it’s our amygdala which causes us to act by instinct rather than reason, because the small fraction of time it takes to reason through the issue may be too long.  Yet, this overriding of reason does not serve us well in modern existence where most of us do not face threats to our lives at every turn.  This lack of reason can be manipulated by politicians, capitalized upon by the media, and misused by spiritual leaders.  The results of being stuck in a state of fear can be paralysis, declining health, disengaging with intimacy, making enemies out of friends and loved ones, and scapegoating of others in order to give us a false sense of control.

Yet, the first letter of John declares that God’s love casts out fear.  It’s a catastrophe that most examples of Christianity throughout its history depend upon frightening its adherents either with earthly punishments or eternal ones.  1 John declares fear is not God’s character; love is.  The antidote to our unhealthy fears is allowing the God of love to enter the mental and spiritual places where we are trapped by fear.

Glennon Doyle writes, “Scared and sacred are sisters.”  Rearrange the letters in the word “scared” and you get “sacred.”  Our moments of fear can become moments when we become uncomfortable enough to ask for God’s help.  Sadly, in my own journey, it’s usually when I do not feel in control of my circumstances that I bother to actually admit I need God.  More than anything, I fear being in pain—emotional, spiritual, physical—I want none of it.  Yet, pain is only the messenger telling us something is wrong and it needs to change.  Both fear and pain have things to teach us.

Doyle writes in her book LoveWarrior, "Pain is not a sign that you’ve taken a wrong turn or that you’re doing life wrong. It’s not a signal that you need a different life or partner or body or home or personality. Pain is not a hot potato to pass on to the next person or generation. Pain is not a mistake to fix. Pain is just a sign that a lesson is coming. Discomfort is purposeful: it is there to teach you what you need to know so you can become who you were meant to be. Pain is just a traveling professor. When pain knocks on the door—wise ones breathe deep and say: 'Come in. Sit down with me. And don’t leave until you’ve taught me what I need to know.'"

Loving God, help me not to run away from my fear and my pain.  Help me to stop, listen and learn from these teachers.  Help me to trust you are with me as I face the hard truths that make me want to run away from my true self.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Are You Feeling Afraid Today?

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear

--1 John 4:18 NIV

There is so much to be afraid of right now.  When an invisible virus that can potentially kill you can spread from someone who exhibits no symptoms, fear seems appropriate.  When 40 million Americans are unemployed, it is natural to fear for one’s livelihood and security.  When one lives on fixed income and the stock market crashes with devastating effect upon your retirement fund, fear is understandable.  Fear is everywhere.

On Sunday morning, I’ll be preaching on 1 John 14-21.  Here’s a preview.  The author of the letter writes about fear and the context of these verses is a discussion of loving God and others.  The writer describes how fear becomes a barrier to experiencing God who is Love.  The writer assures us “perfect love drives out fear,” but sometimes we would rather hold on to fear or maybe we lack the strength to do anything other than be afraid.

The well-known African American writer and poet Sonia Sanchez shared in a poem about a conversation she had with her fellow well-known African American writer  Zora Neal Hurston.

The great writer Zora Neale Hurston said,
Fear was the greatest emotion on the planet Earth
and I said, No my dear sista
Fear will make us move to save our lives
To save our own skins
But love
Will make us save other people's skins and lives
So love is primary at this particular point in time. 

Fear, in and of itself, can be a good thing: we evolved to protect our own safety.  Yet, fear does not have the final word.  We were created to not only care for ourselves but also others.  Only love can motivate us to move beyond fear to sacrifice our well being for that of someone else.  Love for others.  Love for God.  Love for ourselves.  All three kinds of love are greater than fear.

If you are feeling afraid today, here is a simple way to begin overcoming it.  Look for a way to show someone else love.  Even the smallest gesture can be used by God to push back your fear and perhaps the recipient of your love will be less afraid too.  Give a hug to a family member.  Offer an overdue compliment.  Pick up the phone and call someone who needs to hear your voice.  Send a text or an email offering a word of love and encouragement.  Whatever love you can muster; God will use it to drive out your fear.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Mere Survival is Not a Good Enough Reason for a Church to Exist

[Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

--Colossians 1:15-20 NRSV

Bible scholars debate whether Paul really wrote the letter to the Colossian Christians, because of verses like the ones above which have a “high Christology” equating Jesus and God.  They view that as a later occurrence in church history.  I choose to believe Paul could have written the letter, because I believe that from the beginning of the Christian movement believers understood Christ to be doing what these verses say: connecting and reconciling all things in creation to God.

These types of theological and biblical questions may seem abstract, but I believe they have everything to do with why so many churches are dying today.  For me, these verses from a two thousand year old letter that its author had no idea we would be reading today describe a concept of God that should matter to us.  I believe at the heart of Christianity is a God who refuses to remain separated from who and what God has created.

What exactly do we believe Jesus Christ was up to when he walked the earth and was executed for being a threat to the powers that be?  Was he out to establish a new religion with rules, laws and traditions or was he trying to demonstrate that God loves people enough to be in the midst of all humanity’s pain, violence, suffering and confusion?  If you believe the latter, then you accept that there is no length that God will not go to in order to be present where people are in their pain, loneliness and despair.  God will go and already is everywhere in the universe there is chaos and hurt in order to reconcile all things back to God. 

The God we see in Christ does not remain distant from people’s needs but will do anything to be there in their time of need.  So why is it that the church, which is supposed to be made up of Christ followers, refuses to do the same?

Way back in 1974 the Christian feminist scholar Letty M. Russell wrote, “The church’s role is to point to Christ in the world and not to itself.”  It’s too bad that almost for my entire lifetime I’ve watched churches do exactly the opposite of what Russell and the New Testament writers were saying.  My entire life, and even more so in my professional life as a minister, I’ve watched churches grieve their decline, pining for previous generations when church membership was an essential part of the American social fabric.  I’ve sat in countless hours of church board meetings, congregational business meetings and denominational seminars decrying shrinking budgets, rising building costs and despair over dropping membership rolls.  All of that energy has been spent working for the survival of congregations instead of helping people see Christ in people’s lives and Christ in people’s jobs and Christ in people’s families and Christ in people’s neighborhoods.  We’ve treated church buildings as the only place Christ can be instead of equipping people to recognize Christ is everywhere they are. 

Do the folks who make up your church really believe “through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to [God’s] self all things?”  If so, that means God is not only present in church buildings but everywhere, and the church’s job is not to act as if it is separate from what God is doing and has done outside church walls.  If the church is more than a business, a non-profit or a social club and we really believe the church is supposed to be a part of God’s work in the world, why don’t churches put their energy into being a part of what God is doing instead of surviving for survival’s sake? 

I don’t know anyone who wants to join a church to help that church survive, but I know lots of people who want to be connected to God and feel their lives have purpose and meaning. 

Merely surviving is no reason to be a church.  However, if discussion and discernment can be about where Christ is already active in the world around us and how a church can be a part of that work, then that church will do more than survive; it will have a future being a part of the reconciling work of God that has already happened, is happening now and will happen in the future.  Any other future desired for a congregation is no future at all.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

A Progressive Minister Rethinks Communion

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.  Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. --1 Corinthians 11:27-29, NRSV

It’s more than a bit weird to preach to an almost empty sanctuary on Sunday mornings. I have to imagine the members watching via the live stream.  It’s even weirder to celebrate communion in a largely empty sanctuary. I try to imagine church folks all with coffee and toast or bagels in their  hands partaking of this sacred act of worship. It takes spiritual imagination to partake of communion under normal circumstances; more spiritual imagination is needed during the Coronavirus pandemic.  Communion, at all times, means believing, despite so called evidence to the contrary, that we are spiritually connected with one another and with God.

As we find our normal routines of worship disrupted, maybe it is a good time to reflect upon why we do them in the first place and why we miss them. 

As someone who has been “denominationally promiscuous” (as a clergy friend of mine calls it), I learned to love communion in a Disciples of Christ congregation. I became a spiritual refugee fleeing from a tradition where all aspects of the Christian life together became weaponized to exclude whomever the powers that be deemed a threat to their understanding of Christian purity.  So, experiencing open communion in a DOC church was a liberating and awesome encounter with what I always knew deep down church could be like. Everyone and anyone gets to partake of communion?  With that simple declaration and weekly enactment, I finally discovered the church living out in a communal way the grace of Christ I had experienced as an individual.

Sara Miles writes, “The church doesn’t own Communion. It’s God’s meal.  That made it possible for me to even take Communion in the first place. It also made it possible for me to look at the church not as a way to divide people from one another, but as a way of joining people together.” Miles’ statement is not a glib one. She was an atheist and social activist who had experienced Christianity only as an entity opposed to equality, justice and inclusion. Yet, in books like TakeThis Bread, Jesus Freak, and City of God, she shares how taking communion transformed her understanding of what Christianity could mean.  Like Miles, sharing open communion transformed my understanding of church.

In chapter 11 of Paul’s first letter to the Christians in Corinth, Greece, he criticizes the young church for how they take communion.  Then he offers words that have echoed down through church history with some awful consequences, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.”  From the ancient church denying communion to those they considered heathens to John Calvin’s practice of “fencing the table” to keep those who were unworthy away (a practice continued today in conservative Reformed churches) to divorced people prevented from taking communion in many Protestant denominations today to the refusal of communion to American politicians who support women having access to abortion services by Roman Catholic churches today, this verse has been used to make communion a weapon. 

This reading of Paul’s instructions regarding communion flies in the face of Paul’s point.  In verse 29, he writes, “For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”  The phrase ‘discerning the body” is a play on words; the “body” in question is not just the bread of communion but also the church or the body of Christ.  The issue at hand was one of class and privilege.  Some in the church were wealthy enough they could show up early to worship, and they would go ahead and eat up all the food, for worship was an actual meal which included the sharing of bread and a cup in communion.  Those who were laborers or slaves showed up only when their bosses or masters (maybe some of those who arrived early) allowed them to come.  When those with less money and power showed up, there was no food left for them, maybe the only meal they would have that day.  Thus, worship became a way to exercise power over others rather than as a spiritual space were all were made one in Christ.

Taking communion in an “unworthy manner” means using this ritual of worship as a means to control or wield power over others.  Yet, controlling, excluding and oppressing others is exactly what Christian authorities and denominations have done with communion for centuries.  In doing so, religious authorities and clergy have modeled a meaning of power, hierarchy and division which mirrors the secular understandings of such things and not the self-giving and sacrificial love Christ offers as our example. 

Seen in this light, open communion becomes a radical act that forces us to rethink the values and practices of our society.  Those who stand in judgment of others often described as a “loving act” to convict others of their sins and give them an opportunity to change do not offer love but rather the self-righteousness that Jesus repeatedly condemned.  Perhaps some sinners somewhere have repented when stopped from taking communion, but throughout my ministry I have known people deeply wounded by such exclusion, most of whom left church altogether without ever looking back, except to name the church as abuser.

If churches that practice closed communion weaponize the practice, churches that practice open communion often trivialize it.  For those raised in Disciples of Christ churches and other traditions which practice open communion, the practice can become a time to check their watches and wonder about the ever-lengthening line at the restaurant they are soon headed to or the meal cooking in the oven at home.  When we diminish communion, however, we diminish ourselves, because its radical nature of hospitality for all and rejection of the values of a world which sees people only as cogs in political and/or economic machine rather than as beloved children of God reminds us that we are part of the realm of God, which values each and every life as an invaluable part of creation.

The blessed mystery of communion is that somehow ordinary earthly things like bread and wine—or coffee and toast—contain the grace of God which is greater than all things that divide us from one another and God.  Of course, that’s always the case in all ordinary things, places and times; the blessed tool of communion just helps us realize that astonishing truth.     

How’s Your Breathing?

“then the Lord God formed [the first human] from the dust of the ground, and breathed into [the first human’s] nostrils the breath of life; and the [the first human] became a living being.”

--Genesis 2:7 NRSV

"The great Jesuit theologian Teilhard de Chardin has a wonderful image of the ‘breathing together of all things.’ All living creatures are sustained by this life-giving rhythm, and we are dependent on plants, trees, and other vegetation to transform the carbon dioxide we exhale into the oxygen we need to thrive."
--- Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women

Once upon a time, the only person that ever asked about my breathing was a doctor putting a stethoscope to my chest.  Over time, as meditation, yoga and practices like contemplative prayer have become more common, I hear the question, “How are you breathing?” more often.  My mind races so fast to so many places, so I often come up short when I’m reminded to stop and breathe deeply.  My posture changes, I unclench parts of my body I had no idea I was tensing up and I discover my breath tells me everything about the state of my body and mind.

Breathing is often something we only think about when something is wrong, such as asthma, COPD or recently COVID-19, yet it is the foundation of life—not just your life and my life but ALL life.  The foundational story of creation in Hebrew and Christian scripture says that God breathed “the breath of life” into the original human, and in this poetic phrase we find contained all the mysteries of religion, science, philosophy and more about what it means to be “alive.”

The Hebrew word for “breath” in Genesis 2 can also mean “spirit” or “wind.”  It is a word that often means more than one definition at once.  Something of that multivalence is captured in the Christian hymn “Spirit of the Living God.”

Spirit of the Living God
Fall fresh on me
Spirit of the Living God
Fall fresh on me
Melt me, mold me
Fill me, use me
Spirit of the Living God
Fall fresh on me

When you and I stop and take note of our breathing, we slow down and pay attention to our bodies, our minds, our spirits.  We remind ourselves we are connected to all living things.  We rediscover the truth that living is not just about ourselves—our happiness, our pain, our worries.  Activist and civil rights leader Yuri Kochiyama said, “Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.”  COVID-19 brutally reminds us how connected our world is; it’s easier to discover this truth by simply slowing down and paying attention to our breathing.  By doing so, we open ourselves to the work of God’s life-giving Spirit in the world.  Through our breathing we remember the One who created us and breathed life into us is always with us.

In our frantic efforts to cope with a world that feels so out of our control right now, we can turn our focus to what is in our control—our breathing.  In doing so, we connect with the One who really is in control, despite the non-stop news alerts on our phones tempting us to believe otherwise.

Stop. Breathe. Be.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Nodding Over Coffee

^“I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.”

--Philippians 1:6 NRSV

In recent weeks, I’ve been listening to music again.  For some years, I’ve been glued to the news and I resisted listening to music, because I didn’t want to stop and think.  Slowing down might mean I’d miss some breaking news alert (as if waiting 30 minutes changes anything).  Yet, the maddening sameness of life under threat of COVID-19 has left me tired of the same daily news of deaths, lack of PPE, and government dysfunction.  So, I’m listening to music again.

On my old clunky pre-touchscreen IPod, I have thousands of songs.  Among them are the beautiful words of the singer-songwriter Mark Heard.  Heard died in 1992, and had he lived he certainly would have been better known.  His music circulated amidst Contemporary Christian and folk music; yet he was way too honest to fit in Contemporary Christian music and defied the simplistic beliefs and theology of that genre.  At his death, he was beginning to be touted by folk and country artists like 

Bruce Cockburn, Emmy Lou Harris, and Buddy and Julie Miller. 

I only knew of Heard, because I went to college a few hours from Nashville and had friends who were way more into music than I was.  He talked about God and the big questions of life, so my conservative Christian self didn’t feel guilty for listening to him, but the longing and the brutal honesty of his music spoke to me in ways that felt dangerous but tantalizing.  Over the years as my faith changed I long ago dropped the needless division of sacred vs. secular music, but Heard’s honest words about the sacred and the profane are ones I have kept close by.

All the unsaid words that I might be thinking
And all the little signs that I might give you
They would not be enough
No they would not be enough

So we nod over coffee and say goodbye
Smile over coffee and turn to go
We know the drill and we do it well
We love it, we hate it
Ain't that life

Ain't that the curse of the second hand
Ain't that the way of the hour and the day

In his 1991 song, “Nod Over Coffee,” Heard acknowledges the unending routines of life, jobs, family responsibilities and even sitting in traffic, keep us from making time to say all we went to say to those whom we love.  How does one express the deep ineffable feelings one has when that cursed second hand reveals we are late for work yet again?  At middle age with two teenagers at home, I feel like I am waking from a long dream consisting of nothing but family and work responsibilities, and now I’m looking at the calendar and wondering where all those years, months and days went?  I always thought there would be more time to say what needed to be said.

The dam of time cannot hold back
The dust that will surely come of these bones
And I'm sure I will not have loved enough
Will not have loved enough

If we could see with wiser eyes
What is good and what is sad and what is true
Still it would not be enough
Could never be enough

So we nod over coffee and say goodbye
Bolt the door it's time to go
Into the car with the radio on
Roll down the window and blow the horn

Ain't that the curse of the second hand
Ain't that the way of the hour and the day

I suspect Heard is right that there will never be enough time to express all the love I feel for my friends and family; there aren’t enough words to express everything we feel.  Besides, we are too often struggling to make sense of what we feel if not repressing our feelings all together to give voice to them.

I hold on to the faith that I don’t have to get everything right, express everything the way I might wish to or convey to those I love most how much they mean to me.  God’s grace helps me do what I cannot do my own.  Each Sunday in my benediction, I say the words, “May the grace of Christ come behind you to finish what you must leave undone.” These words are hardest to believe when someone we love dies.  When my mother died suddenly in 2018, I grieved all the things that went unsaid between us, but I move forward trusting that God somehow makes up for that.  Eternity waits for my mother and I where perhaps all that needs to be said will be somehow expressed.

In the meantime, I try to make the effort to do more than nod over coffee before “the dust that will surely come of these bones.”  I try to express in words and actions the love I feel for the ones I hold dearest.  My efforts may be inadequate to the task, but Christ comes after me with grace to do what I am unable to do.

Before the world reopens and we rush out the door each day once more, let’s do more than “nod over coffee.”  May we pick up the phone, write a text or email, Skype or Zoom, or God forbid, pick up a pen and paper to say some of what needs to be said to the ones whom we love.  After that, we trust God will eventually complete what we were trying to say all along.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Is Heaven Boring?

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
--Romans 8:38-39 NRSV

“Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped.”
― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

“Dad, do you ever think heaven is going to be boring?”

I was taken aback by my son’s question.  Boring?  So I asked him, why he thought heaven would be boring.  He replied that heaven seemed boring, because all the pictures of it were of people sitting around on clouds in white robes, strumming harps and not doing much else.  That seems like boring stuff to do forever and ever.  I had to admit he had a point.

We aren’t served well by the history of art depicting heaven that has come down to us through the ages.  Most of the scenes seem based upon Greco-Roman art which preceded Christianity.  Folks in toga-like robes, strumming harps of all instruments! and hanging around on either clouds or grassy hillocks.  It sounds nice for a minute, but for eternity it looks, well, boring.

Then there's the common idea that heaven will be full of self-righteous holy rollers who judge anyone who isn't like them.  Mark Twain famously said, "Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company."  If heaven resembles what many churches are like, exclusive clubs that use religion to beat up on people, then count me out too.

The Bible is suspiciously vague on what heaven is like, and what it does say doesn’t tell us very much.  I like to think heaven must be a place where you can eat all the Krispy Kreme donuts you want without getting fat or sick!  Surely it’s more fun that we’ve been led to believe. 

In my last blog post, what I feel John Prine’s music is saying to me during this time of pandemic.  The last song on his last album before his death is called “When I Get to Heaven.” 

When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand
Thank him for more blessings than one man can stand
Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock-n-roll band
Check into a swell hotel, ain't the afterlife grand?

And then I'm gonna get a cocktail, vodka and ginger ale
Yeah, I'm gonna smoke a cigarette that's nine miles long
I'm gonna kiss that pretty girl on the tilt-a-whirl
'Cause this old man is goin' to town

That sounds like a lot more fun than sitting around on a cloud strumming a harp!  That's a heaven I'd want to go to!  Prine goes on to sing more about his idea of heaven.

Then as God is my witness, I'm gettin' back into show business
I'm gonna open up a nightclub called "The Tree of Forgiveness"
And forgive everybody ever done me any harm
Well, I might even invite a few choice critics, those syph'litic parasitics
Buy 'em a pint of Smithwick's and smother 'em with my charm

I'd sure like to go to a place called "The Tree of Forgiveness;" do I have to wait until I'm dead to go there?

I’ve decided I don’t need to have specifics of what the afterlife is like.  All I need to know is what God is like, and the one thing I’ve staked my life upon is that God is loving.  So whatever heaven is like, it is a place where I’m going to be with the one who loves me most of all.  I’ll bank on that when I feel afraid about things in this life.

During these days of the Coronavirus, you’d have to be crazy not to think about your own mortality at least once in a while.  It’s natural to be afraid of the unknown, especially the unknown before the ultimate unknown—the suffering that could happen before one dies.  Yet, everyone from psychologists to religious mystics tells us that fear of death and the great unknown leads us to do a bad job of living in the present with what we are able to know.  It requires courage to face our fears and live accordingly. 

A book I highly recommend to everyone who is elderly or who has elderly loved ones is Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande.  In it, he writes the quote above, “Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped.”  It takes courage to believe what we cannot know for sure, and the ultimate thing we cannot know for sure is what awaits us, if anything, after we die.

It’s a bit of a gamble to trust the words found in Romans 8, that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus”—not even death.  I can’t prove that’s true, but I can prove that denying the reality of our mortality can make us miserable people while we are alive.