Thinking

Sing Your Song

In April 2014, a young woman in North Carolina died in a car wreck. The investigation revealed that, at the moment of impact, she was posting a selfie on Facebook.

Oh, the rush that comes from a human touch through social media. The laughter, the buzz, the flirt. Human contact is so intoxicating, especially for the young. He notices me. Maybe I can see her tonight. 

But then…the grill of the gravel truck. The earsplitting grind of steel and glass. Bones splintering. The odors of fire, motor oil, and blood. Then everything is still; the only sound is a distant dog barking. 

Reality always wins.

Eventually, we all learn why Goethe said, “The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least.”

Have you noticed that so much of modern life teaches us to look away from reality? People die every day because they invite amusement (one definition: “to distract the attention”). 

It seems we’ve all been trained to just download data, provocations, concerns, even excitement. We do not think or meditate or study; we tend to just wait for various stimuli (like “breaking news,” talk radio, Facebook posting, political or religious agendas, etc.) to set up a crisis or a cause. Then, like a balloon man at a car wash grand opening, we jerk into reaction.

Are we so bored by our own lives and thoughts that we eagerly give ourselves to anything or anyone that moves or makes noise?

I care about God, Joanne, our kids and grandkids, extended family, friends, conversation, coffee, humor, our dog, Bernie, books, and music. I don’t have enough heart or brain space to give myself to things that matter least. 

Yes, I know many things matter to many people. I don’t despise that. But doesn’t the right to speak also carry the right to not speak? That’s not denunciation. I’m often silent just because others already work that side of the street and do so better than I could. Therefore, I simply choose to not open my heart about some issues (except with trusted friends as we sit on bales of hay in a barn on a rainy afternoon).  

Maybe it all comes to this: I don’t have enough sand left in my hourglass to annex other burdens, dreams, urgencies, or fights. I have a wife to love, a mission to fill, books to read, words to write, conversations to join, and places to go. I want to spend time with my family and friends, laugh, pray, and fire my friend Doug’s cannon.

Thoreau told us most people “go the grave with the song still in them.” Do you realize you carry a song? It flows from your Creator’s unique and personal design and gets boiled in and pushed out through your life. No one else carries your song, and many need to hear it. On this side of the grave.

Want to see what the song looks like? 

In his book, The Wright Brothers (Simon & Schuster, 2015), David McCullough looked at Wilbur and Orville Wright’s unrelenting focus on flight. The brothers worked side-by-side six days a week. They gave no opening to distractions (neither ever married).

At Kitty Hawk, they endured wind, cold, and swarms of mosquitos that blocked the sun; they stood for hours watching birds climb into the wind, ascend, glide, turn, plunge, and land. 

Wilbur and Orville knew their song. And because they were faithful to sing it, humans can mount the air and soar to the edge of the universe. Think about that. 

You and I have a choice. We can let the pollutions and conflicts of the lower elevations constrict or distract our attention or we can rise above the diversions and stimuli, perch like an eagle on a high rocky cliff, and sing our song. 

Finally, I’ve learned the song never springs from glamour or buzz. The deep wells of pain and loss seem to produce the richest and most moving tones. Like caring for a spouse, parent, child, or sibling as they move toward darker, deeper, and more resplendent glory. The most majestic songs I’ve heard were composed by some of you as you laid down your life for another.

Now, to turn an old observation, no one is going to lie on their deathbed wishing they had just read one more blog, sat through a few more sermons or sales meetings, watched another episode of Yellowstone, or joined more causes.      

But we may wish we had sung our song more clearly and often.

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Renovation of the Heart

“We live from our heart.”

        From that first line of Renovation of the Heart (Navpress, 2002), the late Dallas Willard drills deep into our spiritual core and the need for spiritual formation through Christ. Clearly, this book rolls out of a well-lived life—studious, devotional, and humble. Willard obviously thought deep and long about character, personality, destiny, societies, and cultures. But mostly he thought about God.

       This book is so clear, gentle, and well organized. It’s like Willard discovered a big stack of unkempt theological firewood, then began to stack it neatly. Not too neatly, but just enough to help readers think as they read. Willard makes us full partners in arriving at discernments of truth. Now, what follows is not a review, but rather a rock skipping across the pond of this book.

       First, Willard understood how evil germinates in the human heart. That’s why too many people, including children, live along various fronts of “withdrawal and assault” from those who should care for them. That alienation and brutality eventually leads to the slaughter of millions from “enlightened” thinkers, leaders, and governments.

       Jesus, the eternal Son, is the largest figure in all of history because His life reversed the corruption that invaded all people in all times and places. We were designed to love and to be loved by God. When we refuse it—when we seek or find love in any other place, thing, idea, event, or person—we miss our purpose and end up imprisoned to sin. We all live under government. The only question is, who’s government—His or ours?

       While reading this book, I often thought of Paul Batalden’s great slice of wisdom: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” When we live in anger, weariness, lust, fear, “assault and withdrawal,” and other human conditions, it is because we have perfectly designed our lives to get them. The only answer is to forsake our own way and seek the King and His Kingdom. 

        First, as a foundational issue, Willard sees six basic aspects in our lives:

1.    Thought (images, concepts, judgments, inferences)

2.    Feeling (sensation, emotion)[1]

3.    Choice (will, decision, character)

4.    Body (action, interaction with the physical world)

5.    Social context (personal and structural relations to others)

6.    Soul (the factor that integrates all the above to form one life)

       Willard doesn’t present those aspects as contradictory to the triad view of human life—body, soul, and spirit. He simply lays them out as the crucial zones of life.

       Sadly, most people do not even understand that construct. As a result, they are lost. And, as Willard explains, “Something that is lost is…not where it is supposed to be, and therefore it is not integrated into the life of the one to whom it belongs and to whom it is lost. Think of what it means when the keys to your house or car are lost. They are useless to you, no matter how much you need them and desire to have them and no matter what fine keys they may be. And when we are lost to God, we are not where we are supposed to be in his world and hence are not caught up into his life. The ultimately lost person is the person who cannot want God. Who cannot want God to be God… Wanting God to be God is very different from wanting God to help me.” 

Right there is the crisis point of all life. Who owns us? On that, Willard comes down the track like a freight train:

       “Christian spiritual formation rests on this indispensable foundation of death to self and cannot proceed except insofar as that foundation is being firmly laid and sustained…Covetousness is self-idolatry, for it makes my desires paramount. It means I would take what I want if I could.”

       And that is why, “What we call ‘civilization’ is a smoldering heap of violence constantly on the verge of bursting into flame.” 

 Transformation of the Mind and Body

Willard, author (The Divine Conspiracy and other books), professor, and director of the University of Southern California’s School of Philosophy, was a true scholar. So, he understandably cared about clear thinking. He writes, “Bluntly, to serve God well we must think straight; and crooked thinking, unintentional or not, always favors evil. And when the crooked thinking gets elevated into group orthodoxy, whether religious or secular, there is always, quite literally, ‘hell to pay.’ That is, hell will take its portion, as it has repeatedly done in the horrors of world history.” 

       And he also focuses on the transformation of the human body. “For good or for evil, the body lies right at the center of the spiritual life …our body is a good thing. God made it for good. That is why the way of Jesus Christ is so relentlessly incarnational. The body should be cherished and properly cared for, not as our master, however, but as a servant of God.

       “Incarnation is not just an essential fact about Jesus: that ‘Christ is come in the flesh.’ Rather, he came in the flesh, a real human body, in order that he might bring redemption and deliverance to our bodies… This present life is to be caught up now in the eternal life of God. But of course ‘the life I now live in the flesh’ is inseparable from the mortal body I now have. So it too must become holy, must ‘come over’ to Christ’s side.”

Social Dimensions

The geniuine tragedy of human life sweeps in when damaged people get together. Toxic thinking, the centrality of feelings, corrupt choices, ignorance of the body, and disintegrating souls produce societies that abuse and destroy people. Especially children.

       “The spiritual malformation of children is the inevitable result. Their little souls, bodies, and minds cannot but absorb the reality of assault and withdrawal in the climate where their parents or other adults are constantly engaged in them. And of course they are soon in the line of fire themselves… in such a context you can almost see the children shrivel.

       “Their only hope of survival is to become hardened… Hardened, lonely little souls, ready for addiction, aggression, isolation, self-destructive behavior, and for some, even extreme violence, go out to mingle their madness with one another and nightmarish school grounds and ‘communities.’ They turn to their bodies for self-gratification and to control others, or for isolation and self-destruction.

       “The wonder is not that they sometimes destroy one another, but that the adults who produce them and live with them can, with apparent sincerity, ask ‘Why?’ Do they really not know? Can they really not see the poison in the social realm?”

       Willard also laments western society’s inept responses… “sickeningly shallow solutions to the human problem, such as ‘education’ or ‘diversity’ or ‘tolerance…’ they do not come close to the root of the human problem.”

The Covenant Community 

Finally, Willard turns to Romans 12:9-21 for a comprehensive list of what gatherings of covenant communities, local churches should look like:

1.    Letting love be completely real

2.    Abhorring what is evil 

3.    Clinging to what is good

4.    Being devoted to one another in family-like love 

5.    Outdoing one another in giving honor

6.    Serving the Lord with ardent spirit and all diligence

7.    Rejoicing in hope

8.    Being patient in troubles

9.    Being devoted constantly to prayer

10. Contributing to the needs of the saints

11. Pursuing (running after) hospitality

12. Blessing persecutors instead of cursing them 

13. Being joyful with those who are rejoicing and being sorrowful with those in sorrow

14. Living in harmony with one another

15. Not being haughty, but fitting in with the “lowly” in human terms

16. Not seeing yourself as wise

17. Never repaying evil for evil

18. Having due regard for what everyone takes to be right 

19. Being at peace with everyone, so far as it depends on you

20. Never taking revenge, but leaving that to whatever God may decide 

21. Providing for needy enemies

22. Not being overwhelmed by evil, but overwhelming evil with good

Willard says, “Just think for a moment what it would be like to be a part of a group of disciples in which this list was the conscious, shared intention, and where it was actually lived out…”

Transforming the Soul

This chapter, one of the book’s best, gets to the most crucial issue: the health of the human soul. He writes, “The soul is that aspect of your whole being that correlates, integrates, and enlivens everything going on the various dimensions of the self… And the person with the ‘well-kept heart,’ the soul will be itself properly ordered under God and in harmony with reality…. For such a person, the human spirit will be in correct relationship to God. With his assisting grace, it will bring the soul into subjection to God and the mind (thoughts, feelings) into subjection to the soul. The social context and the body will then come into subjection to thoughts and feelings that are in agreement with truth and with God’s intent and purposes for us.”

       One of the best paragraphs in the book: “… The Psalm 1 man delights in the law that God has given. Note, he delights in it (verse 2 ). He loves it, is thrilled by it, can’t keep his mind off of it. He thinks it is beautiful, strong, wise, an incredible gift of God’s mercy and grace. He therefore dwells upon it day and night, turning it over and over in his mind and speaking it to himself…The result is a flourishing life.”

       “… Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his Kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream.” 


[1]  According to Willard, “a great part of the disaster of contemporary life lies in the fact that it is organized around feelings. People nearly always act on their feelings… the will is then left at the mercy of circumstances that evoke feelings.” 

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The Other Side

I recently came across a frankly brilliant essay about why the other side cannot, must not, win the election in November. It begins:

“The past several weeks have made one thing crystal-clear: Our country faces unmitigated disaster if the Other Side wins.

“No reasonably intelligent person can deny this. All you have to do is look at the way the Other Side has been running its campaign. Instead of focusing on the big issues that are important to the American People, it has fired a relentlessly negative barrage of distortions, misrepresentations, and flat-out lies.

“Just look at the Other Side’s latest commercial, which take a perfectly reasonable statement by the candidate for My Side completely out of context to make it seem as if he is saying something nefarious. This just shows you how desperate the Other Side is and how willing it is to mislead the American People.”

Even though you will quickly catch on to the idea, read the whole thing. You will see that our side has reason, righteousness, noble ideas, and a sure-fire plan for saving the economy and increasing employment. The other side has nefarious billionaires, undisclosed documents, offensive and lying commercials, biased media voices, same old tired and discredited policies, conspiracies, deranged anger, crazy uncles, etc.

This essay is a mirror for you and for me.

What the essay really reveals is that politics has become large gaseous bubbles, blown free of the wand, and wobbling uncertain through the air. It is all a game, an amusement, a sport.

One very real problem is that when we speak in Pavlovian terms, you know, that code — George Soros, Limbaugh, Biden, Huffington, FOX, red state, blue state, MSNBC — we fall into a binary polarization of language. It is all 1s and 0s. No other numbers allowed. We cannot really converse about real stuff. In fact, I think we obsess about politics (and religion) in order to avoid intimacy. It’s easier to hide behind the code than to expose my own uncertainties, longings, and fears.

William Raspberry once said, “In virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful people secretly believe both sides.” That is true. For example, I believe both (or all) sides about so many issues…from technology, to the Christian views of “hell” and evolution, to writing for pay, to President Obama’s apologies to other nations. Yet, put me in a cocktail party or prayer meeting and I’ll take the short cut every time…finding harmony with almost any position ventured.

I am not weak or deceitful, but Madonna will release a gospel album before I’ll open my heart to strangers.

This is why I often long for “sitting with a friend on bales of hay in a barn on a rainy afternoon…”

I love the imagery of rain-induced isolation and slowness and the intimacy of candor and freedom.

Now, in the words of R. E. M.’s Losing My Religion, “Oh, no, I’ve said too much!” 🙂

Anyway, I hope you find the time to read this essay. Oh, and please vote for our guy in November!

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