God 3 - Cool River Pub

The Shack: A Shovel In The Heart

5 Comments / Culture, death, God, loss, Suffering / By Ed Chinn

The new movie, The Shack, based on the hit novel of the same name, tells the gripping story of great pain and shocking loss. But right there is where The Shack steps beyond another retelling of the human suffering story.

It does so by revealing loss as a doorway to life. As such, it challenges our definitions of “good.” In other words, it confronts our assumption that “good” is a synonym for my preferences and desires…you know, good equals painless.

The Shack is a shovel, thrown deep into your heart. For example, it makes us face the truth about personal judgments. To reach a verdict against any human – terrorist, deviant, killer, traitor, or even myself – is to presume against the Creator and only Judge of us all. Therefore, for me to judge anyone is an audacious (and dangerous) demand that I be crowned King.

Against the backdrop of those illusions, The Shack invites us to step into a much higher view: God is with us through all of life, including the painful and horrid moments. That perspective forces us to realize that life is a continuum; our earth life is a like a capsule of time and space floating in a sea of eternity. Whatever we lose here, we find there. Death is never “the end.”

Finally, for me, The Shack is a powerful reminder that Heaven often arrives in an earthly eruption of Hell. So when I insist that life please me and never bring any pain, I miss the portal that so often brings Heaven on earth.

In all of these perspectives, The Shack is a surprising, powerful, and clear view of The Kingdom of God. That beautiful dominion of God invades our world (including our comfort zones, preferences, and myopia) and reveals a new and radiating increase of His authority.

And that new government brings peace, rest, and joy.

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Hurricane Donald

8 Comments / Adaptation, change, Culture, destruction, God, Humility, loss, Polarization, Politics / By Ed Chinn

I recently had to face my offensive harshness with telemarketers. For the first time I saw one as a fellow human who was struggling, stressed, and locked into a job he hated. And my glorious Edness had just made his load heavier. That epiphany broke something in me that needed breaking.

The sudden exposure (even in private) of a bad habit or hurtful way is one of the most humiliating and painful episodes in life. I fully understand the Apostle Paul’s harrowing question, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

But, those moments are also essential and helpful. We all need those interruptions of cosmic kindness that disrupt our forward movement. They come to break, refine, and equip us with more grace.

The Beauty and Power of Disruption

Nations, cultures, and groups also need that refining force. Well, guess what. We have it; we are living through a powerful and historic disruption. It’s called “Trump.” But it has very little to do with policy or politics…or Trump. In fact, if he doesn’t already know it, he’ll soon learn that he’s caught in it too.

I think it’s dealing primarily with our arrogance and attitudinal sclerosis. In other words, it’s confronting our swagger and inflexibility. And it is applicable across the board. Like a hurricane, it is staggering across the land, bearing down on every person, group, relationship, event, and institution.

But why?

I believe it is because disruption brings newness into the present, “new” as the invading, explosive, and transformative power of the future. That new will—like a hurricane—rip and splinter old ways.

And that is for our good!

Have you noticed that most people seem to know our present national path is not healthy and not sustainable? So everyone claims to want change—but as a tool they can deploy to manage the future. It doesn’t work like that; real change invades. It’s not controllable by anyone or any agenda, and that’s the secret of its power and beauty.

From time to time, we all need to be so challenged, provoked, and terrified that body fluids leak through our clothes. That’s why and how we change. The great kindness of our Creator always has and always will tear up old ruts, comfort zones, and corruption in order to bring renewal. He will always cut across me; His purposes are too important to leave me (or you) intact.

Where did we ever get the idea that we and our tribe don’t need disruption? Why would anyone think that we get to create, educate, innovate, and negotiate only with those who feel exactly as we do about everything? That’s silly. Maturity requires the ability to work with different and difficult people.

Right here, it gets personal. I didn’t vote for Trump. He was the proverbial “bridge too far” for me. OK, so now what? Looks like I have decisions to make about adaptation, humility and learning new skills and rhythms.

I appreciated seeing the Tech titans—none of whom could be called Trump supporters—actually sit down and talk with the President-elect. For years some have lectured us on the need to sit down together, to “cross the aisle” to work with “the other side.” Oddly, so many of those voices never did that. But Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sheryl Sandberg, Elon Musk and several others did. Furthermore, they agreed to keep meeting together with the new President.

Maybe they understand how the world works.

All Things New

Over the past year I have learned that loss always feels personal. But it never is.

Human instinct seems to always view loss from a close and immediate angle…it happened to me, took something from me, and now forever diminishes me and my future. But that is a distortion, like one cell in a drug addict’s body contorting in pain when he goes cold turkey. That cell cannot see the larger picture and purpose.

Much of what we’re seeing now is the contortion of individual cells. Too many bloggers, political elites, media voices, entertainers, and college students are only looking at Hurricane Donald from a very personal perspective.

To all of them I would say, “Close your eyes and take deep and long breaths. Humble yourself. Walk outside. Look up. Reconnect with the deeper rhythms of the universe. This is not personal any more than a hurricane is personal.”

Relax, trust, and prepare to live in a renewed and beautified landscape – one you didn’t design and one that lies far beyond the ramshackle real estate of your own habits and preferences.

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The Hidden Life of Trees

2 Comments / Book Review, Care, Culture, Environment, God, Nature / By Ed Chinn

I think the Apostle Paul gave a good basis for science when he wrote: “By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being…” (Romans 1:20, The Message)

True science reveals hidden mysteries for those who have eyes to see.

And that brings me to an astounding new book, The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben (Greystone Books, 2016). Although I’ve always seen trees as “living things,” I had no idea of the sophistication or vigor of their life. Now I will never be able to see a tree or a forest the same way again. This book is a revelation; you see a design for health and wellness at, both, a tree and a forest perspective.

That pattern is deeply relevant to humans and society.

Wohlleben has methodically observed (and clearly explains) the intricate nature of trees and forests. To my great surprise, I learned that trees feel pain (even emitting ultrasonic “screams”), have some capacity for sight, require daily and seasonal periods of rest, possess memory, communicate with other trees, defend themselves when attacked, care for their young, build friendships with other trees, pass wisdom down to the next generation, fight to survive, and extend respect to the other members of their community.

They also ride bicycles and surfboards. Just kidding.

Wohlleben is a very visual writer. You see the patterns of plant and animal life – such as elk, wolf, beaver, aspen, willow and cottonwood populations in Yellowstone National Park – expanding and contracting over decades, almost as though dancing together. His skillful writing helps us to see electrical impulses racing up and down tree trunks, fungi burrowing through the subterranean soil in support of trees, and flirtatious tree scents swelling on the wind.

The Web of Wellness

His visual and detailed perspective of trees and forests reveals a very complex web of wellness. That view of soil, water, fungi, birds, animals, disease, and other trees is just breathtaking. In fact, he gave me a new appreciation, even a sense of awe, of the interconnectedness of all life on earth. And, of course, that brings us to the relationship between trees and humans.

So often, when humans have imposed decisions on forests and other natural resources, they set off chains of disastrous repercussions. For example, he describes what happens to trees planted in cities. By sharing space with water lines, buried cable, and other subsurface objects and systems, and because the ground becomes so trafficked and hardened, city trees are just not as healthy as trees in the wild. They often die young.

Studies have also revealed the illness or death of trees because they were subjected to too much city light. “…at some point, lack of sleep exerted its revenge and the plants, which had seemed so full of life, died.” Yet, Wohlleben is practical and dispassionate about humans. He writes:

“…we use living things killed for our purposes. Does that make our behavior reprehensible? Not necessarily. After all, we are also part of Nature, and we are made in such a way that we can survive only with the help of organic substances from other species. We share this necessity with all other animals.”

Purifying Our Environment

Although unintentional, the book also suggests the Creator’s majestic administration of the planet. You see the cycles of life almost as tides, receding and then rising and rolling back in. Or you see them as starling murmurations… appearing, disappearing, pulsating, morphing. With all due respect for other views, I don’t know how anyone could read this book without seeing a Creator.

I often thought of Thomas Merton while reading The Hidden Life of Trees. In one of the best lines I read this year, he spoke of monks (could be anyone) as “trees that exist in obscure silence, but by their presence purify the air.”

Think of it; they purify the environment. Just by being there.

Could there be a message in this for us…is it possible that we – individuals and society – can be as healthy and as beneficial to our environment as trees are to theirs?

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Speak to the Signature

10 Comments / Contemplation, Culture, God, Polarization, Politics / By Ed Chinn

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, a freelance journalist wrote that she would not (as was her custom) rent out parts of her Washington home to Inauguration participants this year. She explained that she just couldn’t bring the hate of Trump supporters into her neighborhood.

Of course, had Secretary Clinton won, others would have refused hospitality to her celebrants.

To live by the cold calculus of political punishment suggests serious personality deficits. How do mature adults refuse to engage and flow with people (like potential customers!) just because they hold different views? Good grief, a case can be made that anyone is an “extremist” or “hater.” But serious and productive adults don’t tolerate that silliness.

The Polarization Business

In their book, Common Ground, Bob Beckel and Cal Thomas contend that very strong interests are heavily invested in polarization. They write, “ . . . conflict sells, and if harmony broke out, newspaper sales would drop and ratings, especially on cable TV, would decline sharply.”[1]

We live in an age when powerful forces (media institutions, the political industry, social media marketers, etc.) need for you and me to hate each other; polarization is big business. But why do we buy? Why do we so passively allow them to attach their icy electrodes to our spines?

We would never tolerate polarization in our own bodies. Think about it; we all navigate the external world through our five senses. Our brain integrates the feedback we receive through the concert of our eyes, ears, tongue, nose, and fingers.

Wouldn’t it seem weird and dysfunctional to move through life according to one’s sense of smell? Yet that is what we do when we decide to live according to political purity.

A Better Way

When I wrote for a conservative journal several years ago, my editor once asked me to become more combative against “liberals.” And I heard myself say something I did not know until that moment: “God’s signature is written across every human heart; I’d rather speak to that signature.” And, to my great surprise, he said, “We sure need someone here who can do that.”

As a human, a creator, a collaborator, and a child of God, I would rather try to view people through God’s eyes than according to the schemes of cunning economic manipulations.

Over the years I’ve learned that those who are my opposites are never as bad or difficult as I imagine. In most cases, I simply (and unintentionally) fell into blind obedience to hidden and devious agendas. In doing so, I fulfilled an ancient warning:

Strangers devour his strength,

Yet he does not know it….[2]

Living in full engagement of others – regardless of how they vote or what they think, feel, or believe – is a far better way of life.

Higher Ground

In 2009, during a trip through Jordan, I met a Palestinian Muslim. Ibrahim and I spent many hours together in restaurants, busses, and walking together throughout the country. For the first few days we spoke to each other from deep inside our own caves. But then, like Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, we each slowly stepped into the light.

One night Ibrahim told me about his son who had lived with a chronic illness all his life. Suddenly we were just two dads standing in the desert. Then he told me about the night Allah came to his house and healed his son. My eyes burned as we walked back and forth across our common real estate. We found a heart connection within the familial chords of care, that nugget of eternity that God places in everyone’s heart, and the too-good-to-be-true joy of Him coming to our homes.

In that moment, we were each lifted beyond our religious, political, ethnic, or national identities. We saw that unmistakable signature of God inscribed on the other’s heart. Suddenly we stood together on higher ground

Let me tell you another secret. Everyone whom you may regard as sinister, immoral, unjust, or racist also carries God’s signature. So, you have a choice. You can submit to the condemnations shouted by the investors in polarization. Or you can dig down below the rubble of injury, rejection, and loss to find His Signature. It is there, in everybody.

Then, if you speak to the signature you might call new life into existence, and you may create a path to higher ground.

[1] Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel, Common Ground (William Morrow; New York, NY; 2007) p. 69 & 81.

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Do Elections Matter?

16 Comments / Culture, Freedom, God, Politics, Spiritual life / By Ed Chinn

I am so grateful for the quiet and gentle rhythms of my life; marriage, family, friends, Middle Tennessee, good books, good food, and the pulsating possibility of touching eternity in life’s peaceful moments and places.

But, for some reason, in presidential election years I often turn away from all of that and indulge things that are accusative, hopeless, and deceptive. I seem to step into some kind of vertigo. Why is that?

Maybe it springs from our yearning for moral order. We need for life to make sense. But that desire for clarity and justice can so often and quickly lead to a moralistic view of the world that is ironically immoral. I think that is the birthing room for politics.

Of course, politics can be fine and noble. At best, it’s the way civilizations turn conflict into compromise; it’s how honest differences, even hostilities, get zippered into some kind of consensus, policy, and forward movement.

But at it’s worst politics becomes religion; a snarling, irrational, primitive, unforgiving and brutal battle between the forces of good and evil. That’s when conversation stops, friendships fade, everyone runs to their own bunkers, and firing commences.

Why do we all get caught up in that? When Americans move into the final weeks of a Presidential campaign, that polarization rises to flood stage. We all begin to see other ideas, agendas, movements, and leaders as incarnations of evil.

Arthur Miller famously said, “An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.”[1] Sadly, it seems that our political bankruptcy has become a yardstick for our era’s exhaustion. Everyone faces the choice of going down with the dying era or simply walking away into a new future.

A Radical Life

Here’s the truth, Sweetheart: Life on earth always cycles. Today is no better and no worse than it has ever been. The “current situation”—whatever and wherever and whenever and with whomever it is—always breaks down (regardless of who wins elections). The old is always here, and passing away. And the new is always here, and arriving.

Jesus said, “I make all things new.” When the illusions and and ruins of the age are fully and hideously exposed, the Kingdom of God’s brand new order, that newness of life, will just keep unfurling.

When Daniel’s “current situation” in Jerusalem fell apart and he ended up in Babylonian captivity, God’s Kingdom just kept coming. History is full of those stories.

That is where I choose to stand.

And, because it defies the “normalcy” of a bankrupt and futile era, to live that way is oddly countercultural.

A radical life carries no deep affection for, or alarm about, what is passing away. Rather, it continually brings the “all things new” into the present. To live radically is to see and live now according to the new that is arriving. A radical life sees the things we fear and the things we hope (the bases of elections) as mere sand pebbles rolled back and forth by the tides of the old and the new.

I’m glad we live in a democracy; I know that voting is a great freedom and responsibility. And I know that some elections are important. But they are never as important as they claim to be.

Every one of the perceived victories this year—that wall, strong military, civil rights for LGBTQ, higher minimum wage—or losses (same list) are microscopic compared to the global and historic magnificence of the now-and-still-coming Kingdom of God.

So, yes, vote. Volunteer. Donate. But keep politics in perspective. Radical living does not allow politics to trade illusions for real life and it does not give politics any authority over personal relationships.

And radicals, like Daniel, never get confused about the relative power of tides and sand pebbles.

[1] Arthur Miller, “The Year it Came Apart”, New York Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 (30 December 1974 – 6 January 1975), p. 30

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The Monks of Tibhirine

1 Comment / Book Review, Danger, death, God, Sanctuary, Spiritual life / By Ed Chinn

Why would anyone choose to live in a place of mortal danger? And if and when that danger’s noose tightened into a choking death, why would anyone refuse to leave that place?

Those very serious questions crouched in the corner of my mind as I read John W. Kiser’s The Monks of Tibhirine (St. Martin’s Press, 2002). And, for me, this haunting true story of seven Trappist monks who died in Algeria twenty years ago fully answers those questions.

It all seems to come down to this: Trappist monks live according to “The Rule of St. Benedict” (from the 6^th century). The rules cover normal life issues like prayer, study, work, etc. But one of the rules is the “Vow of Stability.” And that means joining a community and staying there. They stand; they are stable. You know, like a tree.

In classic Christian faith, everyone who follows God lives within His call to die. As Jesus said to His disciples, “…whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” In that sense, instability is an attempt to avoid death. No goofball religion here; The Monks of Tibhirine is an exceedingly mature look at Christian life.

Strangely perhaps, but his 14-year-old book is unusually relevant today, first because it portrays ordinary life among Muslims and Christians – normal relationships marked by mutual love and respect and support. Secondly, it describes life in the midst of terrorism. At the time and in the place of the story, Algeria was convulsed and destabilized by “violence done in the name of Islam.” Yet, to the author’s credit and wisdom, Islam was not the issue. Just as it really isn’t today. Most of life occurs at eye level, far away from the isms and ologies.

So what is the issue? I think Thomas Merton captured it when he spoke of monks (but it could be anyone submitted to the Lord) as “trees that exist in obscure silence, but by their presence purify the air.” By virtue of their created purpose, you might say (with small poetic license) that trees take a Vow of Stability. They stay. They stand. They purify. Just by being there.

For example, one of the monks, Brother Luc, a medical doctor, took care of everyone in the village of Tibhirine. No questions asked. Although he was elderly and ill, Luc treated up to 100 people a day. Every day. The monks were very poor, so he often had no medicine. But he still purified the atmosphere by his very presence.

The monks certainly knew the danger; they were not naïve. Nor did they have a desire to die. Kiser tells us that one monk, Célestin, “had a visceral terror of…a violent death. But his even greater fear was not to be there with his brothers when the time came.”

They frequently gathered (often with their Muslim neighbors) around the issue of leaving or staying; they prayed, discussed, and voted. But, “As each man expressed his view, the vow of stability kept returning as the touchstone of their thinking. Stability meant they were bound…to their neighbors and to one another.”

In the end, members of GIA, an Algerian terror group, broke into the monastery early in the morning of March 27, 1996 and kidnapped seven monks. After weeks of trying to use them to negotiate the release of terrorists, they murdered the monks on May 21, 1996. Their bodies have never been found.

Christian de Chergé, the abbot of the monastery, is the conscience of the book. A man of deep humility, he infused his time and place with a generous vision of faith and community. He also poured his life out in service in the place of his planting. Christian loved everyone and loved them unconditionally, knowing, as he said, “the love of Jesus did not wait for a response.”

Christian wrote a note of thanks to his executioner (before he knew the time, place or instrument of his death). His note perfectly captures the spirit of the book:

“In this Thank You – which says everything about my life – I certainly include…you, my friend of the last moment, who will not know what you are doing…Yes, for you, too, I wish this thank-you, this ‘A Dieu,’ whose image is in you also, that we may meet in heaven, like happy thieves, if it please God, our common Father. Insha Allah!”

NOTE: The story of The Monks of Tibhirine is also told in the movie, Of Gods and Men – the best movie about Christian faith ever made. Although not cited as source material in the credits, Xavier Beauvois, the producer, director, and writer called this book “our bible” for the production.

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Life After Loss

22 Comments / Adaptation, change, Contemplation, death, destruction, God, loss, Politics, Wisdom / By Ed Chinn

Over the past 18 months I’ve been working in a laboratory of loss. Through our son Paul’s death, my participation in a study of education in American, my knee replacement surgery, post-surgical recovery and rehab, relocating, political realignments, and global immigration dynamics, I kept being drawn to the issue of loss.

Through all of that, I’ve come to see that loss is not to be feared or rejected. It is a normal and essential part of life’s cadence. If we regard losses properly, they can bring renewal for the next season of life. Here are some of the details:

Loss is not personal. Yes, I know that it sure feels personal. In the moment, it seems unique, even historic. But loss is rarely personal. The simple truth is that everyone dies, financial tides rise and fall, relationships get injured, trains go off the rails, etc. The old bumper sticker (sanitized), BAD STUFF HAPPENS, captures a simple, but large and inescapable truth.
Life requires that we deal with it. The species cannot continue if humans are immobilized by loss.
Loss (a.k.a. ruin, failure, death, destruction, etc.) is always painful and disruptive; it never comes at a good time. So we must learn to accept and navigate it.
Loss is short term. Most people tend to view the whole journey through the keyhole of the present moment. But almost nothing we see through the eyes of grief is accurate or helpful in the long term.
Loss is an illusion. It might lash, boil, invade, injure and steal from us; it may even leave us face down in the gutter. But it cannot destroy the core of our true identity. For that reason, we don’t have to fear it. Nothing significant is taken away by loss.
Loss is a myopic interpretation of a larger change. An old “Far Side” cartoon showed two men fishing on a lake as a large mushroom cloud boiled up over the horizon. One fisherman said to the other, “I’ll tell you what it means, it means screw the limit.” People inevitably view global realignments through the lens of their personal needs and desires.
Loss calls us to greater maturity. Living in a culture that encourages emotional indulgence, we tend to welcome grief and offer it a big easy chair. But maturity pushes the grieving out of bed, into the shower, and to the office. And it makes sure that he or she does that every day for the rest of his or her life.
Loss passes by. Glen Roachelle once said, “When you go through a storm, don’t become an expert on storms. Just get through it.” It comes. Endure it. Loss moves on; you should too.
Loss reveals a higher path. Crises always bring me to see that my “Edness” is insufficient. For me, I can only proceed by faith in God’s total reliability. I’m not assuming this is (or should be) your response, but I have to get up above the big muddy me and ascend into a higher and clearer view.
Loss is not The End. Although it appears to be apocalyptic, loss the usually just the end of a season or a way of thinking. What appears to be great loss can be a gate to a brand new future.
Life surpasses our earth existence. For me, where I live is not a big deal. Living in God is the real objective. From His place, I am able to more clearly see the vast sweep of the whole journey. And seeing loss from the high ground give a completely new perspective and releases people to accept and bless it.
What about loss on a national scale? It seems to me that conservatives tend to view every loss as an assault on our foundations and liberals tend to see losses as threats to progress. Both views are power grabs. In truth, when seen from the high ground, the losses brought by war, disease, economic tremors, social injustice, technology shifts, and even immigration crises are often servants of renewal and redemption.

The losses suffered by individuals, families, business and industry, and nations mean old things are blowing away and new things are arriving. Life after loss is much like the land after a thunderstorm. The scent of rain and the purity of the air suggest new beginnings.

Let’s step into the new. We have more to gain than we ever lost.

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The Taste of Silence

Leave a Comment / Book Review, Contemplation, death, God, Spiritual life, Suffering, Wisdom / By Ed Chinn

In 1988, Bieke Vandekerckhove was a 19-year-old university student in her native Belgium when she was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Although the average life span after diagnoses is two to five years, she lived 27 years with it (she died four months ago).

Her only book, The Taste of Silence (English translation from Liturgical Press, 2015), is a beautiful, candid, sometimes searing, but deeply wise view of her journey into ALS. Like so many others in history, she found that vast and pure view in prison. For Bieke, that prison was her body.

What do you do when a lightning bolt explodes out of a clear sky, blowing your body, soul, and spirit apart? Do you collapse into a pile of smoking rubble? Escape into chemicals, fight to regain control, choose suicide? Or, surrender to the One Who “directs the steps of the godly” and “delights in every detail of their lives?” (Psalm 37:23 NLT).

Vandekerckhove surrendered.

In her submission, she tumbled into great silence. I understand that; it’s what happens when a painful loss pushes you beyond the walls of language. I could so identify with Bieke as, in the silence, she found profound gratitude, even for her diagnosis and for “the collapse of all my beliefs.” ALS took her beyond what she knew and preferred, and into the beauty of “not-knowing.” In that place beyond thought, she “discovered the art of waiting in the dark.”

In the dark, Bieke found “the God of the Bible, and not the god who is…bound by the contours of logic and morality.” She also discovered that God meets those who live real life. That is a place beyond information. As I read this book, I often thought of Hebrews 11:34, which speaks of those who “became powerful in battle.” They found success as it was forged in the heat of life, not through knowledge or credentials.

Just as Bieke found triumph through ALS.

What Do You See?

She learned that so much of life boils down to what we see. The deeper she went into the illness, she found that she suffered “more from an eye problem than from a muscle disorder.” Bieke seems genuinely grateful for the “great powers of suffering, death, and mourning” that “work a simplification in us that makes us see things differently. Perhaps making us really see for the first time.”

“All Things”

Although she was certainly Christian, Vandekerckhove’s journey through ALS gave her a great appreciation for Buddhism and other religions and perspectives. For that reason, I’m sure many Christians will reject this book.

I think her perspectives are valid and valuable.

She quotes the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon 7:24: “Wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades and penetrates all things.”

God is so large and so pervasive throughout His creation that His word can push through anyone, anything, anytime, anywhere. He owns it all; any or all of it can carry His voice. Just as His voice once (at least once!) animated a donkey, so it “pervades and penetrates all things.”

It is not a stretch for me to believe that a woman, sliced and diced and pulverized by the beautiful and terrible mercy of God, saw evidence of Him everywhere.

I deeply appreciate The Taste of Silence. It carries a ring of truth on every page. And I am moved by, and grateful for, a young woman who dared to tell her harrowing but hallowed journey into the largeness of God.

To summarize that journey, she wrote that when she surrendered to the mystery, and thought she lost everything, “remarkably my grip loosened and I rediscovered everything in a new way. Life was everywhere, in the midst of death, even as life slipped away from me…Everything became a gift.”

In her book, she passes the gifts on to readers whom she does not know. I and many others are grateful that she did.

Finally, although I loved the book, I must be fair and tell you that (to me) this short book burned bright for 15 chapters, or about 85 pages. The final 60+ pages felt like wet firewood; they just wouldn’t burn. But, those 85 pages were more than enough.

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Paul and the Mountain

26 Comments / death, Freedom, God / By Ed Chinn

Several years ago, knowing I would probably never hunt again, I decided to give my shotguns to my sons. So on Christmas morning, with all our family opening gifts in our living room, I went downstairs and gathered my .410, 20-gauge, and 12-gauge. When our son Paul saw me coming up the stairs he announced, “This is either going to be a very warm family moment or a profoundly tragic one.”

That line was classic Paul. His perspectives always bumped the scenes of life just slightly askew. Paul is the most asymmetrical person I’ve ever known. Built like a refrigerator, his large frame encased the delicate and curious heart of a child. Some people couldn’t get past the fridge. Paul knew that; you could see it in his eyes. But then his tilted humor, his gift for absurdity, went to work, pushing attention away from himself.

As laughter warmed the room, the real Paul would emerge. His voice had a magical and musical pitch; even at 43, you could hear a child’s excitement in his phrasing and intonations. Words just tumbled out of his mouth. As the velocity increased, his words began to dance with laughter, spinning faster and faster. Then it all became a waterfall… words and full laughter and sometimes tears cascading down over everything and everyone.

Paul loved Chinn people, places, stories, and legacies. So it was almost predictable that Paul and his sweet Libby chose the Chinn farm in Kansas for their 07-07-07 wedding. From the time they rode away, they seemed like a long and happily married couple. Like most couples, they had that private language of looks and sighs and shrugs. But theirs was very eloquent.

Paul just filled all his familial and friendship roles, especially as Libby’s husband, our son, and Eddie and Amy’s brother. But “uncle” is one of the most enduring images of his life. I will always see him fishing with Nathan or playing parlor games with his nieces. To hear the shrieks of laughter from that table would make anyone feel better about everything…from terrorism to termites.

Many years ago Paul taught us much about communicating with God. When Joanne or I stood over his crib, gazing at our beautiful baby, his face would light up and he would search our eyes and jabber…long “messages” and excited laughter with clapping hands. Then he would move into serious, seemingly very sober, babbling. I often wondered what mysteries that little boy spoke to his mom and dad. I don’t know, but I know he helped us to see that we didn’t need to pray in formal or religious language. Bubbling heartsounds are just fine.

Paul didn’t like religion, politics, bees, or cabbage. He loved reading, writing, the Denver Broncos (after the Redskins broke his heart one too many times), fantasy football, fishing, parlor games, gaming and movies. His knowledge of movies was encyclopedic and he was a fine (and prominently published) film critic.

To Paul, films were frequent channels of prayer. He loved and often read the Bible, but he also heard whispers from the other side in movies.

His favorite film was Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Paul was five when it came out. From his first viewing, and throughout his life, he was gripped with the story of Roy Neary, a good man captured by the image of a mountain.

As Roy followed the image inscribed on his heart, he met others who bore the same image. They were all drawn together around their search for the mountain. In the end, they all stood together on that mountain. And there, Roy stepped aboard the craft that would take him away from his wife and family and all that was familiar on his journey to another world.

Early in the morning of October 11, 2015, Paul Chinn also stepped beyond a familiar and loving society of family and friends, into the eternal care of His Creator.

His death, from a heart attack, is deeply painful to all those left behind. But his departure also reminded us that he belonged to God before we ever knew him. And he now continues his life just beyond our senses and somewhere on that mountain that he saw and searched for. Paul Chinn now belongs fully and only to the One Who gave him life.

And he would not return to us if he could.

Paul and the Mountain Read More »

Do You Have an LSO?

6 Comments / Care, Culture, Danger, destruction, God, Spiritual life, Trust / By Ed Chinn

Today’s aircraft carriers are small towns (Pop. 5000) that exist only for the purpose of moving their 4.5-acre airport and 80 jet fighters anywhere in the world. But there’s a huge problem. That airport is too small for what it must do. So fantastic (and frankly weird) machines must compensate.

First, a catapult rams a 50,000-pound jet from zero to 165-mph in 2 seconds in order to slingshot it into the air at sufficient speed for flight. Then, when the plane returns, another contrivance reverses the process; the plane’s tailhook snags an arresting cable that slams it to the deck. And this happens while the plane is flying 150 miles an hour and the runway is jumping up and down and rolling from side to side. No wonder the landing is called “a controlled crash.” It’s like a first baseman catching a line drive.

And that is why the flight deck of a modern aircraft carrier is considered the most dangerous working environment on earth. People can be, and have been, sucked through jet engines or sliced in half by the arresting cables.

While spending five days aboard the USS Nimitz in 2005, I saw why the Landing Signal Officer (LSO) is one of the most important jobs on the carrier. Every day, several times a day, he or she is responsible for the safety of a human life and a 40 million dollar piece of equipment. The pilot’s purpose, field of vision, and mental awareness are all so tightly focused that he or she cannot possibly perform the landing without the LSO.

Incredibly, the success of the aircraft carrier’s mission comes down to each pilot completely trusting another human being with his or her life. Survival means a total commitment to another person’s vision, perspective, instincts, wisdom, skill, and personal stability.

Who Cares?

In 1972 I ran into the blinding revelation that life is dangerous. Even though I was 25, married, and had a child, I was like a drunk monkey driving the Indy 500; someone was about to get killed. So I reached out to Glen Roachelle, the most stable and mature man I knew at that time (or today). I asked him, in essence, to be my LSO. But I used the word “pastor.”

I believe that God cares for His creation and that His loving care is built into the whole package of life. The biblical words “pastor” and “shepherd” reveal the expanse of God’s care. That’s why the “LSO” is a fine metaphor of His provision of care. But we don’t get it. We think that needing an LSO is demeaning. We also demand that a “pastor” be an institutional CEO, Director of Sales and Marketing, TED talker, comedian, and funeral and wedding planner.

Totally wrong.

A pastor is simply one who “keeps watch for another”…you know, like an LSO keeps watch. It’s so simple: I can’t see myself clearly. I need objectivity. A pastor can see me with greater clarity and perspective. And he brings wisdom, skill, and maturity to the pastoral role.

I could tell many stories that illustrate real pastoral care. Very few involve Bible studies, prayer, or church gatherings. Most feature cars, kids, health, houses, and financial needs. Glen’s pastoral eye has nearly always seen my need for rest, a raise, or a doctor before I did.

We all need someone who can see who we really are and the vast sweep of our circumstance – someone who can see everything and actually give a damn for both the grand purpose and the individual lives at stake.

Like an LSO. He or she is the point of connecting the grand macro mission of the aircraft carrier with the micro safety and welfare of the individual pilot. The LSO not only sees everything, like where the plane and the deck are, but also instinctively knows where the deck will be when the jet touches it. You think that may be important?

You and I live and work in an extremely dangerous time and place. The casualties are high and so very visible. We all know the tragic stories of business, political, and spiritual leaders who suffered great pain, loss, shame, and even death. And they are simply the most visible. We’re all exposed and vulnerable.

Think about it; your purpose is too panoramic and your life is too important to not give it your very best. Perhaps that means you need someone to watch for you.

Do You Have an LSO? Read More »