Sometimes, often, the news is devastating, shocking and altogether too familiar.  We, who have lived more than a few years, are used to the fact that disasters, natural or otherwise, happen at the most unexpected times, but with regularity.  Can we ever get used to it?  Probably not…hopefully not. 

When numbers of innocent people are involved and when children are killed, for whatever reason, there are always questions.  There are always fingers pointing and blaming.  There are always “Hindsight Philosophers” giving a run-down on the events leading to and causing such a thing.  And, unfortunately, there are already doctrinal pundits willing to share their convictions about the sin of a state, a city or a government leader, and God’s punishment for such.  It is my belief that if God’s vengeance against sin was catastrophe or attack then all of us would be killed…

…we are all sinners in the hands of a merciful God.

What about those who say that God protected some, but not others, from dying in catastrophe?  How do those statements stand with the God-loving people who died?  Will God love any more or less than others?  Does God sit quietly by and allow catastrophe and war to kill innocent people?  Why do bad things happen if God is in control? 

All these questions are valid.   Where is God in the catastrophe?

The Scripture tells us the perfectly created world is now broken. The Scripture tells us the world we live in has a “property manager” who has been given permission to rule over the world for a time.  We are free to believe or not believe in these things. We are free to believe or not believe in God.  Good things as well as bad happen to “good” and the “not so good” …not because the “not so good”/unrighteous are deserving (nor the righteous, for that matter), but because God is generous. 

You have been taught to love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I tell you this: love your enemies.  Pray for those who torment you and persecute you – in so doing, you become children of your Father in heaven.  He, after all, loves each of us – good and evil, kind and cruel.  He causes the sun to rise and shine on evil and good alike.  He causes the rain to water the fields of the righteous and the fields of the sinner.  It is easy to love those who love you – even a tax collector can love those who love him.  And it is easy to greet your friends – even outsiders do that.  But you are called to something higher: “Be whole and mature, as your Father in heaven whole and mature.”
MATTHEW 5:43-48 (THE VOICE translation)

Good and bad happen to the good and the bad.  It is called life in this age.  But Jesus had even more to say about catastrophe.

…some people told Him the latest news about a group of Galilean pilgrims in Jerusalem – a group not unlike Jesus own entourage.  Pilate butchered them while they were at worship, their own blood mingling with the blood of their sacrifices.
JESUS: Do you think these Galileans were somehow being singled out for their sins, that they were worse than any other Galileans, because they suffered this terrible death?  Of course not.  But listen, if you do not consider God’s ways and truly change, then friends, you should prepare to face His judgment and eternal death.  Speaking of current events, you’ve all heard about the 18 people killed in that building accident when the tower in Siloam fell.  Were they extraordinarily bad people, worse than anyone else in Jerusalem, so that they would deserve such an untimely death? Of course not. But all the buildings of Jerusalem will come crashing down on you if you don’t wake up and change direction now.
LUKE 13:1-5 (THE VOICE translation) 

Jesus’ own words put things into perspective.  In this latest, as well as any other catastrophe, the victims are from all walks of life.  Their sacrifices had nothing to do with a judgment on their lives or the places they came from…that’s not how God works.  But IF you’d like to judge someone, how about yourself, as Jesus suggests.  Look to your heart and soul to make sure that when YOUR time comes your true life, the one that will outlast this body, is ready to stand before God and enter into His joy.

The God of the New Covenant, and His Son, clearly do not promote nor administer punishment in this way, neither through the vicious acts of the deranged, nor the force of nature’s wrath.  God indeed mourns with those who mourn, suffers with those who suffer, and will be judge all things at the time and place that He Himself will set. He also knows the rest of the story, the larger story…the things that we don’t know. 

In this age, catastrophe happens.  God is not a casual observer of such things, but it IS the price He pays for giving us our freedom, and it is the price we pay for living in a world that is corrupted by imperfection and sin.  When pain strikes, make no mistake, God is there to heal, to bind, to free, to counsel, and to love. 

Storms will come, floods will come…but Jesus is in the boat with us, He knows our bodies don’t define “life” …and He will see us through to the other side…however and whenever we get there.

Upon moving to Anderson in July 2017, I set out two peach trees, each of them only a foot high. Now they are about 12-15 feet high and have been bearing a few peaches for three years or so. This spring the blooms were so numerous that visions of lots and lots of peaches this coming August! Alas! During and after blooming temperatures fell below freezing a couple of times plus some mornings above freezing but frosty. Rain and dampness prevented the proper spraying at the right time. Would I harvest any peaches this year?

Imagine my surprise when both trees looked loaded with small, tiny peaches! On a limb just two feet long, I counted over 40 peaches…way, way too many for such a tiny limb. Undoubtedly, thinning peaches would be a must-do! I waited a week to see which peaches seemed to be growing the largest, and I pulled up about 100 when I noticed that the trees were self-thinning, that is, the underdeveloped peaches were falling on the ground. On a whim, I decided to pick up the inferior peaches off the ground and count them. After about six weeks, amid the gusty winds that have continually whipped through our community, to date (June 17th), I have counted 2,711, ranging in size from a watermelon seed to a small cherry tomato There is still plenty of growing peaches on the tree, but I am sure I will be adding a few more to my count of discarded fruit.

Why count these no-good peaches? I don’t know. Maybe it was a need to know how many peaches had formed from those numerous blooms and compare with the number I actually harvested later (probably less than 10-15%). Maybe it was a desire to explore Mother Nature’s secrets of survival from potential damage by over-fruiting. Maybe I have a compulsion to count the weirdest things!

As a young boy, cousins and friends would play “kick the can” after dark. Whoever was “it” had to count to 100 before he/she could hunt the rest of us. If found, a person would try to kick the can before “it” can get to the can. But if “it” beat the person to the can, then that person became “it.” OR in playing Monopoly, one either counts his money or his debts! Numerous board or card games require counting…

As a young teenager, my brother and I would take turns carrying a sack of shelled corn to the next-door neighbor who owned an old grist mill. The corn would be ground into cornmeal which was weighed (counted) in pounds and ounces from which a percentage of the cornmeal was payment for grinding.

I am always counting…. every time I make a major purchase, I must count my dollars in a way that I can pay or finance and still buy groceries and pay the bills. Points scored are counted and winners are declared in sports games. All through school and college, grades were a count of right “answers” compared against a standard. Whether conscious of it or not, we all count gallons of gas purchased or we count (estimate) the price of X gallons of gas.

We are, throughout life…still counting! 

Even the Bible tells us to count…OUR DAYS! How can we count our days if we don’t know how many days we have yet to live? Yeah, we all can count the days we have already lived…. but that is all. We may have one additional day or thousands of additional days to live. How do we “count our days?”

We count our days to measure, to take stock, to manage goals, to fulfill dreams, to count the cost, if not in value, then in energies to be spent, or to achieve a level of satisfaction or accomplishment, to both give and be blessed by the love of God and one another.

There are some things we don’t count…such as our own good works! God counts those! You may give thanks or gratitude for the good works that I have done toward you (even if you do not share that with me) and I may give thanks for the good works you do for me (even if I do not mention it). BUT GOD DOES THE COUNTING!

 We “number our days” in the humble acknowledgment that we are to remain faithful followers of God as revealed in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit.

 We number our days by knowing God is “... STILL COUNTING” our faithfulness! With GRACE and not condemnation!

She was as colorful a person as you would like to meet; my first piano teacher, Mrs. Beardsley.  With a smoker’s cough, low voice, and a pink living room (I especially remember the AMAZING aluminum Christmas tree with pink ornaments and rotating color wheel…this was the ’60’s) and a love for music, piano and her students that was unsurpassed.

When I first began taking lessons, the summer of my Kindergarten year, she would sit at a chair beside the piano bench.  Her manner never frightened or intimidated me, as she exhibited a free-spirited kind of love toward me and all her students in her manner.  Although I’m probably still suffering the effects of second-hand smoke, and scarred by the memory of her colorful pictures of motorcycle riding through California, and tales of she and her husband when they were young (which was, I have to admit, difficult to imagine…seeing the arthritically-crippled fingers and joints as I sat beside her at the piano) what has followed me through the years is her love, and the type of wisdom that a good teacher passes on; wisdom that goes deeper than the specifics of the lesson itself.

Although there are many stories and illustrations of care, teaching, music and love that I could tell (and have told), for the sake of today I am remembering the times I was learning specific pieces that she herself had played.  There was one particular Mozart piano piece that I was learning.  There was a certain passage which was exceptionally difficult, it seemed that week after week it never got any better.  Mrs. Beardsley, frustrated by her crooked, arthritic fingers and inability to adequately show me the fingering and technique used to play the passage, rose from her rose-pink Lazy-Boy (where she had moved in later years) and made her way to a hall closet where there were piles and piles of music, HER music books, from HER lessons as a child.  All the music was catalogued by composer and she quickly found “our” piece and brought it over.  She sat now beside me and placed her old copy of the piece at the piano.  Written in two hands, one; the fine pencil marks of HER teacher, and one the more childish writing of HER, as a child pianist, were notes, remarks, fingerings and exercises used for this piece.

And then she spoke the lesson I speak to you: “After playing this for so long, I’d forgotten how difficult it had been to learn.  A good teacher needs to remember being a student.”

The Spirit teaches us, through the Scripture and life, that our Jesus isn’t interested in remembering our sins.  (And just as a side-note here, remember that in English we have the one word, “sin”, but the Greeks had seven; everything from “forgetting”, “aiming-but-missing” to “out-and-out rebellion against God”…and all those different words are translated into our one word, “sin”).  Once we recognize, and ask forgiveness for, our debts, our mistakes, our defiance…Jesus is good to forgive AND forget.  But my belief is that WE should NEVER forget our mistakes, our bad choices, our sin.

Why?  Because, as Mrs. Beardsley taught me, and is now teaching you, “A good teacher needs to remember being a student.”  A forgiven Believer & Follower needs to remember when they weren’t a Believer and/or a Follower…or else they forget to feel for others and start down the slippery slope of “us and them” mentality.

If a care-giver forgets what it is like to be sick or incapacitated, their care becomes theoretical and academic.  If a minister forgets that he or she wasn’t always a minister, they cease being relevant, to say nothing of empathetic.  All of us who Believe & Follow have the tendency to become narrow in our acceptance and judgmental in our attitudes…that is obvious in everything we read and see on TV.  That comes, when we forget where our journey began.

When we, as Believers & Followers, forget that we used to NOT be Believers & Followers and the only reason we are now is because of who GOD is, and not because of who WE are…then we have no hope of ever reaching any other heart, of sharing any other burden, of holding any other hand in love.  When we lose our EMPATHY we cannot give SYMPATHY…when we forget our own struggle, we lose to tools needed to help anyone else in theirs.

And then we cease loving God…because the way we love HIM is by loving each other.  This Lenten season we could all afford to repeat again and again…”remember that you are dust”…not so much to remind us of our mortality, but to remind us that we were are ARE all “students” as well as “teachers”…the journey that someone else is on may be one we have already travelled, or visa versa.

My thanks, again, to Mrs. Beardsley and her legacy…none of us may ever know the wide circles our influence will travel.  Let us continue to learn, to love, to feel the pain and longing of others as if it were our own.

Each June (PRIDE month) I think about my friend, Michael.  Michael was a conductor, chorus master, lecturer, author, musicologist, accompanist, and my vocal coach when I performed opera.  He was also, more importantly, my friend.

I first met him when, as a very young singer, was making my professional debut in opera and he was assigned to me, by the company, as my “coach”.  He led me in the style of singing the small role that I had.  Despite our age difference, we immediately became fast friends.  He was much older than he looked, (we almost looked the same age) and so seemed like a “wunderkind”: a brilliant man with a quick wit and energy that made the rest of us look like slackers…and I’ve never been accused of being a “slacker”.

When he learned that I was getting my degree in Music Composition he insisted on hearing every piece I wrote and coming to each performance of my new works at the college I attended.  He would analyze each piece, not to judge or criticize, but to ask questions about my choices of phrases, keys, motives, themes and construction…all without ever SEEING the music on paper…just from what he had heard, once.  He made me think about my own compositions in ways I had never thought…He listened.  

He introduced me to his musical love, Richard Wagner.  He knew more about the composer than anyone I had ever met and was writing a book on his favorite composer…a commissioned work (a publisher paid him an advance to write it…that’s how good he was).

Mike and I would get together regularly, maybe once or twice a month, to eat, drink, and talk about music…both his and mine.  He would always have his calendar handy so that he could write down when my next concert was.  We continued to work together at the Opera Company.  And when Seattle Opera commissioned ME to compose a small touring opera for their company, I dedicated it to him…and he accompanied the opera on one of the three Pacific Northwest tours.

One day I called and left a message for him.  He never returned the call.  I called a couple more times over the next few weeks…until at last a female voice answered.  It was a mutual theatre friend of ours.  As I was obviously startled at her voice on his phone, in his apartment, she said, “Rick, didn’t you hear?  Michael is very sick, you know…SICK. He’s been in the hospital for the past three weeks.”

The way she emphasized the word, “sick” was the code back in the ‘80’s, in Seattle, for someone who had AIDS.  I was stunned.  Frankly, I’d forgotten he was a part of the LGBTQ (or what we just used to call, “gay”, community there.  What stunned me was that he didn’t share his illness with me, and we were good friends.

As we continued to talk, she said that he was embarrassed.  He didn’t want me, a “Christian friend”, to know that he was “sick”.  He was afraid that I would judge and that I would condemn…and most importantly, that I would leave.  Ironic, since because of HIS choice not to share this information with me I, in effect, DID abandon him when I could’ve been there.

I attended his funeral a few weeks later.  It was a doubly sad affair, for me, at least.  To this day I feel like I had no closure.  And I was angry.  Not at him, but at the notion that he believed any Christian would be filled with judgment and hate for him: one of the nicest, kindest, most generous people I had ever met…to this day.

I’m older now…maybe not wiser.  I am, in many ways, more cynical and bitter.  I understand that Jesus tells us, who Believe & Follow Him, that the world and sometimes the Church will “hate” us.  But what really hurts is to think the “world” would hate any “Christian” because many believe “Christians” themselves are filled with hate.  That’s not what Jesus teaches, on the contrary: we are to love our “brothers and sisters” (fellow followers) AND our enemies…I don’t do math, but I’m pretty sure that covers everyone.  So how could Michael think that I, whom he knew well, would judge him, would hate him, would abandon him?  Not because of anything I did, I hope, but perhaps because of what some other “Christian” had done to him, all in God’s name.

I stood on one side of that story long ago…now I stand in both worlds and see both sides.  There are those “Christians” whose FIRST response will always be reminding us of God’s judgment; careful to let us all know that if Jesus isn’t here in the flesh to judge the living and the dead, they will be happy to take up that job.  AND there are “Christians” who believe Jesus’ command to love is “conditional”.

But thankfully, though it’s sometimes difficult to see, there are those who understand that to know a person’s heart, read a person’s mind, and judge a person’s story is something that God and God alone has the power, and the responsibility, to do.  Our job is simple: love them all and let JESUS sort it out in the end.

I think about what would’ve happened with Michael had the reputation of “Christians” in the ‘80s been as the most caring and loving, the most compassionate and least judgmental of all humanity.  I try to bring closure to his death by imagining him telling me everything and me just hugging him in response…because he was my friend, and because Jesus is my King.

Central Christian Church in Anderson, Indiana could, and should, be known as the people who love like no one else.  We are the people who choose to treat everyone with love: those with whom we agree, and those with whom we don’t agree.  Then we stand aside and let the Spirit do the work of the Spirit.

We can, and WILL, be those who others see and say, “If being a CHRISTIAN means being like those people at Central, then count me in…when I was hungry, they fed me, when I was thirsty, they gave me something to drink…when I had AIDS and was dying, they cared for me, and loved me, without judgment or superiority.”

Each June (PRIDE MONTH) my heart remembers what my head may forget: that Michael is as unworthy as all of us to receive God’s love…and yet God loves Him as He loves us all. God loves us not because of who WE are, but because of who HE is.

If we belong to Jesus, how then should we live?

We are GOD’S people. Jesus is our KING. Our primary allegiance is to THE KINGDOM OF GOD.  With Jesus “breath of the Spirit” breathing through us, we can be people who love others as Jesus loves them – people who remember Jesus loved us, UNCONDITIONALLY, before we ever loved Him.

My favorite Broadway musical of all time is “THE MUSIC MAN”.  There is something about the combination of the setting: America at the turn of the century, the story-unique boy-meets-girl, the music-ballads, dances, barbershop quartets, bands.  But I also know that I’ve been influenced by both the movie AND the fact that it was the first musical I ever performed in, as a sophomore in High School.

Robert Preston, as Professor Harold Hill (even though Jack Warner asked both Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant to do the role before it was given to Preston) is definitive as the con man who changes his life through the love of a good woman.  In the story, however, he must “sell” the Iowa town folk on the idea of a Boys Band (not the Backstreet Boys, something completely different).  He isn’t a musician, can’t read a note, but he sells them instruments and uniforms and “cons” them into believing.

The technique he uses?  He reveals a serious “issue” in the town that they’re not even aware they have, and who can save them from this seed of degradation that has infiltrated their little prairie town? Prof. Harold Hill, of course!  And so, we have the song, TROUBLE; “O, ya got trouble…right here in River City, with a capital-T, that rhymes with P and that stands for POOL” – not a swimming pool, mind you, but a pool table.

Here Professor Hill has actually CREATED trouble, this pool table could’ve gone unnoticed except for the Professor’s sermon. He needed to CREATE trouble so that he could be the “hero”, and make out, literally, “like a bandit”!

It’s an old, old technique, a technique that Advertising Gurus have been using for years: to create a situation that can only be solved through their product.  Who has heard of “ring around the collar”, or “cellulite”?  Before advertising, these things were just called “dirt” and “fat”!

TROUBLE comes in all forms, and TROUBLE comes to all people. Churches experience all kinds of trouble: economic trouble, growth trouble, a leaking roof here, not enough teachers there, sickness in the winter, simple-minded preachers, etc.  The Church doesn’t NEED any help, when it comes to trouble, in other words, the Church doesn’t need any Harold Hills; someone to CREATE a problem so that they can solve it.  The Church doesn’t need a hero to save them from trouble, the Church needs a pilot to steer them THROUGH trouble.

Being a Believer & Follower of Jesus has its own advantages and disadvantages. Let’s be honest, in some ways, being a disciple is not an easy choice OR an easy thing to do. There are troubles from within and without, many of which cannot be avoided.

But what every Believer & Follower has, and what the Church has, is not a “Harold Hill”, but a “Captain Von Trapp”!  A Captain/Pilot who can lead us through the dangers, who knows where the rocks are, who knows when the wind will be foul, who knows the currents and tides like the back of his hand, who knows what we will face and promises to guide us through it (“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me…”).  We have someone with us, always, who has been there before.

As I’m writing, I can’t help but hear the voices of my home congregation sing one of my father’s favorite hymns:

Jesus, Savior, pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea
Unknown waves before me roll
Hiding rock and treacherous shoal
Chart and compass come from Thee
Jesus, Savior, pilot me 

When the darkling heavens frown
And the wrathful winds come down
And the fierce waves, tossed on high
Lash themselves against the sky
Jesus, Savior, pilot me
Over life’s tempestuous sea
(words by Edward Hopper) 

No one needs “Christians” to create trouble so that others will believe they are being “persecuted”.

We don’t need anyone to create trouble so that their own egos are inflated by making others look bad.

And we certainly don’t need anyone to create trouble so they can appear to be our hero…

…we HAVE a Hero. 

He doesn’t take away the trouble, He goes. AHEAD of it.
He stands with us in the MIDDLE of it.
He marches with us THROUGH it… 

…and He covers the scars left by it.

One day when I was around 10-12 years old, my brother and I would play under a big apple tree while our grandmother worked in the nearby garden. It was in the month of May, and most of the time my brother and I were in school when Granny was in the garden. But this day was a Saturday, so we began playing under the apple tree. A humming noise caused us to look upward, and there hung a hornet’s nest covered with those buzzing bees. We shouted to our grandmother that there was a hornet’s nest in the tree, and she looked and saw it. “Don’t bother it” she yelled in return.

Temptation hit us anyway. Brashly confident in my ability to run fast, I took a stick and whacked the hornet’s nest. BIG MISTAKE! My speed in running…to an angry swarm of hornets…was a mere snail’s pace.

Needless to say, I had several stings on my face, neck, arms and legs. Although my grandmother quickly headed to the house for ointment to put on the stings, her first words were… (you guessed it!)..”Now what did I tell you? Did I not say, ‘leave it alone?’”

Some advice is pure wisdom born or knowledge and experience, and one would do well to listen…but I did not listen. The problem…I knew that my grandmother was right…” Leave that hornet’s nest alone.” I whacked it because I was overconfident that I could run fast enough to escape the consequences of poking that nest. So, what did I learn?

I learned that it is never wise to put one’s self-talk ahead of reasoned and experienced advice. To listen or not to listen? Perhaps the better question would be “WHO will I listen to?” I could listen to…or not listen to…my boisterous self-talk OR I could listen to my grandmother whom I knew better than to question her very practical advice.

Well, here is the rest of the story. The next day I did NOT have the option of staying home instead of going to Sunday School and worship. With a swollen eyelid and a “pump knot” on the back of my neck, I gladly told folks, “I got stung by hornets.” but if anyone asked, “was there a reason you got stung…?” I fell silent. At the time it was far better that the hornets be at fault than admit that it was me and my stupidity! Our God is gracious and forgiving. To listen or not to listen? When a pastor preached on the Prodigal Son and the Father’s love, he greeted people as they left the church, hearing favorable compliments, one parishioner, however, said, “I would not have given that young whippersnapper a feast” to which the minister said, “What would you have given him?” The reply: “Six years in prison!” Obviously, the parishioner would have preferred to punish the young man for the misdeeds after the prodigal had left home. But the reality remains: God loves us! To listen or not to listen is our prerogative.

The Old Testament story of Jonah is simple. God called him to go to a foreign country and preach, seeking persuade the people there to receive God’s love and redemption, and turn their lives around. But Jonah, with his long-held impressions of these people as “the worst of sinners”, could not believe that God would even entertain the idea of redeeming these “evil” people. To listen or not to listen? Jonah chose to think that these people were “not worthy” of receiving God’s love and discovering redemption. So, Jonah spent some time in the belly of a whale. When Jonah finally decided to listen to God rather than his personal prejudices and opinions, he was spewed out of the whale and went about fulfilling God’s call.

I suspect that being in a whale’s belly happens to all of us at times. It is incredible how much we choose to listen to ourselves and our thoughts. In so doing, we are in the whale’s belly, a place where we are totally alone, in a churning darkness, trapped by our own lies, and no way to escape the harm we do to ourselves. Only when we, like the Prodigal Son, come to our senses”, will we be cast out of the whale’s belly and embark on the path to which we are called.

To listen or not to listen? Choose wisely to whom you listen!

It was May 18, 1980, when Mount St. Helens erupted.  It was a Sunday, early in the morning, and I was living in Seattle.  What I remember is that I heard a sound outside my house, like someone had thrown a big ball up against the wall – it was loud enough that I looked out the window.  But the mountain was far enough away that I wouldn’t have seen anything.  The wind was blowing east, and the mountain was some hours south of Seattle, so it wasn’t until we were in church that we heard about the eruption.  Later in the day, during an outdoor bar-b-que, a few of us guys got up on the roof of the house (which was on a hill) and looked with binoculars at the ash cloud in the distance.  But we were somewhat unaffected by it all.

My parents, some 4 hours east, were at church. My Mom was a greeter that day, standing at the door and watching a dark cloud in the distance grow larger and larger with every hour.  When the announcement was broadcast that the mountain had erupted and the cloud that all eastern Washington was seeing was an ash cloud, church was cancelled, and people were told to go home.  No one really knew what the cloud contained; something poisonous?  Something dangerous?  And so, to avoid panic, people were sent home. They had a totally different experience than we did in Seattle.

Then there was the woman with her two kids, travelling close to the mountain in their station wagon when the mountain blew.  Suddenly, she said, the sky was black and all around her was chaos: trees were being stripped of their limbs, lakes were evaporating.  She made her kids lie down in the car and drove as fast as she could, but finally couldn’t see where she was going, and then her tires melted, and she was stuck.  Her mind shut down, unable to comprehend what was happening.  Her children were terrorized by the event, and her reaction.

She spoke from her home, weeks later, after returning from the hospital where she was treated for shock.  You see, to HER it seemed as if the world had ended.  Everywhere she looked, everything she saw was black, desolate and alien.  She saw no living creatures but herself and her children. She had no idea if devastation had consumed the entire world or not.  That experience made her lose her mind a little.  When she and her children were discovered a few hours after she pulled over on the back road she was travelling, she was incoherent, her children were panic-stricken and in shock. She was brought around when she was shown photos of her home and city still intact; when she was shown that the eruption, though massive, didn’t destroy the world.  Even though, from her perspective, the world was destroyed. 

That’s what I took away from the story.  From her perspective the entire world (or, at least, her world) was destroyed.  It was only when caregivers understood HER perspective that they could break through and help her.

We all have trauma; we all have to deal with devastation in our own lives at times.  Sometimes we fail to get the support we need because others around us aren’t feeling the same effects of that trauma as we are.  This should be a lesson for us.  As Jesus dealt with each living being according to THEIR need and THEIR perspective…so should we be able to “put ourselves in their place” and therefore help to bring them out.  Just because you or I may not react in the same way to the same predicament doesn’t mean that another’s pain is less important.  Sometimes we reject the call to care because we don’t think that the other person is really “that bad off”.

On May 18, 1980, I was barely affected by the “blast”, as we called it.  While just a few miles away a woman and her children thought their world was gone.

Every day we walk next to someone whose world is collapsing and every day we are reminded, by God, that the way to His heart is to love our neighbor.  Today, this week, watch for, reach out to, and love the ones that God sends our way.

*******

This story and others are available in a book by Rick Vale called, “OBSERVATIONS FROM A BACKSEAT PHILOSOPHER”. The book is recently available in paperback and Kindle Reader on AMAZON, at this link: https://a.co/d/beIuEck.

One of my favorite plays, and films, is AMADEUS.  It has been a favorite since I first saw the film in the theatre, in 1984.  In college I performed in a 2-person opera, with original translated text from PUSHKIN’s poem about the young composer (played by me) and the older Salieri…the Russian poem, set to music by Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakov.  (In March 2021 I performed the role of “SALIERI” in the ALLEY THEATRE production of the play – that’s right, I’m not a young “Mozart” anymore).

This Pushkin poem first introduced the idea that Antonio Salieri poisoned Wolfgang Mozart out of jealousy…it is a fantastical, though probably altogether fictional, idea. In the opera, the two singers never sing TOGETHER throughout the entire score.  This idea was taken up by the playwright Peter Shaffer and later turned into a film.

It is remarkable to think about Mozart’s genius mind: operas, symphonies, sonatas and more – all written and orchestrated by him since the time he was the age that I started playing the piano: age 5.  The movie is a fictional account of a segment of his life, but there are several “nods” to reality in some truly extraordinary ways.

Wolfgang did indeed write every note of every instrument in his head, FIRST.  Once edited and revised in his head, then he would take the pen and write it on the paper.  There are not many scores, if any, that show changes or edits.  Once, the night before one of his operas was to have its premiere, the concert master (first-chair violinist) frantically rushed to Mozart’s home and informed him that there was no Overture in the orchestra parts, Mozart had written the entire 2.5-hour opera but no Overture for the orchestra to play.  Mozart calmly gave him a glass of wine, asked him to make himself comfortable and then proceeded to write out the Overture, one part at a time, from memory, while carrying on a conversation with the concert master.  He didn’t even waste time writing out the entire score until much later, since he himself was conducting.  Once, to make a deadline, he wrote out parts (not copied from the score but written from memory) all night while his wife kept him awake by singing German folksongs!

The man was a gift from God, and if it weren’t enough that his genius was astounding, the music produced from his genius was and is beautiful; a gift to every ear, educated or not.

Although the storyline, which includes the composer Antonio Salieri (a contemporary of Mozart, a friend and colleague), as an antagonist whose supposed jealousy causes him to poison Mozart (at least that fiction is inferred).  But, in the script, Salieri has a valid question regarding his own talents, which he views as gifts from God, and Mozart’s greater talents.

His question is: Why do You (God) choose such a profane, rude and crass vessel (Mozart) for such incredible gifts…especially when I (Salieri) have given you my heart and soul and have not received the same?

The real Salieri may have indeed wondered about this and asked God.  Salieri was the most popular composer of the era and place, when the young Mozart stepped onto the concert scene, and although Wolfgang probably wasn’t even half so much as crass as the character in the movie, he was, by all historic accounts, a “free spirit” who did not view the rules as applying to him.  And again, one asks the question: Why does God choose to speak through seemingly unholy instruments?  OR why does God choose whom He chooses…for anything?

It is not inappropriate to ask, David asks it all the time in the Psalms.  I don’t think God is offended by our questions of why “good things happen to bad people” or why the gifts of that which is good, beautiful and true in art, are given to those whom we feel are undeserving.   However, there IS an issue when WE believe it’s fine to judge who is worthy of God’s grace and gifts, ourselves.

FIRST – we are NOT God.  Choosing who to bless and who to use is HIS prerogative, NOT ours. The moment we usurp God’s role (by judging who is worthy and who is not) we place ourselves in the place where God should be.  We cease being FOLLOWERS…and there is a difference between BELIEVING (which even Satan does) and FOLLOWING
(which one can’t do, if they continually place themselves in front of the One they are supposed to be following) 

SECOND – We don’t have all the information.  We cannot see people’s hearts, we cannot know what they are capable of in the future, any more than we know what WE are capable of…we cannot see as God can see. 

THIRD – We do not have the right to demand that God bless us OR to know all His plan – although, He will frequently use us as partners, sharing that information with us –  in HIS good time and will. 

FOURTH – the assumption that someone else is being “blessed” or “gifted” when they are seemingly unworthy, while we stand un-thanked, unheeded and unnoticed once again is an example of our impatience in thinking that the story is over.  In the end (or beginning, as I see it) all truth, all blessings, all rewards will come to those who have, in God’s eyes, earned them…until then we are still in the middle of the story.

Holiness and purity are not always necessary to communicate beauty, truth, and goodness.  After all, some of the most Godly and beautiful creations and art have come from some truly imperfect, and sometimes pagan, individuals.  Some of those who seem most “Godly” are not always, and many times are not the most talented…what’s THAT about? And what does that teach us about God?

In scripture AND in life.  God gives, and gives, and gives…not to some…but to all.

MATTHEW 5:43-48 “You have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing out of the ordinary?  Don’t even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

We also know EVERYTHING that is good, beautiful and true comes from God, no matter WHAT the vessel.

JAMES 1:16-17 “Don’t be deceived, my dearly loved brothers. Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights; with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.”

So how should we react when, like Salieri who seeks to do right and be blessed by His action sees another who, by Salieri’s measure, is unworthy of the gift?

Be thankful.  We apologize to God for believing that our good works will go unrewarded…just because we don’t have the reward yet.

And primarily, we thank God that His grace goes beyond our own ideas of mercy…after all, there was time (and will be again) when we do not deserve the “greatness” He so generously pours on us.

*****

This story and others are available in a book by Rick Vale called,
“OBSERVATIONS FROM A BACKSEAT PHILOSOPHER”.
The book is recently available in paperback and Kindle Reader on AMAZON, at this link: https://a.co/d/beIuEck.

Detectives and investigators “dig deep” in search for factual information. Medical laboratory scientists “dig deep” in search for causes of diseases AND for medications that may mange, if not eliminate, any illness or its symptoms. Inventors “dig deep” in their efforts to bring into reality their imaginative ideas, but unfortunately, some ideas lead to destructive weaponry as well as beneficial creations that may better the life of us all. Ministers “dig deep” in search for insightful, educational, and redemptive sermons. Farmers “dig deep” to obtain excellent yields in crops and livestock; over the long years farming methods have changed dramatically. In my own lifetime, companies have improved their product, and the telephone is an excellent example as I recall the old four party crank phones at my grandparents’ home which stand in stark
contrast to the wonders of today’s smartphone.

When I was preaching from the pulpit every Sunday during my career as a congregational pastor, the biggest compliment that anyone could say to me as they left the service was “I have never heard it that way before!” In college I earned a teacher’s certificate in history for secondary schools, and my love for teaching shaped every sermon over forty years! Thus, “digging deep” was an apt description of sermon preparation…a trait I appreciate in Pastor Rick.

As citizens of a nation in which our freedoms rest in the hands of the judiciary branch, the question arises, “what is justice?” Obviously, justice rests upon rightly interpreting laws under which we all live and work. It is important to remember that laws not only define what is criminal, but it also defines the process by which guilt or innocence may be imputed, that is, a process of justification beyond reasonable doubt. The judicial process is one of “digging deep”. Justice, then, is basically defined as fairly determining guilt or innocence and administering appropriate consequences when fault is found. Not everyone agrees, of course, but justice is bound by law.

But, biblically speaking, justice is NOT defined by law but by grace. God declares the faithful sinner “justified” WHEW! Now we all must “dig deep” to grasp justice as grace. By grace through faith in Jesus Christ, Son of God, we are justified, that is, declared as “without sin.” Here’s the problem: Sinners who live in Christ…still sin.

So, let’s “dig deep.” When God declared the believer to be justified, it means that God has removed the penalty of spiritual death, and by grace, God grants us eternal life (zoe) which God only can grant through the “shed blood” of Christ. We cannot declare ourselves as “just” nor can the Church declare us to be “just.” Only God. Even though the faithful still sin, and God does NOT excuse or ignore our sin, in Christ the sinner is restored to God’s favor. Freely given favor!!!

That’s not all. Gotta keep “digging deep!” The faithful are justified by Christ’s “shed blood” (Rom. 3:21-26) Here is what we often fail to understand: The Apostle Paul declared, “it is not I who lives, but Christ within me!” Christ’s shed blood covers us all, and therefore, we take on ourselves the life of Christ. This is the meaning of resurrection” From the familiar Easter Hymn, “He Lives! He Lives! How do I know He Lives? He lives within my heart!’

That’s not the whole story. Now, in Christ, we are commissioned to bring justice into the world. If a person is hungry, we feed him/her. If anyone is naked, we clothe them. If anyone is oppressed (treated unfairly), we free them. We forgive others as well as ourselves. We are not only “saved by grace through faith in Jesus, we live by grace! In Christ justice is not about demanding the consequences of law, rather, it is about covering with OUR BLOOD (time, income, resources, etc.) the deepest human need.

Keep your shovel handy!