Ed Chinn

Ed Chinn has been published in The Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Atlanta-Journal Constitution, San Jose Mercury, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and other newspapers, magazines, and websites. He is the author of Footprints in the Sea (Cool River Pub, 2009) and New Eyes for a New World (Cool River Pub, 2011). Ed and his wife, Joanne, live in Middle Tennessee.

WR Corvin: A Big Oak

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Like so many of his generation, my dad was scarred from his service in World War 2. As I wrote in my book, Footprints in the Sea, “To his three little boys Dad was often a warrior with no war. We loved him, he was the finest man we ever knew, and we were terrified of him. Like many World War II vets, Dad brought the war home.”

Although I later found friendship with Dad, in those early years, soon after the war, I kept a healthy distance from him. That’s the main reason I left home when I was fifteen. The 218 miles from Pratt, Kansas to 4700 NW 10th in Oklahoma City seemed about right.

I enrolled in our denomination’s Southwestern Bible School (which combined a high school, junior college, and school of theology) in Oklahoma City. And that is where I met W. R. Corvin, the President of the school.

Dr. Corvin was exactly the same age as Dad. But, because of a deformed foot, he missed World War 2. And through that little twist of my history, he became to me what Jack Chinn could not be. In short, he paid attention to me. He took me and my writing seriously. At a perplexing and lonely time in my life, God delivered essential encouragement to me through W. R. Corvin. I often showed him essays and stories I had written. He received every one of them as a gift. And I think he gave me feedback on every one.

His attention elevated me. Because of that, he has remained one of the largest people on the landscape of my life.

One day in his speech class, he suddenly said in front of everyone, “Ed, someday you will write for the glory of God.” I later asked him why he said that. He seemed puzzled: “I don’t know. I just knew I had to say it.” I still don’t know why he said it or if I will ever do it. But I do know what that voice engraved in me.

Because of his great responsibilities, he took several years to complete his dissertation for his Ph.D at OU. Someone once said to him, “W.R., why do you want to do this? You’ll be forty years old before your get your doctorate.” I can still hear that gentle Ada, Oklahoma farm boy twang, “Well, you know, I’m gonna be forty anyway. I’d rather be forty with a Ph.D.”

That wisdom, applicable to everything worth doing, has served me for almost fifty years.

The last time I heard that distinctive nasal vibrato was five and a half years ago at a Southwestern alumni function. The eyes were bright, the smile beaming, and the handshake firm; he could still work a room as he had for decades in his various fundraising roles. But Alzheimer’s had wiped the names and memories away. He introduced himself to me three times.

Dr. Corvin died a few days ago. And his death recalls a line from a letter that Tommy (the Cork) Corcoran wrote to Lyndon Johnson in 1961, on the occasion of Sam Rayburn’s death:

“You and I have had both the advantages and now the disadvantages of early being proteges of big men before us. Once our world was full of older men who were magnificent individuals in the grand manner: many big oaks sheltered us. In this November, they fall fast: we are now ourselves our own front line.”

God, I miss those men.

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Legacy of Laughter

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I watched as my Dad prepared to dismantle and remove an old house from a newly acquired piece of property. Because the house contained a large piano, he began by tearing out an eight-foot section of exterior wall in order to load the piano straight onto a truck bed.

An old man, walking past the property, stopped to watch the work. “Taking the old house out, are ya?” he called out to Dad.

Dad looked at him for a moment and shook his head. “Nah. I’m just moving a piano.”

I laughed that day and many days since. One of Dad’s greatest gifts to his family was his wonderfully dry sense of humor.

Even as he began slipping into Alzheimer’s, his humor often pushed up through his disease like roses budding in the snow. While talking to him several months after his diagnosis, I had trouble remembering the name of an old friend. He wrinkled his forehead, leaned toward me and said so earnestly, “Son, you want me to make you an appointment with my doctor?”

More than once, I’ve watched my Mom struggle to hide her shaking laughter in church because something in a sermon or song struck her funny; I’m sure those around her just thought Mary was moved by the Spirit.

A few years ago, she absentmindedly backed the car right through the garage door. She laughed right to the edge of emotional meltdown. And, when Dad couldn’t quite grasp the humor of the situation, his good-natured stoicism drove her back into the deep caverns of convulsive laughter.

I will always be grateful for the fine example of wholesome living Dad and Mom gave me. One of the finest jewels in that treasure chest is their legacy of wholesome and full-throttle laughter. That heritage of humor will always lift and refresh our family.

No one really knows the essential ingredients of “funny.” That’s because humor, like sorrow, is a deep mystery. It churns down in the depths of our humanness, bubbles up through our chest and then tugs at the corners of our mouth. Sometimes the laughter is too strong; it snorts or tumbles or gushes out in great rolling waves.

A healthy sense of humor is more the result of being properly aligned with life than in knowing what is funny. I’ve noticed that people who live in the extremes of taking life too seriously or not seriously enough usually have a humor deficiency. One has to be centered in life in order to catch those fine glimpses of irony or to see through life’s absurdities.

In fact, the great Bishop Fulton Sheen believed that the foundation of humor is the ability to “see through things.” What a wonderful insight. Most comedians know that surprise is a crucial element in humor; it is the suddenness of seeing through something that causes laughter to erupt like a geyser. In fact, Bishop Sheen said that, “God made the world with a sense of humor, in the sense that we were to see Him through His creation . . .”

We don’t often think of laughter as part of an inheritance; but what better gift could you or I bequeath our descendants?

Doing so doesn’t mean that we must become comedians. A great sense of humor is primarily the result of trust, confidence and resilience. I personally think that a good sense of humor flows from a clear perspective on roles: God’s, mine, yours, as well as those of the various institutions and relationships in society.

Even faced with the crushing issues of our times, people who have ultimate trust in God tend to have a beautiful and appropriate sense of humor. Their reliance on Him enables them to have a light touch. They always seem to see the whimsy or caprice in a moment.

People are especially refreshed and encouraged by the good humor of leadership. Historical leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill and John Kennedy were known for their fine humor in the face of adversity. I think that humor is a vital attribute of leadership; it imparts a subtle confidence that ultimate success is already won. So, we can do our work with joy, not anxiety.

That’s why humor and laughter are essentials in the parenting and grandparenting toolbox. So, go ahead, lighten up. Let God do the heavy lifting. Enjoy the journey. And, may you find the graces and attitudes that will enable you to leave a legacy of laughter.

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Come Outside

2 Comments / Addiction, change, Contemplation, God, Technology / By

A recent Forbes article, How I Improved My Memory Over Lunch (by Kristi Hedges) clearly identifies a serious impairment of modern life. Consider these observations from the article:

“…we’re turning into a society that’s addicted to distraction.

“…we’re losing our ability to think critically, which also chips away at the human need to be contemplative and strategic about our work and our lives.

“…the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain responsible for decision making and control of emotions, goes on hiatus when it gets overloaded. ‘With too much information…people’s decisions make less and less sense.’

“…information retrieval has replaced memory as what passes for knowledge.

“The combination of powerful search facilities with the web’s facilitation of associative linking is…eroding [our] powers of concentration. It implicitly assigns an ever-decreasing priority to the ability to remember things in favor of the ability to search efficiently.”

When God revealed His magnificent plans for Abraham (and the whole earth), the Bible says that He first took Abraham “outside and said, ‘Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.’ And He said to him, ‘So shall your descendants be.’” (Genesis 15:5)

For some reason, we humans seem convinced we can improve on God’s creation. We gravitate toward our own fabricated environments. We build it, burrow into it, become addicted to it, get lost within it, and finally, incarcerated by it.

So, when the Larger Intentions of God come to us, the first thing He says is, “Come outside…” away from what we have manufactured. To even catch a glimpse of eternal purposes, we must stand in the magnificence of the natural order.

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Suddenly

5 Comments / change, death, destruction, Serendipitous, tsunami / By

This 5 minute video of the Japanese tsunami is astonishing. That must be why, to date, it has more than 12 million hits on YouTube.

The footage carries the viewer up over language. I watched it in total silence. But the word that sums it up for me is “suddenly.” As in:

Waves of destruction roll over the land, until it lies in complete desolation.
Suddenly my tents are destroyed; in a moment my shelters are crushed – Jeremiah 4:20

You wake up, shuffle to your coffee pot and carefully enact your morning ritual. You plan your day…meet Diane at Starbucks, drop by the office for a few hours, play golf this afternoon…

All the while something large and shattering is already on the way to your life. You will do nothing you planned. Your life will change, perhaps even end, “suddenly.”

Life’s changing moments are usually outside our control. We all hold the illusion that we can originate or manage change. But, as my friend Rex Miller says, “Real change comes from somewhere else and invades us.” We do not see it coming and we cannot control its content or its pace.

We often forget that good things also come suddenly.

You wake up, shuffle to the coffee pot…not knowing that great wealth or your future spouse or healed relationships are already walking up to your front door.

You will suddenly collide with delirious joy.

The same Bible that records sudden tragedies also recalls a sudden earthquake that shook a prison to pieces, releasing the captives (I wonder how conservatives would view a similar “act of God” in our time).

Perhaps the real challenge is to embrace all the suddenlys as coming from the hand of a kind God.

Even the tsunamis have a way of cleansing and reordering the landscape of life.

Go back to the site of this video in ten years. I can confidently predict that it will reflect the sparkle, shine and great joy of renewal. The earth never turns on itself, never destroys itself. It only dances to the rhythms of renewal.

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Of Gods and Men

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The French movie, Of Gods and Men, tells the true story of a small group of Trappist monks at a monastery in Algeria.

I do not remember ever seeing a movie that is such a perfect description of “The Church.” The monks are clearly “called out” of the “world.” But they also know they are inescapably related to the people of their time and place. As Catholics in a Muslim country, they do not proselytize. They respect and serve everyone; no “us” vs. “them” attitude at all.

And the time and place are being roiled by change. Poverty, government corruption, and terrorism threats are all growing. And they are acutely aware of their increasing age and infirmities. The men feel all kinds of contractions; they know they are being squeezed out of the womb of earth.

The contractions come faster when Islamic terrorists murder some migrant workers nearby. Then the terrorists arrive at the monastery. Decisions must be made. Will they remain at the monastery or will they seek a safe place?

The monks walk in a clear sense of place. They pray, sing, work, get sick, and play here. This furniture, these faces, this land, this village. No consideration of this place as a stepping stone to a better place. They don’t download monastery models that seem to “work” in the seminaries or cities. These men are possessed by a farm country kind of commitment to people and place.

When these devout men take counsel together, every line rings true. We do not hear one ounce of pietism, heroics, or drama. They grapple with real issues, they irritate (and rebuke) each other, they search for truth and direction. But, beyond it all, they rest in the depths of love. For Jesus and for one another.

Near the end, they gather for fellowship around a table. One brother brings wine, a small tape player, and a cassette tape of “Swan Lake.” Facing death, they know that Jesus is their safe place. Just to be with Him together is enough. Without a word of dialogue, we see all we need to know in their laughter and tears as the camera moves around the table. Because I have long known that kind of bond with men, that scene was one of the most resonant things I’ve ever seen in a movie.

Perhaps the most riveting truth of this movie is that the monks refuse to let external pressures mold, motivate, or define them. They are devoted to their Lord, to one another, and to their place. They will do what they do and do it where they live. Why should it be more complicated than that? Why should our role and purpose keep “reinventing” or “innovating” just because of change going on around us?

These men clearly see (and say) that to follow Jesus is to die. So, what is the big deal about facing death…like this afternoon? Wasn’t that bridge crossed long ago?

If anyone ever asks me to recommend a movie that accurately portrays Christian faith, I’ll be quick to point them to this film. Other movies — like A Man for All Seasons, Places in the Heart, or Dead Man Walking — have given brief (and quite wondrous) glimpses. But Of Gods and Men is a long and profound meditation on living by faith.

Of Gods and Men stands as great moviemaking and more. It is a grand portrait of how to live upon the earth: With Him. Here. Now. Together.

NOTE: The title comes from Psalm 82: 6-7: I said, “You are gods, And all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men…”

Perhaps a better translation for the plural “gods” might be “judges” or even “my judges.” In other words, those called by God should live on earth as plumb lines in the midst of vertigo. But they will always be subject to the same rules and conditions as the “earthlings.” We will all die the same way.

The movie is available on DVD (English subtitles)

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The Tree of Life

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Most of what we see on movie screens follows the mythic structure of storytelling.

Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life is the first movie I’ve seen that borrows from a different pattern. It is contemplative or devotional literature. While it is the most visually gripping movie I’ve ever seen, it is far more than breathtaking pictures. It pulls you into a serious consideration of God, the origins of life, death, grace, heaven, and the variegated textures and touches of life on earth.

Much of the dialogue is whispered. You hear characters thinking. Perhaps we hear God’s thoughts. My hearing is poor, but I think I heard a version of Romans 7:19 ~ “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”

As a story, The Tree of Life leisurely serves vignettes of life in the middle of the 20th century, in the middle of America. We see the O’Brien family – father, mother (Brad Pitt, Jessica Chastain) and three sons. We see their tenderness and strict discipline, familial requirements and forgiveness, church services and family prayer. (I never did figure out why Sean Penn was in the movie. Apparently he didn’t either)

The way they cope with losing a child certainly rang true to me. I grew up with those people. They always seemed to view life on earth through a heaven-mounted telescope.

The dialogue is simply stunning (albeit difficult to hear). I’ve never seen a movie that handles such sweeping ideas in dialogue so well. Consider:

  • “Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries.”
  • “I didn’t know how to name You then. But I see it was You. Always You were calling me.”
  • “I wanted to be loved cause I was great, a Big Man. Now I’m nothing. Look. The glory around… trees, birds… I dishonored it all and didn’t notice the glory. A foolish man.”

And, the Voice that starts the whole movie belongs to God: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” ~ Job 38:3,7

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How Music Changes our Brain

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I’ve been in a very intense travel/work schedule, so have not posted here in a while. But I think I’m back now.

Just read an absolutely fascinating piece in Salon: “How Music Changes our Brain.”  Sample quotes:

“…noise is the second greatest pollutant in the world today. Environmental noise affects cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment in kids, sleep disturbance, tinnitus, not to mention just plain annoyance. If it’s too loud, whether it’s classical music, rock, whatever, it’s not good for us. And the numbers are just beyond me. The study said noise cost up 45,000 DALY [disability-adjusted-life years, meaning 45,000 years of “healthy” life worldwide are taken away by noise] per year.

“I just returned from a week in New York City, and I have a little decibel app on my iPhone. On the subways it registered way over 100 decibels. When I was outside, I found myself covering my ears and needing to use my noise reduction headphones.

“…a background rhythm will help and assist somebody with dyslexia or autism to speak and read in rhythm. Exposure to different kinds of patterns — high range, mid-range, low range, slow tempo, medium, high tempo — can help bring order to their thinking. In a 2001 study, one researcher found that brain activity changes when there is soothing music, and there is biological evidence that we can actually remove a great deal of the tension in frustrated children by exposing them to more soothing sounds.

“Our hearing decreases radically after the age of 60, and often by the time we are in our 80s we don’t hear high frequencies and some sounds become more annoying and more confusing. Under different kinds of medication, tinnitus becomes more frequent. It’s a symptom, not a disease. By learning to tap a rhythm as one speaks with an elder, to use a drum, a simple hand drum, the size of a tambourine, to be able to translate and transfer the organization of speech and thought becomes much more effective. There’s a company called Oval Window that produces floors that vibrate, so elders they can literally hear better through the vibrations.

“Silence is part of the brain’s pattern. It helps it reintegrate, like sleep, but we can’t shut our ears like we shut our eyes…I love exploring iTunes, but you only get 20 seconds of something to see if you like it. It’s like an all-you-can-eat food bar, but you need to understand the nutrition of it. If you’re changing music every 30 seconds, then be sure to have 2 minutes of real silence in there. It goes back to chew your food so to speak before you swallow it.”

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To Hear

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Moving from blindness to sight or deafness to hearing (or even poverty to wealth) is one of the great human stories.  That’s why John Newton’s simple lyric, “Twas blind, but now I see,” has been so everlastingly evocative to so many, and in so many times and places. Six one-syllable words describe life change. You live in one dimension and then you crash through a barrier into a brand-new one.  Your former self vanishes. A new life emerges. It’s probably somewhat like being killed in a car wreck and then your spirit — the real you — rises from the wreckage to continue living in the boundless expanse of immortality.

This 1:30 minute YouTube video of a young woman hearing for the first time certainly tells its own story. In that sense, it is dramatic and irresistible.  But it is also a very moving metaphor of total life change.

Few things are as spirit-dulling as politics and religion. That’s probably because they are two sides of the same coin. They both represent the best human ideas on how to create and control a safe place in the cosmos. Both are antithetical to trust. Both are located somewhere along a sliding scale — from mild to severe — of doubt.

I personally believe that no points, no elevations on the political spectrum or the religious one represent “high ground.” Every inch of the sliding scale falls on the same horizontal plane. Nothing on that plane will ever become airborne.

I’ve seen what happens when people (even religious ones) finally “hear” for the first time. They throw off the shroud of death, scream, laugh, dance, hug everyone within a 3-mile radius, and/or collapse in sobs of gratitude for something they never heard before. What they hear subverts every human idea, order, and structure.

Everything changes.

 

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Seen & Heard Today

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Ann Voskamp has hit another one over the far center wall with this piece on married love.  The whole thing is worth your time, but here’s an appetizer:

I don’t know how another man’s skin feels.

My grandmother lived that kind of courage. The kind that made a vow and had the bravery to let it age.

The wrinkled faithfulness of monogamy, it can look pedestrian, the kind that finishes well, parades up through the Arc de Triomphe, battle scarred, and the tourists just blithely shuffle by, pigeons taking to oblivious wing. She told me about this.

I remember it, nights like these.

How she said that the bravest love is wildly faithful and it falls hard again every morning. How it puts the toilet seat down and the cap on the toothpaste and winks for those already-won eyes. It knows what we seek may be found in what we already have. And there can always be this — the allure of the vows.

This — World’s Funniest Analogies — is just too good to keep to myself.  You writers will love it.

Like…

“From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.”

Excellent article from the Hoover Institute on Steve Jobs. But, more importantly, it looks at why entrepreneurs drop out of college. Consider that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had to quit college so they could go change the world.

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