The Possibility of Pain

Wedding planning just officially hit DefCon 2. Alarms are starting to sound, obligations are starting to be named, stresses are starting to surmount and tears are starting to fall – at least on Jennifer’s side. I hear that is expected to happen, but it often boggles my mind as to what small daily event may trigger it. There I go thinking male again… it’s not an event, it’s “everything.” Someday I will learn.
Things are not really any different than they were a week ago aside from that – at least the situation isn’t really any different. We’ve both been able to express our grief, frustration, what-have-you a little more succinctly. Emotionally, for me at least the place in life I now find myself seems as though it has begun to coalesce. At least, that is, until something else happens.
We have been learning a lot about grace though. Hard lessons, and hard fought for, but of a purity, rarity, and clarity like few you find dwelling in the sun on the surface. Recently I have been caught up in the parable of the wicked servant, stuck on how much I have been given – even in a season that looks like it might just take away (or at least severely threaten) so much. I worked out about how much the servant owed his Master. It’s around 12 billion dollars, give or take or, in more literal terms, about 160,000 years of a servant’s one denarius’s a day wages. There really aren’t enough lifetimes to live to make yourself square with the house, and you really should consider every chip and card you’re given a blessing. A debt has been paid on my behalf, a wrath and penalty absorbed I could never have brokered for myself. This is the lesson Jennifer and I are now learning in small measures every day; every day we’re reminded that we’re not entitled to even that day being worked out for the better, even though most do.
The possibility of pain is a strange teacher. It warns us of the Hell we’re owed, and the grace we’re given and it can be such an efficient method of delivering its message. Now I see how much I take advantage, how much I assumed had been granted to me. Now, there’s fewer and fewer times I look at Jennifer and am not thankful, and there’s more and more times I notice it when I’m thankless.
The servant didn’t get it. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge his unbelievable debt being removed from being his responsibility. He wasn’t changed by it. He went right on, demanding what he was owed from someone that was indebted to him. He even choked the poor soul. I get it, but I’d be a liar if I didn’t acknowledge just how close I am to that man some days. Things are too busy. Too many people want too much of you, from you, and with you. That’s where that lovely aforementioned teacher comes back in. A prick here or there and you’re right back in slow-motion, sucking the wound it just gave you to remind you to cherish what you have- learning the lessons you should have been learning all along. It is no longer a wonder to me why God ordains suffering to enliven the saints, and my case isn’t anything by comparison to some tales I know, yet. It certainly isn’t finished yet by any means.
I could lose my mom. In my family, that’d be like losing gravity next time you stepped outside. At the very least we’re going to get front row seats to pain’s display of many lesions on behalf of the one Who says He’s doing it for our better and to make us more like Him. So many things could go wrong, and you’ve no guarantee from one moment to the next that they won’t. Yet, in our situation, neither one of us would dare say that we don’t feel held. Such is the beautiful subtlety of grace in the hands of a master surgeon – cutting away what would destroy us and piecing us together when we would otherwise be simply broken.

Righting Rights and Writing Wrongs.

I write this blog knowing fully well it might make someone mad. But I've got a question;
Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing... what was wrong with it?

My fiance and I were driving back from a frosty run and the topic of "why do Christians do the things they do: music" got started. Usually I'm the rant-prone one of the two, but on this topic I do think I have found an equal. I was recently going through a ton of music for the wedding ceremony and reception and happened to stumble upon the *new and improved* version of Come thou Fount of Every Blessing pithily entitled Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King. Oi, where to start.

First of all, why? What was deficient in that lovely older version that we decided to have to add extra, IMO poorly constructed (and ill-fitting) verses and an oh-so-awesome™ chorus that slices and dices metaphors worse than an old school salad-shooter. Please, someone, demonstrate this grand lacking to me that could (and is) improved by pedantic, simplistic lyrics that seem to deflate the song's apex in effort to fit in yet another repeat-ad nauseum empty chorus that must include a declaration of what the singers are doing... "To you we sing." I guess we missed that you were singing... as you were singing. God missed it, too. *sigh.*

So now that I have undoubtedly relegated myself to the ranks of the punctilious praise pontificators, can someone out there see at least the reason in these remarks? I'll make my case:

Here are the "normal" forms in which the song appears. Usually, it includes the standard 3 stanza variety.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_Thou_Fount_of_Every_Blessing

Here is the 21st century's western culture's contribution.

http://www.gatewayworship.com/cc/01_ComeThouFount.pdf

Where to start.

Item 1: Which one is not like the other one?
Anyone notice a drastic lack of the otherwise rich verses usually found in the middle. "Jesus sought me..." and "Here I raise my Ebenezer..." have been replaced with: ( "/ " signifies a breathing point, or a break in the melody due to the choppy writing)
I / was lost in / utter darkness / til you came / and / rescued me.
I / was bound / by / all my / sin / when you came / and / set me free.

Ouch. The rest isn't any better. But is it picky to say such things? Maybe. Maybe it was an honest effort.

Item 2: Out with the good, in with the bad.
Here's the thing:
I don't think anyone could argue that it is appropriate for someone, (in this case a Mr. Thomas Miller) to insert glaringly ill-fitting lyrics into a song, replacing original lyrics that are not only more rich but vastly superior in terms of how they blend into the overall effort. You generally cannot beat an original author. The average person's vocabulary and sense of poetry simply doesn't compare. It's why movies based on books are so often so bad (except the Bourne Movies, and LOTR - minus the nonsense in Two Towers.) At least Hollywood has started understanding that an author's source material usually outclasses a screenwriters hurried scribblings. There will be blood in the streets when someone does this to some of my favorite literary work and tries to re-release it. The day praise song writers humbly approach hymns of old, recognizing their richness and without desire to "leave their mark" will be a great day. Some already do: here's looking at you Sandra McCracken, Matthew Smith and the other RUF people. Thank you, really.

Item 3 : The Bride. (HT to Jennifer)
There is no more beautiful image of Christ and pursuit of His than that of the Bride and the Bridegroom. I adore that imagery. I weep with such imagery. It is the kindness of God that leads me to repentance. Having said that... what is THAT doing inserted into the chorus like a tag line? The song isn't referring to that imagery at all. At all. Is it wrong for it to be there, theologically? No, of course not - but it looks "a right shabby," as my friend from Manchester says. Oh, and thanks for clearing up who THE BRIDE OF CHRIST is singing to. "To you we sing." Seriously, one preposition is good enough per line when they're that short. Sing does rhyme with blessing, though. Or... wait. It actually has the word "sing" at the end. Cheaters! But then, I'm back on poor form.

So maybe I am to picky. Maybe. Or maybe this is just one more case where the sun is setting in the West. Where we fail to take time to appreciate beauty and prefer to substitute its sweetness with Saccharin or Splenda and delude ourselves into thinking we're getting the same thing. If there were ever a place in which this line would be held, you would think it would be the Church. But so often, it seems to me, we're the first on board. We're the first to go for relevancy, to push for practicum and to move toward mediocrity. And I say we suffer greatly for it. Just like this song.

God help us. Restore true eyes to your Bride for beauty, true ears to hear and hearts to love truth without compromise. Even my own wicked heart.

The Threat of a Pause

Given the evidence, I think it's safe to say I have too many things going on in life. Take this blog for example: I love writing, but I don't often seem to find the time to actually come here and post thoughts. It isn't that I don't have them or the desire to express them, but by the time I come home at night the last thing I seem to want to do is sit in front of the computer and write out what I've already surely expressed verbally all day - and probably much more proficiently.

I have, at least, finally transferred my favorite posts from my previous blog to this one, I kind of hate having thoughts in different places. Feel free to read and comment, afterall it may be new to you!


For those who didn't know, I have been rather sick of late. It's not a cold or cough. It's the kind of sick that could mean something is really wrong with you. My recent CT (Computed Tomography) turned up clear, and yet symptoms seem to persist. Guess that means I'm not super sick - or at least not with what they might have been expecting, but it does mean that they still don't know what's wrong with me. I guess they'll do more tests and we will see.


During this little span, I've had a little more time to think, and perhaps a little more prescence of mind to think as I have not been as driven by schedule and the necessities of this thing they keep telling me is "life." I keep wondering when the day will come when I accept their description without a scoff or juvenilesque retort.

But now that I have finally managed to slow down, the strangest thing seems to happen. There's so much I've been meaning to say, and I haven't the strength or the starting place to say it all. I guess that's the threat of a pause. Everything that's been swirling around starts to settle and you find out really quickly that there's a bit more than you guessed. Hopefully this summer will provide the energy, time and inspiration for good writing.

A Word on Why: The Who, the Why and the Whitherto Pt II.

There comes a time when any honest reflection reveals the failings and shortsightedness one is guilty of in his ventures. This blog is a second-try for me. I used to post (a long while ago) on another blog, http://sovereignjoy.blogspot.com, but after some time I really lost material and drive to continue that venture. So why make another blog then? I shall tell you:

If a mold doesn't quite fit the tool, what has to be done is a recasting of the mold. While I enjoy much of the work and thought I put into my previous blog, I recently became aware just how unlike me it really was to sit around and comment only on the "good" and expound only on what felt "right" to say. It would be a long tale, but to put it briefly it seems I have come full circle. I've got to be crazy to assume that I can express myself in any honest fashion and maintain this brittle facade of propriety and theological perfection. I had to be mad - out of my ever-loving mind - to think that such an attempt would be either successful or profitable long term.

So here it is: I don't know it all, I'll never know it all and the part of me that wanted to sound like I had an inside track has finally given in to the me that can't stand but to say what I really mean. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't dishonest - but I wasn't wholly open either. I think some part of me realized that critically minded Seminary Students (and maybe professors) would be reading my musings with fingers loaded and bones to pick, and I didn't really want to provoke their ire.

Well guess what... after a year here a little provoking may just be what the good Doctor ordered. That part about speaking the truth in love does afterall require speaking the truth! So the begenning of it might as well be about me; not about what I've got to offer - but confessing my truest state of affairs.

When you get right down to it, I'm not a righteous "I've got the answers all worked out" preacher boy. Far from it. So if you're reading a later post and getting steamed about something I just pointed out and you find yourself saying "who does this guy think he is?" Well, here's your answer: I'm nobody... At least nobody that deserves to say a word. The question is, do you think you are? If the "right" answer comes to mind then maybe we should sit down and talk about what we do know, and what we do believe - and here is what I do know: I haven't earned a darned thing. Not a one. I'm a sinner, once enemy of God on whom the wrath of God rested, destined for destruction that was earned, and entitled to nothing but damnation. I wasn't the righteous, Christian raised, Sunday School answer guy. I was the sick one, the dead one, the hostile one. Some days that old man still haunts me, but something (or should I say Someone) profound came in the meantime, took everything I owed and paid for it while simultaneously giving me an inheritance only He deserved. If there are any perceptions to the contrary, here's the admission d'grat. I'm not the righteous. Fact is, I know there aren't any who are. Some just need some convincing of that fact again; and the world needs to hear it from us all.

So why bother with a blog if that's the case? The mystery of the Gospel, in short. I wasn't the righteous and I don't produce it of my own merit now, but something I am, however, is Called. Called out, called to speak, called to love, called to pray, called to preach, called to exhort and called to praise, and that's the short list.

So here goes nothing. Lord have mercy!