A Hungry Worshipper Q & A

I've received some interesting email on the worship music series. It has led to some good discussion.

Pastor Greg Smith writes:

Given that the Bible does not proscribe any particular
musical style (content yes, instrumentation no); how does contemporary style
music fit into the task of worship; if at all in what you've said. Knowing, as
well, that artists will always use contemporary forms to communicate timeless
messages… and in that experimentation some will be retained and other parts
lost. (I'm not sure there is a right answer… just some guiding thoughts…)

My response:

I agree that the Bible doesn't proscribe any particular musical style. However, different musical styles produce different effects in their hearers. I think that we Christians get into a lot of unneccesary disputes because we ask the wrong questions. The question isn't so much, "What musical styles are acceptable in worship?" but "What do we need to be doing in this part of the service, and what musical form/style will assist us to do it?"

If we think about it, just one musical style can't carry a worship service. What is it we need to do through the service?

Prepare a reverent, awe-filled heart (something contemplative, full of
longing & aspiriation)
Approach the Throne of Grace (something joyful, triumphant, full of anticipation)
Confess sin (something sorrowful)
Give thanks for forgiveness (again, something joyful)
Consider God's Word to us (something meaty that can carry a thoughtful, profound, simple or complex compliment to the message of the day)
Feast at the Lord's Table (something that turns our hearts & minds to grateful contemplation, morphing to rejoicing)

Go back into the world equipped and commissioned (purposeful, joyful triumph,
maybe martial even)

I would like to see believers laying off the musical mud-slinging and banding together, bringing our various skills and preferences under the guidance of the needs of worship. A lot of the ill-will I've seen has come from believers allowing either personal preferences or a desire to please a crowd outweigh the consideration of serving God in worship and assisting fallen men (including ourselves) to draw near to Him.

As a matter of practical consideration, perhaps a discipline of reflection as we prepare for worship would settle a lot of things. We could ask ourselves:

What attitude needs to be supported in this part of the service?
Is this piece the best support for this attitude that we have at our disposal?
Am I just satisfying my own preferences or playing to the crowd for approval?

One last thought. Musical tastes are acquired. Musical tastes can be trained. Worship is largely about changing & maturing those who participate in it. We should be looking for our music to assist this over time as well. We should begin to be able to enter fully into the delights of all kinds of music as we learn its truest use in worship.

Well, I'll get off my soapbox now. Anyone want to heave a squashy tomato in my direction?

Dustbowl Comfort

Desperately, Maude watched the rare clouds, ripening with their dark heads of rain. Standing at the fence line of her Nebraska farm, she pleaded with God. The wraithlike sheets of moisture folded across her neighbor’s field. A few drops spattered her thirsty boots. And that was all.

It was a death sentence. They had scooped that death from their door with brooms and shovels through all the booming, strangling dust storms of the previous years. They had drowned it with sweat and tears. But now that rain had returned to Nebraska, there still was no relief for their place.

Today was the last hope. Tomorrow, Maude and Everett would leave behind her family’s legacy; the house where her children had been born; the farm Everett’s father had carved out of the wilderness of his exile from the Old Country and of the Great Plains; the community where Maude’s father had been the original pastor. The car was already crowded with its pitiful load. The furniture would have to be left behind. Everything that wasn’t essential to starting over was too much. Maude was nearly fifty, her youngest child of high school age.

The Claudsons removed to Wyoming’s Powell Valley, where a newly-built irrigation system would make a wasteland arable. They and their grown children had taken the government’s ridiculous offer of a Dustbowl homestead in a valley where the virgin sagebrush stood higher than a man’s head.

But the Claudsons became the heart of that community cobbled together from the dry bones of Dustbowl failures. They helped to establish one of the first churches in Powell. Their little tar-paper cottage was the site of sing-alongs, hunting parties, family reunions and Bible studies. And it boasted the luxury of one of the most beautiful flower gardens in the county.

They dammed up the creek that flowed through their Wyoming place and made a pond. Every winter in the dreariest stretches, they invited the whole church – and everyone else who cared to come – to skate on the frozen pond. Everett would make up a fire on its shore, and Maude would simmer over it an enormous kettle of her homely chili and apple cider to warm their guests inside and out.

Through the generations, our family has enjoyed Great Grandmother Maude’s chili. Even in the leanest times, we can find the ingredients for this simple dish. And in the darkest days, I make her Dustbowl Chili and remind myself that death is not the end. That my forbearers learned to laugh in the face of destruction. And so will I.

Comfort food indeed!

Dustbowl Chili

4 c. dried pinto beans
Sort & rinse the beans. Cover with water. Boil for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the beans soak for 1 hr. Drain.

6 - 12 oz. tomato paste
1 lg. onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3 Tbsp. chili powder
1 - 1 1/2 lbs. ground beef, browned
Add these ingredients to the beans. Cover the ingredients with water. Simmer until beans are tender (at least 3 hours). Add

1Tbsp. salt (if you add it earlier, it will prevent the beans from becoming tender)

If you are in a hurry, skip the soaking step. Put everything in a pressure pan and cook at 12 - 15 lbs pressure for about 15 minutes.

Defending Home

So Betty Friedan is dead. But her feminist legacy as set forth in her seminal work, the Feminine Mystique, lives on.

Betty Friedan encouraged women to realize that there is more to life than a spotless floor, but she did so by denigrating the institution that could really liberate women: the home. Friedan's view of home as the place where women are trapped into a vicious "passive dependency" (The Feminine Mystique, Chapter 12) inhabited by:

"American housewives – their emptiness, idleness, boredom, alcoholism, drug
addiction, disintegration to fat, disease, and despair after forty, when their
sexual function has been filled"

leaves women with the notion that no intelligent, interested or even sane woman could hope to find useful employment, let alone fulfillment as a wife or mother.

Christians have rightly resisted the masculinization of women, but oddly, many have done so by characterizing the home in many of the same terms as Friedan did. Consider Friedan's description of a woman's life at home:

"Housewives are mindless ... ; They are trapped in trivial domestic routine
and meaningless busywork within a community that does not challenge their
intelligence. Housework is peculiarly suited to the capabilities of
feeble-minded girls; it can hardly use the abilities of a woman of average or
normal human intelligence."

And consider this Christian description urging women to stay at home in order to avoid sin:

"We need to be aware that we may be in danger of becoming a busybody. Is our
house clean? Are our children properly cared for? Is the laundry done? Is our
husband happy? Is that dinner carefully prepared or is it thrown together in a
mad dash to get something on the table at the last minute? Maybe we can get our
most honest answer from our husbands or our children. Will they say, "Actually,
Mom, it seems like you're on the phone all the time." Or "Honey, I asked you to
make sure my laundry was finished. But it seems you were on the computer too
long today because I have no clean underwear....A busybody goes from house to
house "tattling." We can go from "house to house" in many ways these days! We
have the telephone, fax machine, grocery store, homeschooling groups,
playgroups, church, and the most dangerous - email!!!! "

The difference is that Friedan thought it was a bad thing, and these Christians think it is wonderful.

While we can respect the patriarchal-Christians for their desire to obey Scripture, we must not simply take their interpretations uncritically. We will hardly entice women back home if they think the most challenging thing there is making sure her husband has clean underwear. Or if they fear that the normal commerce of life is the siren-call of sin, and that learning will make them proud, lazy busy-bodies.

Women today need a new liberation - a liberation from the idea of home put forward both by the feminist movement and by uber-patriarchal Christians. Defending Home will become a new series here, exploring the flawed pre-suppositions of feminism and scouting out the real scope of home. Along the way, we'll meet some more Professional Mothers, women who understand that in fundamental ways, home is the truest hall of power, the sweetest call to service and the loveliest work of art.

What are you doing from home?

There is more

In the intellectual mileu of contemporary culture, there's a lot of homage paid to the eastern idea of contentment. Indifference as contentment. Numbness as serenity. Death in life.

Some days this idea looks like a good alternative to feeling the longing and disappointment that are part of living in a fallen world. You know the days I mean. The days of caring for a demented aging parent while the relatives, who should be helping, criticize. The days of training a child who refuses to seize on anything or who rejects God's ways. The days of loving someone God has irrevocably placed in your life whose needs and demands are never satisfied. The days of praying without seeing an answer.

Eastern deadness provides a way to endure with patience trials of this sort. "I can stand it because nothing matters." "I can stand it because everything is illusion." But it is just that - death. Escape from reality.

Christ on the cross refused the draft that would have numbed His sensibilities and lessened His pain. He refused to escape from reality. He endured because He had a larger sense of reality. This present suffering is not the last word. It's not the whole picture.

Christian contentment does not consist of going numb (we miss the joy as well as the sorrow). It does not consist of minimizing reality. It consists of affirming that there is more. There is a heaven and an eternity in which longings will be fulfilled and sufferings will not only make sense, but will bear fruit that could not be seen from here.

Christian contentment is a journey to a larger world. There is more....

Ladies in Waiting

Visiting friends in the blogosphere, I came across Radical One's request for encouragement for her teen-aged daughters who are finding most of the young men in their circles too passive to initiate a relationship, and generally unpromising as future mates. They are feeling lonely and isolated. They are wondering if they should initiate things or???

I, too, have two teen-age daughters who have struggled in many of the same ways as yours have. They are no strangers to feeling isolated by their resolve to remain fully who they are and fully feminine. And there are several things that I think they would say have helped them.

1) Stay away from church youth groups that center on entertaining the young people and/or are full of teens couple-ing up and changing partners frequently. This just brings the romantic stuff to the fore before its time. None of these kids are ready for marriage. They are playing with fire. And it makes young people who are centered on preparation for real life look and feel so terribly isolated.

2) Seek to get acquainted with young men in the context of working on a project that your daughters are passionate about. Work normalizes a relationship. There is a common goal, something beyond merely looking into one another's eyes and sighing. Work gives both young people a glimpse into the ordinary exercise of their strengths and weaknesses. Work often involves families, which allows everyone concerned to see each other in their natural settings without the pressure of courtship or dating. Work gives everyone the freedom to complement and to enjoy one another without a romantic context.

3) Find friends both male and female who will strengthen your resolve to wait. Check out the wonderful teens who make up the community centered on the Rebelution website. http://www.therebelution.com/

4) Remember that there are worse things than being lonely. Namely, being surrounded by people who mock your resolve or encourage self-centered foolishness. And there are far worse things than being single. Namely, being married to a man who is uncomfortable with his masculinity or with your femininity.

5) Resist the temptation to view the time before marriage as primarily a time of waiting or of being warehoused. There are vitally important things that young women need to be doing while they have no pressing responsibilities to a husband and children. There is no waiting for life to begin. There are only ever-widening spheres of influence. This is a concentrated time of preparation and productivity.

What are your secrets to raising powerful, contented and feminine girls?

Exonerating the End of the Spear

Hurrah for our side! Randy Alcorn at Eternal Perspectives has done what someone with access to the folks at Every Tribe Entertainment should have done long ago. He has actually talked to the Christian brothers at ETE to ask for their perspective and rationale behind hiring Chad Allen for the major role in End of the Spear.

I could rehash it again, but you can read it from the original source. He has posted his interview and an excellent commentary at Eternal Perspectives.

Suffice it to say that most of the reports that ETE knowingly hired a homosexual to play Nate and Steve Saint were echoes of the Sharper Iron blog, which quoted what the homosexual magazine the Advocate said about the hiring. I had been part of spreading that story. I want to be part of setting it straight, as the author of Sharper Iron, Jason Janz, is currently working to do.

If you read my post, Falling on Our Own Spears, please be sure to read Randy's healing articles at Eternal Perspectives. And please pray for the families who have been hurt by the controversy.

Gentlemen?

Is there anything more rare than a truly gentle man? Or more wonderful? He's the guy who could kick the door down - and has been sufficiently provoked to justify it - but he won't. Instead, he shoulders the provocateur aside with sublime indifference and holds that door open for his sister.

He refuses the temptation to pick petty quarrels. He scorns the invitation to scorn. His mind and heart leave mere self indulgence in the dust of his initiatives to serve and to build. He looks beyond each irritation or setback for the opportunity to rescue another - especially when no one is looking.

I've been considering how to recover this ideal concretely for my son. My pastor says that boys need to be filled with visions of what we want them to achieve. Lacking loads of examples in contemporary society, we turn to former ages, when they drew their portraits from life.

If your boys haven't read Beau Geste by P. Christopher Wren, run, don't walk to the library to get it! The four main characters, two orphaned upper-class English youths and two retired Texas Rangers, are just such gentlemen. They sacrifice their lives to protect the honor, peace and safety of an elderly aunt, a foolish girl, fallen comrades and the manor's poor. Sounds like a sentimental morality play, but you'll laugh till your face hurts. (Dickens would neither understand nor approve.)

Second-Hand Lions is a recent movie in the same vein. The two old brothers remind me poignantly of my Grandfather and great uncles. The brothers find new purpose at the worn-out end of life protecting a scrawny, un-promising boy from criminal neglect and teaching him how to be a real man.

So much for visions. I'm taking a page from my dear friend's book to give our sons a feel for taking care of others from a masculine perspective. She helps her son practice in public by giving him the father's role in the father's absence. For instance, she sends her son to the grocery register or restaurant counter with the money and everyone's order rather than doing it herself. She asks him to lead in prayer when Dad is not around, and encourages him to provide masculine comforts to the family, like lighting a fire or grilling the chicken or seeing what's broken and fixing it.

It has often been noted that Jesus was a gentleman, but it is not often enough understood to have been a radical posture. He treated women like real people. His expressed concern during His final extremity was for the welfare of His mother. He spent His life refusing the provocations of men, institutions and demonic powers, determined not to be diverted from doing all the good His Father sent Him to do. Sure, He could have kicked the door down, leveling the corrupt religious and political officials. But instead, He shouldered His provocateurs aside with sublime indifference and held the door to eternal life open for His Bride.

Share with us your best ideas for raising gentle men.

You're It!

Someone should do a sociological study about the games people invent to play on the internet. I'm not talking about the ubiquitous game sites that dot the ether like Las Vegas casinos. I'm talking about the virtual equivalents of Kick-the-Can and Hide-and-Seek. Being tagged for a meme lets you know just which block you can play on, and reminds you not to take this blog stuff so seriously....

Carol at She Lives says its my turn to be IT.

Four Jobs You've Held

1. Music teacher
2. Crisis pregnancy counsellor
3. International homeschool consultant
4. Silversmith

Four Places You've Lived

1. On my Great-Grandparents' Wyoming homestead (OK, only for a month in the summers when I was growing up, but it was deeply formative for me.)
2. In a steamy Washington, DC suburb apartment
3. At the foot of the Rockies in Colorado
4. Narnia, Middle Earth, Trantor, Neverland, Athens, Troy, Jerusalem (No these were not vacations)

Four Vacations You've Taken

1. Snowmobiling in Yellowstone Park
2. Sailing up the Chesapeake Bay
3. Visiting friends in Moscow, Russia
4. Reading, hiking and Scottish Country Dancing in Estes Park

Four Vehicles You've Owned

1. A 10-speed racing bicycle (the wonder of my 12th birthday)
2. A 60's vintage VW bug (came with my husband)
3. A remote control Lego stealth-robot (but I had to give it to my son for his birthday)
4. An eccentric, elderly Taurus wagon

Four Blogs You Want to Visit and Tag

1. Iris at Sting My Heart
2. Deb at On the Vine
3. Any of the artists at SoulperBlog
4. Karen at Got Me A College Girl

Can you come out and play?

The Resurrection of the Body

There is a macabre new exhibit en route to the Museum of Nature and Science in Denver, BodyWorlds 2: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. These are the plastic-infused bodies of people who donated their bodies to science, displayed in various stages of dissection.

This raises some interesting ethical questions. In the past, people have carefully disposed with the bodies of their dead because they believed that there is something beyond the merely physical about a human being. We have collectively abhorred cultures and individuals which have discarded or eaten their dead. Even now, we recognize some ethical discomfort over displaying centuries-old mummies. The Christian West has even frowned upon cremation, looking forward in its funerary traditions, to the resurrection of the body. So what's up with this display, reported to be one of the world's most popular traveling exhibits?

Is this the ultimate declaration that a human being is exclusively a bag of chemicals? Nothing more than matter? Is it an invitation to understand and to marvel at the wonder of the workings of God's creation? Is it merely voyeuristic? How would one express respect for the people who inhabited these bodies in an exhibit of this kind?

I'd be interested in your thoughts...

A Hungry Worshipper Part 3

To conclude this little study, let's consider how to get from here to there.

This aesthetic leaves a great deal of freedom. But it is largely subjective to the musically untrained. We as a people first need to be trained in worship, by being led and educated by those who have musical training and have studied worship specifically. When a bank wants to train its tellers to recognize counterfeits, they begin by having the tellers handle lots and lots of real cash. Then when the counterfeit passes, the trained hand feels the difference even if it cannot tell precisely which forging techniques were used. This is the same idea. Let people practice lots of thoughtfully and Biblically constructed worship under the direction of ministers who have wrestled with this, not in light of what pleases men, but in light of what pleases God. Then we will recognize the real thing and resist the counterfeit.

The goal is to have a NATION of priests, everyone understanding what is good and beautiful and acceptable in God’s sight, not to perpetuate a hierarchy of snobs.
1. Training in what to sing, how to worship
a. Learn God’s forms by singing Psalms and other songs recorded in Scripture. Not because nothing else is acceptable, but so that we can learn what delights God, and look for other things that have the same life, and even make them ourselves.
b. Study worship as a congregation, especially concentrating on the forms God established and embellished through history, including the glimpse of heavenly worship in Revelation.
2. Training in music itself.
a. Congregations need an accomplished, trained leader. (I Chron 15,16) Note the Davidic requirements for musicians serving the Lord.
1. Musicians were Levites (15: 16-24), i.e. paid members of the priestly tribe. In Nehemiah’s day, not paying the Temple musicians was a serious enough offense that the administrator who withheld their pay was deposed and publicly humiliated (Neh 13:4-13).
2. Chenaniah, the leader was skilled enough to be a teacher (15: 22).
3. They were full-time. (16:6, 37)
4. They were mature adults (I Chron, 23:3), numbered for service assignments from age 30.
5. They were purified and set apart for their work as any other Levite. (Num 8:5-14) And so must any of us purify our hearts if we expect to offer acceptable praise to the Lord.
c. Leader should be able to train others and to screen worship music. Apparently, even David submitted his poetry to the appointed Levite in charge of music before it was used in worship (see Ps headings).

I look forward to the day when Christians will join together gladly in glorious worship that is both pleasing to God and nourishing to men.

Falling on Our Own Spears

“If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" (I Cor.14:8)

My thanks to Spunky for pointing me to the controversy surrounding The End of the Spear. Spunky wrote in a comment to my post:

I was all excited about seeing this movie until I heard that Chad Allan is gay
and an outspoken advocate for the gay lifestyle. He is using his noteriety from
this film to promote his gay lifestyle. I am now very conflicted. I want to see
this movie but the idea of watching him play Nate and Steve Saint clouds it for
me greatly. I don't know that I can sit through the movie without wondering what
Nate would be thinking about who played him.

It’s true. Far from giving Christians an opportunity to join together to celebrate the victory of Christ in the Waodani culture, and to make a statement concerning their preference for wholesome entertainment, Every Tribe Entertainment has handed us yet another opportunity to appear contentious and narrow-minded on the one hand or welcoming to the gay agenda on the other. (Of course there is always the clueless option, which was mine last week.)

In casting a gay actor to play Nate Saint and his grown son, Steve, Every Tribe Entertainment not only knew of the actor’s sexual preference, but also knew of his activism. So apparently, ETE wanted this controversy, mistakenly equating the reconciliation between the missionary families and the Waodani killers with a reconciliation between the Christian and the homosexual communities.

This equation cheapens Christ’s victory in the Waodani tribe, because while homosexuals take pride in flauting God’s ways, the Waodani had repented and renounced their destructive ways. So the reconciliation between Steve Saint and Mincayani was a reflection of their true reconciliation to God. But a “reconciliation” between Christians and unrepentant homosexuals would only be an accommodation of sin.

The message is not the messenger. If we insist on only considering art produced by stainless artists, we will have to live in the wilderness. However, from this vantage point, I am very conflicted about recommending this movie. It is a powerful story of the triumph of God’s love over a savage, hopeless people. And it is beautifully, intriguingly executed. But ETE has courted this controversy rather than fleeing unnecessary conflict.

If you need more information to make your own decision, try these links:
Albert Mohler

A Hungry Worshipper Part 2

Today, I'm continuing my meditation on worship and music. I'll conclude in the next post.

What is your belief concerning worshipping in spirit & mind? (I Cor 14:14-17) Does this verse apply to music? If so, how?
A. I Cor 14:14-17 Paul’s admonition
1. Paul addresses the Corinthian’s practice of using the techniques of the pagans to arrive at a spiritual/emotional state of excitement in worship, which leaves behind understanding. We observe the same techniques today in use among the cults. Use of same chanted or spoken phrase over & over until a trance-like state is induced.
2. The same effect is observed when in Christian worship, a short chorus is repeated over & over to produce elevated emotional responses. The emotion isn’t the problem. The lack of content/understanding, according to Paul, is. God’s Holy Spirit isn’t truly manifested unless our spirits, minds and emotions are fully engaged. Worship ought to be one of the most intense emotional experiences of life, but the emotional aspect isn’t the focus of worship, it is a side-effect of worshipping well.
B. Application to music
1. God has included in His word a hymnal – the Psalms. If we want to learn how God likes to be praised, we ought to look at the songs He wrote Himself. (not advocating only Psalm –singing. But we ought at least to be familiar enough with the Psalms to model our praises on them)
2. Characteristics of Psalms
a. Complex ideas (Ps 136) even when repetition is used.
b. Deep emotions: pain, sorrow (Ps 137, 130), wonder (Ps 8), exultation (Ps 46). Not surface, smiley-faced ditties. Not merely sentimental.
c. Focus on God’s character, work, & intervention rather than our goodness, works, our feelings at the moment, etc. It’s an education in Who God is.
3. These Ps engage the whole person. They do not appeal to any one aspect of our psyches at the expense of any other. In true praise, we offer our whole beings to God as a “living sacrifice.”(Rom 12:1-3)
4. Surely this is part of what is meant by, ”they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth”(Jn 4:23), that is, with mind, spirit, and heart in balance. Jesus said this in answer to the woman at the well, who asked Him to choose between the dead tradition of then-current Jewish worship and the pagan syncretistic worship of the Samarians. We are in a similar position. Much of traditional conservative worship is simply dead, but much of more charismatic worship is a syncretistic blend of modern Hollywood, pagan methodology and Christian lyrics. Jesus refused to choose either, but instead pointed her to the character of God, the truth of His Word, and His work in men’s behalf. (Jn 4:21-24) We would do well to use the same standard.

III. Does biblical worship demand a certain aesthetic in worship music? If so, what are its characteristics? How can we insure that we accomplish this aesthetic norm?
A. Check biblical examples of worship – (I Chron.15,16; Rev) We aren’t bound to some outdated, legalistic reenactment of ancient forms of worship. However, if we want a biblical basis for what we do, “proof-texting” won’t help. We must study the forms God laid out for us and apply the principles of those models to modern life.
1. Biblical songs use great variety of musical forms: antiphony (Ps 136; Neh. 12: 31-43, 2 choruses on each side of the city atop the wall), unison (2Chron. 5:13 musicians played as one at dedication of Solomon’s Temple), processional chanting ( 1 Sam 10:5, Ps 68: 24-26), sonata (Rev 4:8-5:14 exposition, 4:8-11; development 5:9-11; recapitulation, 5:12-13).
2. The Bible records the use of a great variety of musical ensembles: whole congregation accompanied by instruments (I Chron. 15, 16; 2 Chron. 5, Rev 5: 11,12), men’s chorus with instruments (Rev. 5:8-10), men’s & women’s chorus answering antiphonally (Ex 15:20), duet (Judges 5 Deborah & Barak, this was informal worship).
3. Bible is largely silent about music theory, however, there are a number of musical types which are censured. These tend to be described in a manner which is accessible to all kinds of readers, both those who are musically trained and those who are musically illiterate, namely they are described by their effect on the worshippers.
a. Ex 32 – Israelites’ orgy around the golden calf. Music produced chaos, breakdown of morals, frenzy, “noise of war” (v. 17 &18)
b. Amos 5:21-6:6 – Israel offered worship offensive to God including music that encouraged sensuality, selfishness, and self-sufficiency; and suppressed the passion for justice for the afflicted and for righteousness in general. The particular focus seems to be the actual music, rather than the words.
B. Application to modern worship aesthetics
1. As the Bible records with commendation a great variety of musical ensembles, including both vocal and instrumental musicians, and both men and women, we must do likewise.
2. As the Bible records a great variety of musical forms without any pejorative, we must also take care to admit a variety which will musically carry all the themes appropriate to worship. As the Bible also records some kinds of music that are actually offensive to God, we must be careful to discern and exclude those types of music as well.
a. Music, like the entire worship experience, must draw attention to God, not to the performers or worshippers. (See the biblical lyrics we have just studied.) This is why traditionally, choir lofts have been above, behind or screened off from the congregation, and the communion table, cross & Bible have held the center of the sanctuary, with the pulpit for man’s commentary to the side.
b. Music itself must carry the words. Majestic words, majestic music. Sad, disturbing music for mourning over sin, etc. Complex ideas, deep emotions not well suited to simplistic, overly repetitive, or sentimental musical phrases. The music as well as the words must reflect the character and work of God.
c. Just as biblical worshippers had to bring the most perfect offering they could find, so we must bring only the most well-written music we can find, led by the most skilled musicians we can find. Good writing is characterized by
1. Distinctive melodies, without excessive repetition
2. Rich harmonies, without excessive predictability
3. Subtle rhythms, subordinate to and supportive of the melody & harmony

Cutting Edge Culture

Chloe over at CatchWord has a good suggestion for this weekend: go see a movie. Actually, go see a particular movie, one that was produced and promoted completely outside of Hollywood, but promises to be a Christian blockbuster.

End of the Spear is the feature film about the Jim Elliot/Nate Saint effect among the Waodani Indians of the Amazon. It focuses on the incredible personal and cultural reconciliation brought about by the missionaries' sacrifice on the banks of the Amazon. See the preview trailers here.

The issues of nudity and violence have been tastefully handled, but the story is quite intense, so the film deserves its PG-13 rating. Your young teens will be inspired, but your younger ones may be overwhelmed.

So thumb your nose at Hollywood. Go see End of the Spear this weekend. Show the Hollywood establishment that a HUGE population of movie-goers would rather see a powerfully wholesome film made by wholesome folks. But, most of all - Enjoy!

A Hungry Worshipper

Deb over at On the Vine has been doing some interesting work on worship. She writes of her longing for an intensity and nourishment in worship that has been largely lost in our day. I can certainly sympathize!

Evangelical Christianity's current passion for meeting unbelievers where they are and serving their needs has some disturbing repercussions for worship. Believers like me (and Deb) feel starved even after a full Sunday of worship. So, where to turn when men fail you? I'm looking in the Scripture for guidance, and invite you to come along.

Some Thoughts on Music in Worship

I. Why do we sing in worship? What is accomplished?
A. Why do we sing?
1. Short answer: Because it is commanded. (Ps 33:1-4, 47:1-7, 81:1-4, 100) If we believe that first & foremost we must honor God in our worship, and not merely please ourselves, then His commands regarding worship must come first in our consideration. Before what it does for us, before understanding how it fits in…. It would be enough for us that He commands singing, but it is not an unreasonable requirement.
2. Why is it commanded?
a. Worship is to be a time when God’s people gather before His Throne to remember, to celebrate and to renew His covenant with them. It is a formal occasion for us as a body to joyfully say ‘Amen’ to His gifts and to rededicate ourselves to His service. It is the primary time when we come together as a family and He comes to us as King. It is not an ordinary event. (Yes, we ought to have more intimate times with God as our Father, but those ought to be daily. Every king’s son must sometime come before his father’s throne and treat him as a king as well as a father. Sunday morning worship is that time for us.) Therefore, it is appropriate that we should use extraordinary means of communicating our response to God. We should not only SAY, ‘How nice!’ We should SING, ‘Alleluia!’
b. Notice in the Ps we just saw, the commands to sing praise are connected either to the fact that singing is the response appropriate to God’s people because of who we are (Ps 33:1 “praise is comely for the upright”..), or it is appropriate because of who God is (Ps 47:1,2 “For the Lord most high is terrible; he is a great King over all the earth.”), or yet again, it is appropriate because of what He has done (Ps 47 continues with His ruling all the earth.. Ps 100 He is our creator, our shepherd. Ps 34 David calls, “O magnify the Lord with me, & let us exalt his name together,” and rehearses how God delivered him from his enemies..)

B. What is accomplished?
1. We please God by offering praise & honor in the way that He commanded.
2. We engage with God and His gifts to us as participants in His command performance, rather than as spectators at an entertainment event in our honor (congregational singing).
3. We engage our whole selves in response to God’s person & works – body, mind, emotion, spirit.
4. We engage as a body rather than as individuals, i.e. we respond to God’s covenant as a covenant body. It unites us in praise. (congregational singing)
5. We are assisted to lift fallen, resisting hearts to the task of worship (‘special’ music).
6. We are given God’s word on the tips of our tongues, assuming we sing Scripture and right doctrine. Music is a memory aid.
7. We are trained in courtesy and beauty, not only to give honor to God, but also to give honor outside worship to whom honor is due.
8. We are given a glimpse of the glory of the King and His Kingdom. This strengthens us to go out into the everyday world and do the works of our Father.

Digesting

We could spend hours looking for mentors, comrades and encouragement in the blogosphere - or you could just check out some of these creative, Christian digests.

Mark over at the Best God Blogs combs the blogosphere for the best Christian posts in any category. He posts his digest several times a week, with little teasers about the articles to which he links. He also takes recommendations from readers.

Every Sunday, The Rebelution selects their "post of the week" for your weekend delight.

And then there are the Carnivals. These moveable feasts are hosted from week to week by different bloggers, but their traveling location can always be found at their instigators' site. The Carnivals usually post a weekly digest of the most fascinating articles on a focused set of subjects. Carnivals usually post on the midweek internet doldrum day: Wednesday.

For a respite from the ugly and frenetic, try the Carnival of Beauty sponsored by Two Talent Living. Dying for some advice or company as a homeschooler? Try the Carnival of Homeschooling intitiated by Why Homeschool. And then there is the Barnum & Bailey of internet carnivals, the Christian Carnival organized by the Wittenberg Gate (look in the sidebar for carnival information). This enormous forum sports Christian opinion from across the theological spectrum.

So bring your appetite and try some of these digests. There's plenty to chew on.

Crack of Dawn

Things looked black. (Of course, at mid-life the easiest color to see is black. Something about the hormones.) We were praying around the breakfast table and I was wondering what more I could say to God after 25-30 years of no answer while difficulties escalate about the things that trouble me most. (on a scale of "peace-be-still" to the Apocalypse, we are now somewhere around Noah's Flood. Think fast! The children are watching.)

It was my son's turn. "Lord, thank you because you never destroy something unless you are going to build it up again better than before," he prayed, echoing something my husband had said some months ago at our family Bible study. I realized that this was not the first time my son had prayed this way. He really believes it, even though he has observed that some of these painful things have only gotten worse.

And the sun rose.

Homeschool for Socialization

"You're homeschooling? Do you ever let Johnny out of the closet? Does Jane have any friends? What about socialization?"

Wanna peek at homeschool socialization? The real inside story...

My teens and I (plus an honorary-Anderson-for-the-week) traveled to an out of state debate tournament. During the flight, the young people traded evidence and expertise, testing each other's reasoning, even though they knew they would likely face off against each other sometime during the tournament.

We roomed, not in a scantily-chaperoned hotel, but in the homes of perfect (and I do mean perfect) strangers from the San Diego homeschool community. But we quickly grew to be perfect friends. Our hosts were an extended family of grown-up homeschoolers, siblings and their spouses, whose infants were too young to benefit (except for the cuddles and dances with my debaters) from hosting a bunch of teenagers.

Though they live scattered across the city, the clan C still function like an old-fashioned family. Two generations now work together, re-investing in the community that launched these young parents. They find themselves gathering at Mom and Dad's place to cheer their favorite football teams or to plot their next service project. The whole family turned up to help with judging the tournament.

We girls stayed with Emily and Andy in their freshly remodeled bungalow carved into a suburban hillside with a glittering view across a morning-side valley. Emily is a vivacious young mother, designing House-Beautiful kitchen make-overs and women's Bible studies with equal aplomb. Andy is a wickedly funny gentleman, who rose early every morning to escort us safely down his vertiginous driveway, and stayed up late to shuttle our boys to their digs across town so that the girls could get a little extra rest.

They showed us land-locked mountain-dwellers the near-by beaches where we could explore sea caves and laugh at the lolling seals, or simply dream over the rainbow crowned surf exploding over the cliffs at our feet. Emily kept tucking extra treats into the debaters' lunches, and Andy initiated us into the mysteries of their gourmet coffee maker so that we could have brewed-to-taste coffee no matter what time it was.

The boys reported similar hospitality tucked into David and Joli's condo hidden among the rhodedendrons. David, armed with board games to dispel the boys' pre-tournament jitters, was chagrined to find our guys already sleeping the sleep of the just, shirts ironed for morning efficiency and showers done. Joli, not a morning person, was nevertheless found in the dark of the morning turning out creamy-crisp french toast from her belgian waffle iron.

The tournament itself was a hubbub of two hundred-plus homeschool students from all over the country. There were squeals of delight as old friends collided into orbital hugs. And online acquaintances lit up as they recognized digital sparring partners, "So it's you - in the flesh! I thought you'd be taller."

Unlike the fully-socialized debate squad of my public high school youth, these teams met between rounds to encourage, to strategize and to fortify each other with throat lozenges and Jamba Juice. That done, they could be found hunched over tables with teams from other states, discussing theology, current events and how to take over the world, while swilling coffee. For stress relief, they teach each other their newest swing steps or how to play Whist like Jane Austin. And whenever a piano can be found, someone will sit down to improvise some hot jazz or to gather the singers of Broadway hits and classic hymns.

When the eliminations are announced, winners turn to thank losers for helping them to hone their skills and solicit their losing teammates' advice about their upcoming finals rounds. Losers graciously congratulate winners and race to find the brief that will trounce the case their teammate will face. Sure, there are the abusive louts who think they made it to the top on their own, and who don't care who they crushed to get there. But those are the exception rather than the rule. And nobody is fooled when those debaters ostentatiously ask their opponents to pray with them before the round - as long as the judge sees it.

After the trophies were handed around, everybody went out to celebrate over a communal meal at a quickly-overcrowed local restaurant. Alumni of the program, returning as judges and administrators, congregated in one section, reminiscing and trading recommendations about life after homeschool. They were planning their next cultural initiative, coordinating across state borders and denominational lines. It may qualify as a conspiracy.

Winter of the Mind

ESPALIER

Stripped bare, all twigs and bark,
Sap slow,
Primal essetials shed leafy ephemera.
Pride pruned,
I bank fire for full-bloomed Spring.
(Kim Anderson 2006. All rights reserved.)

Gardeners prefer to prune in fall and winter when the sap is sluggish and a cut won't bleed the tree to death. They prune when leafless summetry is displayed without distractions, in time to allow the tree to hoard its strength for spring's opportunities.

Then there are the bonfires, the last glory of withered Christmas greens and misshapen garden limbs alike.

God is a patient Gardener, One who knows the value of gathering winter. This snow-banked pause at the turn of the year crystallizes God's invitation to cooperate with His pruning. What stays? What goes? And will I dance in the firelight as the things that sap my strength go up in smoke?

The Season Begins

We have just returned from the first speech and debate tournament of the season. We find that involving the children in competition provides a healthy dose of accountability (The speech has to be ready in time for the tournament.) and an incentive to progress quickly up the steep learning curve of communication excellence (If I do well on this, I don't just get an A, I get a trophy - in front of my friends!).

But the very best things that come out of competing in the National Christian Forensics and Communication Association, are the character development and the relationships. Our children have the opportunity to practice saying what needs to be said, even at some personal cost, and build a network of comrades who will stand with them when the boom falls.

Victory

"Are you going to be all right?" Lauren's flaming hair swinging off her shoulder curtained this private concern as a cacophony of self-congratulations and farewells swirled around the still center of the two friends. Elizabeth looked at her folded ballots, considering.
Roughly roused babies fussed. Toddlers, too long confined under their mothers' command to silence, wailed their relief. Teens in stage make-up and skewed wigs wrestled cardboard castles and desert sunsets into dusty oblivion in the family pickup.
The county junior-senior high talent competition had featured everything from MTV-style dance routines to classic melodramas, monologues to fully-staged casts-of-thousands. But the only time during the five-hour spectacle when the entire surging, shushing sea of spectators had preserved a rapt silence, had been when Elizabeth took the stage.
It had been an exquisitely executed original monologue detailing the young woman's struggle to find an identity of uniquely feminine power and maturity. She spoke from the maiden's yearnings, from the loving admonitions of mothers, and finally, she spoke with the voices of women millennia-old, upon whose courage and sacrifice the golden age of Greece had been built. Her conclusion? To aspire to motherhood is to seize on the secret dynamo of human society. As she took her bow, there was a long moment of perfect quiet. Next to me, a woman hiccoughed and buried her face against her swaddled infant. A sighing tide had shuddered through the room, swelling into breakers of applause.
Elizabeth unfolded her judges' evaluations. Blazoned in red: "choose a more age-appropriate theme, like dating," "Perhaps your costume could be more matronly," and in sum, "fair to average performance."
Anne, Elizabeth's younger sister, had joined the two. Fresh from her delightful performance of a Kipling story, she clutched the first trophy of her own forensics career: Best Actress. "I don't understand," Anne put in loyally, reading over Elizabeth's shoulder, "You deserve this more than I do."
"Are you going to be all right?" repeated Lauren, whose wickedly funny rendition of C.S. Lewis' ditsy Tarkheena Lazaralene had received equally ignominious treatment.
"Oh, yes," Elizabeth's eyes were over-bright. "If I had just wanted to win, I would have given my humorous speech. But this was my first chance to speak to a secular audience, and I thought that this was something they needed to hear."
The three girls clung together. Branded by the county's scorn they might be. But they wore their crowns of compassion, courage, and humility undimmed.

Kim Anderson
April 2002. All rights reserved.

Limiting Chaos

I have been relishing the challenge of this week's Carnival of Beauty topic: the Beauty of Limits. Have you noticed how often beauty arises within limits, where none was visible before? Ordinary life crowds in all around us, and we seldom notice anything spectacular, but a visionary with a camera imposes the limits of a tiny frame on reality and suddenly - beauty!

Moderns have forgotten this. We tend to think that good only rises from natural chaos. (I believe we have Darwin to thank for this nonsense. The Ancients knew better.) Our art reflects it from John Cage's experiments in musical chaos to the midden-heap of random poetry.

Moderns have particularly forgotten that limits create forms, and that forms themselves carry meaning. Deliberately formless expression can only carry a couple of meanings:
"I, as a human being, refuse to "replenish the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28); or
"Look, randomness is actually impossible."

Limits actually make possible multi-layered delights; beauty within beauty. Watch. C.S. Lewis' little verse imbedded in his Pilgrim's Regress describes Hell:

God in His mercy made
The fixed pains of Hell.
That misery might be
stayed,
God in His mercy made
Eternal bounds and bade
Its waves no
further swell.
God in his mercy made
The fixed pains of Hell.

Lewis argues that Hell is like a "tourniquet on the wound through which the lost soul else would bleed to a death she never reached. It is the Landlord's last service to those who will let him do nothing better for them." And his poem is shaped like a tourniquet: the couplet "God in His mercy made/The fixed pains of Hell", binds up the poem at beginning and end. The rigid rhyme scheme and rhythm emphasise the strength of the bounds God places on misery. And, in the tradition of the ancient chaiastic poets (like David of Israel), Lewis places the most important point at the center of the poem, "God in His mercy made", framed by balancing ideas on either side like pairs of parentheses working out to the edges of the poem.

You just can't get that much meaning, that much beauty into such a small package without using limits. Limits are the antidote to ennui, as poetic forms are the antidote to grey prose. When life seems flat, an undistinguished sequence of hours and days, perhaps it is because we have too few limits.

The Sky's the Limit

On the eve of the New Year the limit of 2005's blessings and banes, I've been thinking about the star of the Magi. I'm not sure whether it was one of many natural phenomena that have been suggested or a manifestation of the Shekinah glory like the pillar of fire that Israel followed in the wilderness. But the question remains: How did the Magi know to follow the star?

(Gen. 1:14-18) "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day."

The Magi were practiced observers of all the heavenly bodies they could see. The sun and moon set limits on the day and the night; and all the stars have fixed patterns of motion. It is what God made them for. Suddenly, there appeared a deviation. The terra firma of time and space had been altered. Who wouldn't, given the resources, want to discover the cause of this cosmic change?

But there was more. Something about the timing, placement and motion of the star clued the Magi that this alteration had significance in terms of human kingship, divine visitation, and life-and-death. Their conviction was displayed in their gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. They may have guessed this by studying the works of Daniel, who had lived among them centuries before. But they certainly knew it by studying the works of God in the limits of the sky.

Unlike the Magi, my generation has spent enormous energy dissing the value of limits of any kind. What poverty! This generation is no longer able to discern events or changes of importance unless they appear in tabloid headlines wearied with a catalog of detail. The liturgies of nature, courtesy, poetry, human relationships, worship, music, all have ceased to speak to us, because we deny there is a language beyond bare proposition.

My New Year's resolutions this year will have to do with recovering the grammar of limits, learning the steps of the dances all around us that lead us, like Bethlehem's star to the side of the Dayspring. I will look up. The sky's the limit.

Delightful Incongruities

Have you ever noticed that the things you do for your children often end up being the things that most feed your soul?

I started coaching speech and debate so that my children would have a challenging gifted-and-talented project and peer group. I ended up with my own wonderful intellectual challenges and peers I hope to enjoy for the rest of my life.

I started blogging in order to understand how to help my children develop online ministries and businesses. I have ended up loving it myself, and finding an extraordinary company of Christians and homeschoolers who minister to me inspiration, comaraderie, encouragement... And now you have elected Mother-Lode as Best Homeschool Mom Blog!

You are amazing! I am grateful! And once again, God shows His sense of fun!

Nurturing Daughters

Kudos to Karen & Mollie, a mother-daughter team over at Got Me A College Girl for tackling the controversial subject of educating Christian women. They do it with sensitivity and style, and the commentary conversations are really wonderful.

As a mother to two involved, academically-minded high school daughters, I have thought long and hard about this question. Much of what I've read in the Christian reaction to radical feminism is just that - a reaction. While there's a lot to react against in the feminist perspective, the current Christian reaction leaves us feeling that after high school a godly father should essentially warehouse his daughter until he finds a husband for her.

It seems there are two fundamental misconceptions underlying this flawed idea of Christian womanhood. 1) A girl's preparation for life should have more to do with her office as a wife & mother than it does with who she is as a creation of God. 2) Being a "Keeper at Home" involves nothing more than cooking, cleaning and childbearing.

To the first misconception, I submit that training up a daughter to be a wife and mother should primarily have to do with developing the daughter herself, as faithful stewards together of her gifts. Since no one knows precisely what her husband will need, we really have no alternative as faithful stewards except to focus on making the most of what God has given to that daughter. To withhold higher education from a daughter who is intellectual is not only to despise that gift of God, but also to endanger that daughter's pure heart toward her father.

It seems to me that warehousing an able, intellectual daughter will tempt her to such despair and rage that she will either rush into an unwise marriage merely to be able to move on in life, or she will ditch the whole godly family vision as tyrannical. I know a number of young women struggling between these very temptations. Indeed this strategy may produce the very things the Christian patriarchy advocates (and I, too) want to avoid: young women who are less likely to have stable marriages and less likely to raise children.

To the second misconception, I offer the notion that daughters must be taught to view college, not as an alternative to marriage, but as a further preparation for what she will be called to do IN her marriage. In my 25 years as a keeper at home and a help-meet for my husband I have been called on not only as a cook, cleaning-woman, and child-bearer, but also as a foreign-missions fundraiser, a public relations officer, a lobbyist both domestic and international, a teacher, a musician, an artist, a beekeeper, an accountant, a Bible study leader, a recording artist, a writer, an accountant, a landscape and interior designer, a gourmet chef and corporate hostess, a school administrator, a journalist, a jewelry designer, a theater director, a costume designer & seamstress, a conference speaker, a translator, a child-development specialist and confidant... I could never have been what my husband needed without my college degree. Nor have I ever had what the world would call a career. I have borne six children and have been privileged to raise three to the glory of God.

Our family's financial situation has been such that I have needed to make significant financial contributions to the family income. My college degree has given me the scope and the credibility to be able to make those contributions from home, while maintaining a homeschool and training the children in various cottage industry enterprizes.

Our daughters plan to homeschool their children (God and their husbands willing). My grandchildren's educations may be curtailed by the decisions we make concerning giving our daughters a higher education. Our daughters may be widowed early. Dare we withhold from them training and verification of achievement (ie. a degree) that could enable them, in those circumstances, to continue to stay home with their children and make ends meet?

Our daughters' worth ought not be measured by the number of her degrees and the prestige of her career, but neither should it be measured by how thoroughly she has been conformed to a romantic one-size standard of femininity. In the Christian community, we all want the same thing: a restoration of strong, godly families led by self-sacrificing, caring fathers and supported by creative, faithful mothers. But we cannot achieve this either by insisting that every daughter be kept from college or that every daughter be pressed into it.

Grow Up!

The homeschool area over at Crosswalk is featuring my article, Homeschool Homocides and the Cult of Youth.

Our culture's idea of adolescence leaves us vulnerable to the follies of youth. We still need more than one generation at a time working on training maturity.

And don't forget! This is the last day to vote for your favorite blogs nominated in the Homeschool Blog Awards!

The Paradox of Blessing

My son faithfully prays over the sore, broken places in our lives, "Lord, we know that when You destroy something, it is only so that You can build it again more gloriously." So it was with the first Advent.

Joseph and Mary had their reputations ruined, their business uprooted to Bethlehem and then to Egypt, their family life disrupted, the guilt of knowing all those Bethlehem children died because of their child...Jesus' own initial loss in the Incarnation is staggering. Infinite divinity pressed into finite flesh. Gone the instant access to and awareness of the loving bonds within the Trinity. No distance from the shame and pain of fallen creation.

We are familiar with the concept that disobedience brings chastisement. But how about the notion that God's blessing often brings sorrow and destruction? What were David's losses when he was anointed King over Israel? He was hunted for over 20 years. And the first Joseph, what were his losses when his gift for interpreting dreams was discovered? He was enslaved in a foreign country for over 20 years.

The scale of the loss is the early predictor of the scope of the re-creation. But the first Advent shows us something new in this balance. Loss isn't the only thing great blessing brings. Right there in the heart of the sorrow is the special presence of Jesus. Fully identified with us in our shame and misery.

Joseph and Mary thought it was compensation enough even though they only glimpsed the Restorations. They held on to the joy in their arms, and lived in the future.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my
Savior.
For He hath regarded the low estate of His
handmaiden;
for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call
me blessed.
For He that is mighty has done to me great
things,
and holy is His name and His mercy is upon them that
fear Him
from generation to generation.
He hath shewed strenth with His arm;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their
hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and
exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things;
and the rich He hath sent empty away.
He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of His
mercy;
as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed
for ever."
(Lk.
1:46-55)

More Holiday Reading

Voting for the first (annual, we hope) Homeschool Blog Awards is on until Dec. 26. The nominees' blogs make for wonderful encouragement, thoughtful reflection, provocative engagement, helpless laughter, soul-filling art, and delightful community. Including, I trust, this blog, which has been nominated in the Best Homeschool Mom category.

The Homeschool Blog Awards is sponsored by SpunkyHomeschool, The Old Schoolhouse, Homeschool Buzz and StillThinking. The voting process is fast and easy thanks to the wonderful homeschoolers at StillThinking. Go! Read! Vote! You'll thank me for introducing you to such interesting new friends.

I have especially enjoyed these nominees' blogs:
CatchWord, a penetrating, beautiful cultural-analysis and arts commentary by a homeschooled teen
SoulPerSuit, an art project cum worship experience (leave your fill-in-the-blank Bible studies at home)
Choosing Home, a collage of women's views on choosing to stay at home creatively
Holy Experience, one mom's view of raising a family as an act of worship
Daddy on Board, comic relief from a homeschool dad
the Confessor, dad as confessor cum detective, who mostly gets the goods on himself
Legal Redux, news digest by a team of homeschooled teens. (US News really needs these guys! And you really need their hilarious Blog Disclaimer - see my sidebar!)
the Rebelution, the Harris twins spark amazing conversations with their cultural commentary....

There are more real gems among the nominees. I'll keep you posted as I have time to peruse them. But don't wait! Go read for yourself!

Sobre-Mesa

My husband often quotes an Arab proverb, "the kitchen is the university". In a home-school family it is more true than usual Our kitchen table as been the foundation for drafting edible topographic maps; building french pastries; designing jewelry; plotting birthday kidnappings, election strategies, and murder mystery parties. From it we have served up weekly church potlucks, midnight comfort and fresh perspective. This table has been equally hospitable to old friends, needy strangers and sometime traitors.

Our family's most nourishing traditions gather around this table. Here my husband and I share a dark-of-the-morning coffee to plan the day. Here my children and I gather for breakfast devotions. And of course it is the center of the old Southwest sobre-mesa.

Sobre-mesa is the extended conversation after the main meal of the day. We all sip our coffee slowly and consider. Every topic is fair game, and everyone is expected to bring a topic of interest to the table. Our sobre-mesas range from poetry recitations to political debate to plans and hopes. It is a time when we can try out controversial proposals or work out knotty problems without fear of censure. It is an opportunity to practice supportive candor and to delight in the minds and characters of those around the table.

Over the years, our table has become rather shabby. Scorched, scratched, stained, the abused cherry wood had become a liability. The last time Elizabeth brought home a drop-in guest from her community college class, I squirmed as we poured the chai. All the tablecloths were in the washer.

But last week, the children and I drug home (much later than usual) from our debate club to a pungent fragrance that wasn't the dinner that should have been simmering. It was the smell of fresh varnish. Gleeful mischief shone in the children's faces. They had conspired with my mother to keep us out as long as possible so that mother could complete the table refinishing as a Christmas surprise.

Our table glows like a tiger-eye, not just a wood finish restored, but a tradition restored. It was my mother who passed to me the table-top traditions that she recieved from her mother. We have each added our own improvements. But our traditions all trace their lineage back to a Father and Son who conspired to restore the whole Creation in order to spread their Feast of reconciliation. May our table be a taste of that Table.

A Rare Gem

"Where's the Mercy Seat?" demanded 4-year-old Anne, outraged by the dearth of detail in the Tabernacle diagram we were stdying. Anne has always had a talent for putting us in touch with the esssential question. Isn't this the BIG ONE?

Is there any mercy?
Where will it be found?
With the gods of the Egyptians?
In our own ways and demands?

No, only in the perfumed mystery, gory and glorified, of the Mercy Seat.

We were in the surgery pre-op. 7-year-old Anne shivered in the thin hospital gown, dreading the surgery that would repair the kidneys that had caused her screaming pain and chronic illness. Our pastor had come to pray with her. Leaning down to her level, he asked, "Is there anything you are afraid of?" Wordlessly, she nodded, gulped, and whispered, "God"!

And, actually, she did understand what she was confessing. She had been taught that all things come to her from God, even the difficult things. And that was the hope for her in those difficulties: that the God who had visited the trial upon her would rescue her in it and beautify her by it.

Anne was the one who, at age 9, crept away from the books and games set out to amuse the little ones to crouch, hidden, on the stairway during our ladies' Bible study lest she miss some treasure of learning. Anne was the student who couldn't wait to be old enough to join the debate team, and who earned a spot at the national tournament the moment she turned 12.

Yesterday, Anne turned 16. As she approaches adulthood, she is as much a joy as a friend, as she has been as a disciple. She will always be one of my chief blessings. May God strengthen her with joy for the years ahead, and may she be blessed one day with a child who is as rare a gem as she is.

Mary's Choice

We've all heard the story so many times. The characters become cardboard and take their proper places at the proper times.

I re-read the Magnificat (Lk 1:46-55) today, following the cross references to try to get an idea what meditations had inspired Mary in the early stages of her strange pregnancy.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord"... A quote from Ps 34:2,3. This is a Psalm that David penned when in such desperate fear for his life, he fled to his enemy, Philisitia, where he was recognized as the hero of Israel. So he feigned madness, and was driven out, but he lived.

"My soul doth magnify the Lord"... also a quote from ISam 2:1-10. Hannah's song of thanks as she left her treasured son at the Tabernacle, to be God's dedicated servant.

So as Mary was composing this beautiful poem, she was identifying with the hunted and the despised, and making her choices. I wonder how much of the warm, happy delight that we usually think of as gratitude there was as these three poets offered their praises. Praises in fear. Praises in loss. Praises in rumor and rejection. I think it was a choice, not a feeling.

Creation's True Voice Part 2

Surely, as Christians, we should be looking for ways to give Creation its true voice. The voice that declares the glory of its Creator (Ps. 19). Advent and Christmas give us special opportunities to do so.

So the evergreen tree becomes, not the mere human fertility symbol of the pagans' religion, but the sign of the Divine imparting impossible, eternal Life on a dead world. The pagans' decorate their trees with fruit, symbolizing (again) a hope for fertility. We decorate ours with fruit (what did you think the glass balls were?) as a reminder of our losses in the Garden of Eden, and as a token that once again we are offered the Tree of Life by the One who died on a tree to give us this fruit.

Or perhaps we decorate our trees with Chrismons, emblems of the many titles and honors our Jesus has earned. Our family learned to make Chrismons with our dear friends, the Dows, this summer, while brainstorming a women's retreat on family traditions and holiday merry-making.

And how about those old carols? The Christian tradition was to imitate the angels who could not contain their joy and wonder at the Incarnation. We take to the streets, singing the good news. Actually, our family likes to take gifts and baking to shut-ins and families in need on a caroling night during Advent. After all, we are declaring the coming of the Bread of Heaven, the Gift of God.

What stubborn tangible will you loose to speak its true meaning this season?

Metaphysics

Not since croned Adam cast Creation's burning orb
To harpy-hands' lust for kingship's harvests,
Has this stale world warmed to man's will
Th' immortal meanings it might have held.

Flesh is flesh, grappling visibles whose incorporeal fulcrum's lost,
Steming, aching. Noting more. Never full, never
Speaking the renewing word. Stock answers to the stabled darkness,
"Fodder", "Fold", the dread familiar.

Nt til that one Obedient th' occulted world descried...
Now darkness burns with Beings, Facts far brighter than His star;
The humble, the trembling gil, dirty straw, flesh itself are hallowed here
To God, glad to speak at last the language of His glory.

Incarnate Speech, this simple Child, schools our Yule obedience:
The commonplace gives tongue in candled home and caroled thanks.
So taught, we tame the stubborn tangibles,
Since Bethlehem's Babe first brought the sacrifice of praise.

All rights reserved. Copyright 1980. Kim Anderson