Forgiveness . . . the Hard Questions, Which are Never Asked

(The book cover is just an icebreaker as I have not read that book nor do I know the content)

I started thinking about this issue of forgiveness this week and I wanted to revisit it from my typical, psychological, sociological as well as theological perspective. I'm not going to start with personal stories to illustrate the question, because that always comes across that I'm looking for guidance for my very specific situation. But I want to raise a much broader question about forgiveness in general.

Example 1, Extreme Forgiveness.

I knew about a man who was a full-time Christian worker and author. His 25 year old son was struggling to find some kind of work he could do. He eventually took up driving a taxi in a large US city.

Soon after taking the new job, one night a man pulled a gun on him and demanded his money. He only had about $30 on him and gave him all of it. The man then shot him in the back of the head (killing him) and tossed his body out of the cab and drove off with it. The police eventually found the cab later that night, had a shoot-out with the assailant, wounding him. The assailant was in the hospital.

In the midst of his grief, the father went to the hospital told the man that he completely forgave him for killing his son. He shared the gospel with the man and he immediately accepted Christ.

Now, this story was the cover story of the monthly journal for the magazine of the Christian organization, which the father worked with. It was an amazing story and became folklore and an example of Christian forgiveness.

I know I'm cynical at times, but I'm going to ask some honest questions . . . taking in consideration of the typical human psychological dynamics.

First I must ask, what is true Biblical forgiveness? Next time I want to look up some passages to cross examine.

Secondly, of course only this forementioned father and God knows the truth, but is there a chance that the father was acting out of extreme social pressure to be seen as the "godly man," rather than a heart-felt forgiveness? What I'm getting at, is that I've watch someone lose their son in an equally tragic way, and gave God praises because they wanted to live up to their concept of the Christian ideal.

Now, if someone killed one of my kids, I can imagine some day understanding the perpetrator's motives (say they did it out of a crack cocaine rage) and certainly not holding it against them. But I would always feel the anger of the loss. Is that what forgiveness really is . . . just giving up the right of wanting to punish them? Or is it "forgetting" the emotions of it?

I was told once (in error I believe) that true forgiveness is where you actually (supernaturally) forget what the other person had done, and end up completely trusting them in the same area where they hurt you.

Example 2, Moderate (but toxic) Forgiveness. I've heard this following story from several sources so it is an conglomeration of several examples.

A pastor spiritually abuses his wife for years. Puts her down. Criticizes her (in the name of God) all the time. He also controls her, using spiritual manipulation to get exactly what he wants from the family's money to getting out of chores and abuses in the bedroom. Finally it gets to physical abuse and he tells her in the privacy of the bedroom that if she ever tells he will kill her, in the name of God, because it would ruin him.

So finally, after sharing her private grief with a friend, she is given the courage to leave. The husband/pastor then starts horrible rumors about his wife, that she was sleeping around, abusing prescription drugs and etc. (all lies) and that she has turned her back on God. The pastor is so convincing that the entire church believes him and she looses virtually all her good friends, in-laws and even her only family doubts her. The pastor portrays himself (in a narcissistic way) that he is the real victim.

Her husband then excels in his work. The denomination promotes him to a bigger church. Eventually he marries the women (whom the wife suspected he was interested in even while they were married). He goes on to be a great Christian hero and even being a conference speaker and marriage enrichment seminar leader.

Since this crime against the wife is perpetual, how does she forgive him? Can the anger ever go away?

Any thoughts?

The Meaning of Christmas . . . A Psychological Shakedown

Nothing I say here is going to be theological. There is really nothing I can add to that discussion.Many Christian bloggers have written about true Christmas etc. until their font turns blue. I’ve been to three (and I may add, enjoyable) church services this week . . . all discussing something theological about Christmas.

But, I’ve had something in the back of my mind as I’ve observed my own life this holiday season. In my typical way, it is an attempt to deconstruct myself (and maybe others . . . if the shoe fits) in an honest and psychological way. I will start with my conclusion and then go back and describe my mental journey that has brought me to this point.

The essence is the real miracle of Christmas is in the eyes and experiences of the children. But then we spend the rest of our lives trying to recapture that magic . . . and are perpetually disappointed.

I'm not saying what I’m about to say, in a bah, humbug way. I’ve spoken before how I see childhood as the ideal human state. It is glorious. It is so wonderful, that I have a hunch that when God recreates this universes, He will bring us back as imaginative, courious and eternal children. I think this is what Sir James Matthew Barrie was trying to capture in his concept of Neverland (as was Michael Jackson).

When you have children of your own, and when you have a lot of them like we did, that magic endures for a while. After all, you can re-live so many things through the experiences of your own offspring. But when THEY grow up, then the perpetual disappointment starts to ensue. But not to continue on a sour note, I think I did learn something this year, about priorities and I think that’s going to help me in the future to be more realistic about the holidays.

Another thing about Christmas is that it brings out the widest chiasm in married couples' culture . . . of course if that culture is different, as Denise and mine is. I’m not talking about “meta-culture” such as would exist between a person from West Virginia and someone from Pakistan. I’m talking about the more subtle forms, such as between one American family and another, which is exaggerated when you are from different areas of the country.

Denise’s Christmas heritage was about as Rockwellian as it gets. She grew up on a farm in the Midwest with five siblings and a grand ma just across the drive way. Having a Scandinavian heritage brought in many more traditions that defined that experience. Lutheran church life was also key to their holidays.

On the other hand, I had never even heard of Advent, until I was in college. My earliest childhood memories of Christmas were no less glorious than Denise’s but very different. I’m sure she wouldn't trade her Christmas history for mine (for a second) . . . nor would I for hers.

My earliest Christmas memories were very close to the movie A Christmas Story. Indeed, I begged for a BB gun every year, and like the movie, I was always told by my mom that I would shoot my eye out with one.

But as the youngest child, I saw Christmas disintegrate faster than most. When I was twelve, I became the only child at home. My siblings, and other relatives, would come to mom and dad’s for the celebration but there was a dysfunctionality in the air. It seemed that every Christmas one of my siblings was in some kind of crisis, such as a marriage falling apart. We additionally had the odd relatives coming who made the entire week seem like the movie National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

There was uncle Hartsel, who was a TV evangelists with the Church of God. He spoke incessantly about his ministry, the End Times, and his sexual accomplishments as a young man (“bagging” the ten prettiest girls in town) . . . in that order. He also could not keep his hands off the young girls in the family, keeping at least one on his lap at all times as he rubbed his hands over their butt and thighs. Then there was my narcissistic Baptist aunt Marry. She saw herself as a cross between the Virgin Mary and the Queen of England. She had to be waited on hand and foot. She would also steal your kidneys if she could make a buck on them, but continuously look down her nose at us “little people” not meaning children but my entire side of the family.

But I digress.

This year, I saw the disappointment in Denise first and then thought through it for myself. She worked very, very hard this year . . . trying to capture that childhood Christmas. I think she was more determined than ever because she just lost her dad, who was always the center-piece of that memory. There are the decorations. This year’s tree . . . although late due to being out of the town for the funeral . . . looked like the cover of a Home and Garden magazine. She baked and cooked nonstop for the past two weeks. I could see in her the drive for normalacy . . . at least the normalacy of those Christmases past.

This year, however, I think her greatest disappoint was in me. I’m telling this from my perspective of course and if she would visit here she might disagree. But her ideal Christmas has all her adult children, well dressed and behaved, sitting on the same pew in church (her church) for Christmas Eve service. This is where the trouble began.

Between Denise’s busy work week and Christmas chores, we had only talked briefly about Christmas Eve service. I know that I was really looking forward to going to my new church’s service (and I haven’t looked forward to a Christmas Eve service in years). I also knew that it would very difficult for me to go to her church. As I mentioned in a previous post, it would be gut wrenching for me to be led by a spiritual guide who, the last time we had an encounter, he came to a very private family party (saying goodbye to my son who was leaving for college) and gave full vent to his rage, screaming at me while Denise and kids were cowering in the other room. It was very traumatic for me.

So I thought the choices were all of us going to my church, or Denise, and whoever wanted to, would go to her church.

Finally the time of decision came. I announced that I was going to my church’s 5:30 service, if anyone wanted to come to me. Denise expressed her great disappointment and anger, but she would not call it anger. She really expected that we would all go to her church.

I told her, “Denise, I’m willing to go to your church, but it would be a horrible experience for me.”

She said, “I’m not going to church alone as that would be a horrible for me?”

“Okay,” I said, “You take all the kids, who want to go, with you and I will go alone to my church.”

She did come to my church and I asked all the kids to come . . . for her, but I could tell that it was the crowning disappointment for her.

To me, I don’t care if the kids come or not. They are 18 to 24 years old now. I care deeply what they believe in their hearts. I would rather for them to honestly know God, and to never go to church or never dress up.

Then I reflected back on my past two Christmases and how disappointed I was. Last year, I thought what would be the best Christmas present I could think of for Denise. In my Christmas tradition it was all about presents. I got a car when I was 16, even though my mom and dad could not afford it. You might call it "present grandstanding." I guess I thought I could reproduce that feeling.

So, I figured that Denise would love a greenhouse. I started pouring the foundation around Thanksgiving. I cut all the support beams and laid them out in the shed. Then Christmas morning, as Denise was at work, the kids and I went out in the pouring rain and started assembling it. To make a long story short, I spent every waking second last Christmas season working on that greenhouse. As a matter of fact, I continued working on it for the subsequent three months . . . before it was finished. But I was so disappointed. I could not reproduce the same experience, which I had as a child. However, when I was out in the field building the thing I was away from my kids. Instead Iwas standing out in the rain and mud, building walls and putting up glass. Denise didn’t jump up and down over it like I had hoped. She told me that she had never asked for one, therefore all that energy was spent on myself.

The year before that wasn’t much better. We had a big snowstorm the week before Christmas (which is unusual for here). Our entire region was shut down. Then our water went out for ten days. I became obsessed with fixing it. It was a sad Christmas for me because I spent my days out digging ditches in the mud. Denise was very let down because so many of her plans were spoiled by the plumbing drought.

But this year, I think I have seen the light. You can not reproduce those memories. From now on my highlight is sitting around the table at the coffee shop and talking to my kids, getting deeper in conversation than I think I will for another twelve months. That's all that matters to me.

A Lesson from Julian

(Pictured: Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks)

I hesitated before I waded into the water on this hot issue. But in many ways I still am not. I'm only using the broad implications in a very tangential way. I've had many facebook Christian friends, especially those who mix extreme patriotism with their brand of Christianity, blasting Wikileaks as very, very evil. I'm not here to say it is all good nor all bad. I'm certainly not foolish enough to say that the charges in Sweden are real (where real women were violated) or made up. I would have no idea because I wasn't there.

But the whole story does bring up valid points and to me, a little bit reminiscent.

I think it would take both hands and feet to count the times that I've been in the situation, which I'm about to describe. I saw it play out in the Christian circles I was in as well as the business world. It is where you notice something that isn't right in a situation. You speak to others (like other church members) and they agree. Then you are put into the situation where you are asked about the situation by the person who is responsible for it, and you answer very honestly. Next thing you know, all those who were in agreement with you, now have their heads in the sand, and you stand out a lone as the bad guy. The person who was in charge of the bad situation now targets you as the lone complainer and grumbler and no one comes to your defense.

You see, while Julian has an agenda and it is worthy to debate the merits and ills of such an agenda, it is hard to blame him for the content of what was leaked. Sure, there's some embarrassing cables and e-mails in the release. But he didn't write them. People in the State Department wrote them. So, rather than standing red faced and discussing their mistakes, lack of honesty, they focus on the whistle blower.

I knew I would get back to church on this. But take your typical church. The Evangelical versions boast of being true and Biblical. Yet, they, of all human institutions, are most insulated from self-criticism or self-monitoring. Therefore, thats why so much crazy stuff goes on inside them.

I dream of the possibility of going back to the developing world to work in health care. I would love it if some Christians were with me . . . but I would never go with a Christian organization again. The reason is, they are more vulnerable to mischief because of this wall of insulation. If you attempt to challenge the master-minds in control, they, very easily, start to use the standard guilt manipulation. "Looks like we have a complainer." or "Why are you so negative?" or "You must have some issues that make you so unhappy." Then you feel like a worm . . . a worm on his knees . . . and back away. The others, all who recognized the same problem, will side with the mastermind as you are raked through the coals.

I remember being in a Navigator training center. We were all required (as part of our spiritual training) to work for the nav leader. We cleaned his house, did his yard work, changed the oil in his car etc. I made the comment once that it is odd, that here is a guy who does not have a job, who sits at home all day doing Bible study, and meeting with people, and we, who were in demanding graduate school programs were doing all his chores. In the privacy of our house, every one agreed with me. But then once, I let it slip to the leader himself, and he made it into a spiritual issue. "This man's heart isn't right with God," he said. He told me to stop working on his yard and go home. Only those who really did it out of a servant heart should stay. Everyone else stayed but me.

It is true about my most recent church experience (not my present one). Everyone agrees that the Pastor is a dictator. Now I told him to his face and I stand alone. I'm evil. I'm the bad guy.

Honestly, if I had a blind spot in my life (and I think I have many) I would be most appreciative if someone would tell me, in a loving way. Like telling me I have a bugger hanging from my nose. I see it as a positive thing.

Maybe our government should say to Julian, "Thanks for pointing out all our hypocrisy. We're going to clean up our act from now on."

Peace on Earth . . . the Practical Side

It is always a surprise . . . and yet the expected, how this time of year brings out the good, the bad . . . and the concealed.

What I mean by "concealed," are the family, and other secrets, which raise their ugly heads this time of year. I've had patient after patient that tell of family pain. Usually it is a estranged son, or daughter who is noticeably absent. During the rest of the year, you can bury the pain with the distractions of every day life but no so at Christmas.

What my patients share as even more stressful, is where the aliened son, daughter . . . (or more typical, son or daughter in-law), do make the mandated Christmas appearance and all hell breaks loose.

It is a stressful time of year . . . in the midst of real peace and comfort. It is like Sweet and Sour Pork, a little tangy a little sugary.

I am thankful that I have peace with all my kids. I don't deserved that kind of peace. But their Christmas homecoming only brings insomnia for myself. They want to stay up until 1 AM. Me? Well I have to get up to go to work. But that's the only lack of peace we have in our family.

I am faced with another area where I sense the tension and that is with my old pastor. It is incredible but the two of us do live on the same island. I was confident that we would have run into each other on the street by now . . . but we have not. So this brings me to the Christmas tension.

The kids are home and Denise wants church celebration to be part of that. She wanted us to go to her church. I said, "That's okay, you go to yours and I will go to mine."

Then she said she really wanted us to go together. I said, okay, come to my Church's Christmas Eve celebration. I'm actually looking forward to it. "Okay," she says. Let's compromise. "We will go to both since they are at different times."

Here's my problem. The last image I have of my pastor is three months ago and him screaming at me in rage, describing the long list of moral failures I had done to him and his church. Then, a couple of days later, when he tried to act like nothing had happened, I shouted back at him that he owed me and my family an apology. I still think he does.

But now that brings us back to Christmas. It should be a time of peace. I wish I could I visit his church, enjoy the service and give him a big hug in the end. Some day I hope that I can. But to attend the service now, I know that I would feel very uncomfortable and strained, and for me it would drain all the joy out of the experience. I'm just not a very good actor.

I still hope that I can run into him, at a coffee shop, in a store . . . somewhere . . . but not initially as the spiritual authority of a Church service I've come to partake in.

The Future of The Church

I've noticed that every blog I visit is on a Christmas theme. Certainly there's nothing wrong with that and it is a no-brainer but to expect that this time of year. But I've decided to think about other big issues during this season just to avoid another blog about the meaning of Christmas.

I think about this issue a lot. The future. I think it is tied to my own sense of mortality. It came up again most recently with the lost of Denise's father. It is only natural that when one is surrounded with the emotions of death, that death becomes paramount in one's thinking for a while.

Denise and I had this conversation soon after we got back from the funeral. She brought it up. She asked me if I thought Jesus was coming back soon. I know what she was thinking at the time. This life on earth was too painful for her at that moment and she wanted it to end.

I personally lean in the post-mil direction when it comes to eschatology. My belief in this view is so fragile that I would never promote it here (and I'm not doing that now) or argue with anyone about it. But basically (if you have forgotten what this implies) I believe that the Church will eventually prevail . . . making a major impact in rolling back all that is bad here on this earth. Not totally of course. But that the Church will be God's tool of redemption of all societies on earth. That the gospel will spread to the ends of the earth, not brining a wacky form of Evangelicalism (which would not render the "heathen" in a better position) but a good, pure gospel. Then, when this peace is established, there will be a very long "millennium" (not necessarily meaning 1000 years but a very long time) of beauty on earth, and then Christ returns here to earth to rule. The earth will be cleansed and fixed (renewed) and those living, and those of us who have died, will be brought back to enjoy this new earth forever. Eternity spent here in this fixed physical world.

So I reminded Denise of my views. So, since we are nowhere near this point, of the Church redeeming the world, I don't think Jesus is coming back within a few hundred years . . . if not a few thousand.

I do understand that most American Christians are pre-mil post-trib leaning (or dogmatic on). I respect that position as well. The truth is that none of us know. The best we can do is make some educated guesses. So, it not an essential.

So, while I sometimes struggle with depression, and frequently (okay, always) struggle with anxiety . . . I am an eternal optimist. Different form my post trib, pre mil friends, I don't believe that this world is in the process of going down the toilet. I don't think we are far worse off than we where in the 60s. When you take the world as a whole (rather than our little, ole American corner) I think you can make strong arguments that we are better off. Atrocities have always been part of the human race . . . since Cain and Abel. There are far fewer now than ever before. Thanks to world wide, instant communication . . . it is much harder to abuse people as it was in the past. Sure, we still hear about terrible things . . . but, in my opinion, it is becoming more and more difficult to hide them. Even here in the US, I think that incest is far less common now than in the darkness of the "perfect," Christian utopia of the 50s. You could say the same about a lot of other sins. Now they are just more out in the open. That's my point.

So, after this very long introduction, the question becomes . . . what will the Church look like in, say, a hundred years? What bout a thousand?

In my view, because the Church is run by people, and people are fallen . . . and messed up, it is under constant need for reformation. Of course the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages had some hideous aspects, but the protestants didn't "fix" things. They improved things, and then the Catholic Church went through its own repentance and fix some of their things internally.

Like our dear, late friend, Michael Spencer believed, I think the age of the Evangelicals is over . . . hopefully. I sense we are in this phase of transition and the dust is still settling.

In my previous church, the pastor often voiced his opinion that all the forms of the emerging church, the house church movement, and of course the Catholics and other Orthodox Churches were not the "real Church." Of course he was wrong. But I've carried this on too long already. But I have this great optimist that the next phase of church life will be much better than those forms which have come before . . . at least one can hope.

Maybe I'll be back to talk about this more . . . maybe not.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions . . . and the Mythology of Good Choices

I'm on the threshold of making one of the biggest decisions I've ever made. That is to quit my job and open my own clinic. It has been a very complicated process over the past five years getting to this point. It is too complicated to discuss here, but I do want to share some thoughts once more about this cottage industry around Christian decision making.

First of all, if it isn't obvious, there's a lot at stake . . . mainly, total financial ruin. Right now is not a good time to go completely broke as I have 3 1/2 kids in college.

But on to my point.

You see, the last decision of this magnitude was quiting my job at Mayo Clinic, and coming to a place 2,000 miles away, where I wasn't really wanted. Over all, that decision has turned out well (despite all the warning signs that it would fail). I think all my kids and maybe even my wife would agree that moving here seven years ago was a positive thing. However, it was the decision before that one, which was a complete disaster. In that decision process, I quit my job, moved one hundred miles and built a house. The job was the job from hell (where the physicians I was working with were heavily involved with illegal billing practices) and the house building was a complete failure . . . could not have gone worse . . . unless one of us had been killed.

So this brings me back to this concept of how Christians can follow steps 1, 2, and 3 . . . and always end up in the "middle of God's will" where life is bliss. Or that's how the mythology goes. I know I've talked about this concept many times and from many directions, such as the Prince Charming piece.

Yesterday I was standing at my dream clinic site with a Realtor, contractor, interior designer friend and my wife. After everyone had left, it was just the contractor and me. He is a good friend. Really nice guy. He is an evangelical and a card carrying Promise Keepers man. As I discussed the risk involved, he asked me if I had "prayed about it."

"Sure have," I honestly said. I pray about it almost continuously. But then he added the line that is cliche. "Well then, if it is the right thing all the doors will open and if not, they won't."

If life could only be that easy! But it is not. Remember that decision, two decisions ago, which turned into a disaster? Well I certainly do remember it and remember it well. All the doors opened. I didn't have to force any open. I prayed about that decision until I was blue in the face (and continued praying about it for the subsequent decade as we had a 1/2 built house that we couldn't sell). I remember when I made that decision how my Christian friends lined up to tell me it was the right thing to do.

One of those friends, a pastor, was all thumbs up about it. Partially because it meant that I would be moving to his town and joining his church. He was the one who put me in touch with a pastor friend of his who had a contracting business on the side. It was a freaking nightmare. The contractor may have been a wonderful pastor, but he was a contracting idiot. He messed the house up so badly that it couldn't be sold. Then, he declared bankruptcy (after a relative of his, an employee of his company, ran off with the money) and I couldn't sue him. The real kicker, while we were living in a mess (the house was an unheated shed in the middle of the winter in norther Michigan) the pastor who told me that the decision was the right one and who set me up with the terrible contractor, now told me that the failure was all my fault because I had not trusted God correctly.

So, once again I stand at a crossroads. Yes, decisions making is a science, where you do put your ducks in a row, do your research and try to make the best decision that you can. But this mythology that if you pray about it and the doors open that it will be bliss is very, very wrong. This time around the doors are opening. I could easily make the case that this is clearly God's will . . . but many of us now know better. My summary is that life has real risks. There is no fairy tale where the happy ending always comes. It doesn't. But, we must be faithful to live with the consequences and not blame God for promises He never made.

The last reason this came to mind was a man I met at this week's prayer group. He too felt God had led him to start a business. But he has had incredible set backs. Two vital pieces of machinery for his business, which he bought new, and were top-of-the -line, are seriously defective. He was expressing so much frustration as he prayed. I could tell that he was in that same mental cul-de-sac that many of us have found ourselves in. "God, are you there? Didn't I do this right?" It is a shame. I approached him after the prayer meeting to tell him, basically, shit happens. It wasn't his fault and certainly wasn't God's fault. No-where in scriptures (unless you bend them to the breaking point) did God promise if you follow steps 1, 2 and 3 in your decision making the he would protect you from the laws of Murphy.

In the Praise of Fine Music

(photo is of some of the original handiwork of Handel in writing his Messiah)

I am actually grateful that I did not come from a musical family. My exposure to music was limited to the role of the superficial radio consumer. I never play an instrument seriously (but a little guitar). I never sang in any choir . . . not even at church or in high school. I did do a solo performance once at a college retreat . . . but that was truly an anomaly.

Now the reason I make such a statement isn't because I don't like music, but because I do. But I the fortunate position of coming to music as a novice, like a babe to milk.

I remember when I was required to take music appreciation to fulfill my undergrad requirements. The class was considered as boring and an easy "A." I chose the 8 AM class, where I thought I could sleep in the large music hall with its soft theater seats. But the professor took us on a philharmonic journey trough places and times. We sat and listen to the high fidelity recordings on the giant speakers in the acoustically correct auditorium. I became consumed with it. As an Appalachian hillbilly, I had never been exposed to opera, save the Grand Ole one. I had never listened to jazz, show tunes nor classical. But the classical possessed my soul like an intrusive spirit.

I briefly started to collect classical LPs until, unfortunately, a fellow Christian told me how bad "non-Christan music" was for me. You know,the heathen's like Bach, Pachelbel, Chopin and of course Handel. So I turned my back on music . . . in exchange for Larry Newman and music from the Maranatha label.

Then there was yesterday. I took my lunch hour, drove down the hill from our little hospital and parked at the marina. In front of my little jeep were a fleet of fishing vessels mixed in with yachts with beautiful lines and shapes. Denise spotted me and pulled up beside me. I jumped into her car. She had a CD of Handel's Messiah playing. I put back my seat, turned up the volume and looked out over the blue water with the snow capped back drop. It was extremely powerful.

The most powerful thing about the Messiah, wasn't necessarily the glorious words, but the complex interactions of he violin strings, the French horns, cello, oboe and harpsichord. What I'm talking about is what was expressed by Beethoven when he said he had to write out the music of the Handel's work for himself so he could get the "feeling of its intricacies and to unravel its complexities." There is something deep within music like that that resonates with something deep within your soul. It is in the same thought that Pythagoras had when he said, "There is geometry in the humming of the strings, music in the spacing of the spheres." From that point, he drew the conclusion that we were not of only material things . . . but of that which supersedes creation. Plato followed his thought and developed it further.

So, what I'm trying to say, is that I consider myself most fortunate to come to music as an outsider. I believe (and many would argue this point) that a castaway rescued from a decade-long imprisonment on a deserted island would have a greater appreciation of fine food than a famous chief, who is in his kitchen every day. I am that castaway.

Once again I must draw from something that Francis Schaeffer has said. He once visited an art museum in Amsterdam (I believe). It was an exhibit of some sort of contemporary (1970s) irrational art. It spoke loudly to a belief that all was chaos and that life had no real meaning. He said by the time he got out and by the time anyone would get out, their faith in a creator would be shaken to some degree.

When I hear the complexities of fine music, resonating in my soul . . . I know that there is something there. There is a piece of a personal universe which can not be explained by time, impersonal mechanics or simple electrons down an axon. That's why listening to fine music, even without words, brings me closer to God.

Death, Grief and Mourning . . . More on the Christian Perspective

(Painting is one interpretation of Plato's Cave Allegory)

It was roughly a year ago that I was sitting inside a large, white, nylon tent. In the center of the tent was a long table with twelve, American, medical providers perched on folding chairs. The tent was pitched on a steep, green, terraced hillside, just outside an old, stacked-stone school deep in the Himalayans. We were so remote that it would take a 60 mile walk to reach the nearest jeep trail out.

The moment was surreal to me. It was dark outside, except for the flickering light of a few kerosene lamps. It wasn’t quiet though. Inside the tent was a lively party. Some had carried bottles of Everest Beer over the pass, being chilled in the glacier-fed stream and were now popping the metal caps. We were crunching down on odd, shrimp-flavored, pink, fluffy chips from Kathmandu. Outside the tent the sounds were even louder . . . but not of the party mood. In a sharp contrast, outside I could only hear wailing and crying.

We had a patient come to us that day who was seriously ill with TB. Her family had carried her from a nearby village seeking the expertise of the American doctors . . . their potential savors. It reminded me of how the sick were carried by their families for miles to the feet of Jesus. However, rather than this woman (whom I would assume was in her early 40s) being miraculously healed by the great white doctors, she soon died under (and possibly because of) their care. The reason she died was that the IVs given to rehydrate her and to give her TB fighting antibiotics, over-came her frail heart and flooded her lungs. She died of congested heart failure soon after the sun had set over the towering snow-topped crags.

The two doctors, who were caring for her, bounced into our party tent with big smiles and an eagerness to join the festivities now that their medical vigilance was over. I felt a tremendous unease. They said, in what appeared to me to be a calloused flavor, “Eh . . . she would have died anyway. You know these people don’t have much of a quality of life to start with.” What kind of excuse was that?

I know that I may have mistaken the feelings and thoughts of the others tremendously, but I can speak frankly how I was feeling. I had this sense of the devaluing of the life of a brown person (speaking figuratively as one of the doctors actually had “brown skin”). A more appropriately term would be devaluing the life of the non-American, poor.

I sat in an emotionally-coerced muteness. I couldn’t stand the harsh dichotomy between the family in extreme grief at the loss of their mother, daughter, sister and wife outside, while inside the warm, well-lit tent was card playing, beer drinking and joke telling . . . in English, perfect American-English.

The shadows of the mourning party began to pass our tent. Since there was only one narrow, muddy path off that steep mountain, the party had to pass the wall of our tent by a matter of feet if not inches. It was a surreal moment. Everyone else seemed occupied with the card game as I watched the shadows move access the wall of our tent evocative of Plato’s cave allegory. There were short shadows of children walking and then the adults. You could see the faint outline of the body wrapped in a blanket being carried on the backs of the men. One I’m sure was her husband . . . one her father.

As the broken family passed by, the wailing and moaning began to drown out the card game. Angie, the medical student just to my right, said the most disturbing thing. “What’s wrong with these people? They must not take their Buddhism very seriously. Don’t they know that she might come back next time as a princess . . . or at least not in such poverty?”

Angie was fond of Buddhism herself as the typical American new-age practitioner. She taught a class in NYC on meditation and had superficially studied pop-pantheism.

Before I had a chance to say anything, Char, the one Nepalese among us said, “Oh, they are not Buddhist. Didn’t you see their crucifixes? They are Nepalese Christians.”

Angie’s eyes lit up, “Well that’s even worse. They must not be very good Christians to be crying like that. Don’t they live what they say they believe? Don’t they believe that she is in paradise now or Heaven?”

I turned to Angie, “Have you never lost anyone close to you? Have you ever seen anyone, whom you loved, die and felt the pain of that?”

She seemed to take it as a rhetorical question and never gave me an answer. Maybe it was too personal.

I added, “Well, I have. It doesn’t matter if they are in paradise today. You have loved them and been with them you whole life. Now, in the passing of a second, you will never hear their voice or feel their touch, their breath, their whisker burns or hugs. That is where the intense pain comes from. It would be the same pain if your loved one was taking off to Hawaii and you would never, ever see them again, exchange mail or talk to them. It is really painful. I’m a Christian and being so has only made my grief more acute when I sense the injustice of loss.”

Angie rolled her eyes. I excused myself from the group and went off to my own pup tent to be alone and to share in empathy with the bereaving crowd . . . who was now moving up the far side of the valley as a chain of rocking lamps against the black mountain side. The wailing echoed above the rushing river between us.

Schaeffer has also said that when you take the possible answers to of existence to their final conclusion, only the Christian philosophy truly allows you to clinch your fists and rage against suffering, injustice and death. None of which are natural, according to the way we were created. In the Christian perspective, they are all a horrible aberration. We stand side by side with God and cry . . . as Jesus cried at the tomb of Lazarus.

The pantheist must accept death as part of God. The evolutionary atheists must accept that death is as meaningless as life. Intense grief is only a chemical exchange within the limbic system, indistinguishable from pure pleasure.

Mourning Testifies to God's Existence . . . Finally, Getting to My Point

(The oil painting is by Premier Deuil, 1888, titled First Mourning)

Everyone knows the story. Someone has a major tragedy in their life and then, as a result, loose their faith. Often it is the death of someone they loved. But it could be any major loss. The reason for that of course, is a false expectation planted by erroneous Christian thinking.

This misunderstanding of scripture goes like this. God loves you and if you are faithful to Him, He will build a hedge of protection around you and your family so no harm will come. What happens to the disillusioned is that they really feel in their hearts that they were faithful . . . yet calamity came anyway. It appears as a celestial betrayal. But God never promised this hedge to us. It is wishful thinking and a bit of egocentrism. Verses, which were intended for the nation of Israel in a particular time and place or for a particular prophet, are applied to us simpletons. I know I was hoodwinked with this misunderstanding and thus fell into spiritual chaos when shit started happening in my life.

But the point I wanted to make (before I got sidetracked by tangents in my typical way) is that this feeling of grief and the mourning of loss, especially the loss of someone you love, is one of the strongest testimonies of God’s existence. I will make my case in the following paragraphs. If this takes too long, I may have to continue with yet another posting.

In a lecture by Francis Schaeffer, titled Possible Answers to Basic Philosophical Questions, he lays out the case that when you boil things down, there are only a few options of beliefs about the universe.

The very first point of divergence is whether there is anything here at all. Only a scant few philosophers and writers have suggested that nothing is here so that discussion isn’t worth having.

The next major break, and one that has great proponents of each side, is whether the universe had a personal beginning (being created) or impersonal. Now, if you choose the impersonal, you have to be true to your position. It is where, out of absolute nothing, the universe sprang into existence without provocation. It was a random act with no intention behind it. Then from that point (which you might call the Big Bang) all that is now has evolved, first a stellar evolution, then a geological one and finally a biological one. That evolution was without intent except for the natural laws which dictated it. But the natural laws, including the laws of physics, quantum mechanics and biological laws, are all arbitrary.

On the other side, there is the personal beginning. On the side of the personal beginning there are two main options. First there is the pantheistic answer, which the universe itself is all part of god. Secondly, there is the monotheistic view, that God created the universe outside of Himself. Now of course you can further break down the points of divergence into the Judaist, Islamic and Christian views but that isn’t my point here. I’m just going to compare the non-personal beginning to the monotheistic one as they answer this problem of mourning. I will call the non-personal (strict evolutionary without a creative influence) as position A, and the Christian (or more general monotheistic view) as position B.

So, when you look at mourning from the A position, of course it must be the consequences of millions of years of biological evolution, especially the evolution of the human brain and precisely the limbic system of that brain. The only guiding force is increasing the odds of reproduction, or of surviving to the point of being able to leave as many offspring as possible. That is really the only biological force behind evolution and natural selection. There is not a “happiness” force, only biological reproduction. Atheistic evolutionist often cheat at this point and speak of “personal” terminology such as, “That’s the way the universe intended it for our enrichment.” That’s nonsensical.

Now, I believe that the human brain is unique in its ability to mourn. Yes, animals do have a maternal instinct where they do appear to mourn with the loss of a dependent offspring. I’ve heard cows bellowing (is that the right word?) after their calf has died or been taken away. I’ve seen the same with dogs and with whales (who have much bigger brains than us). I am not an animal expert of course, but I think it is dubious that animals mourn anything but the loss of an offspring. Even that mourning, I think, is more of a defensive calling to get the offspring to come back to their safety. Certainly you could explain the loss of offspring in evolutionary terms if you wanted.

I know that people would argue with me on this point. There are stories about dogs lying on their deceased master’s graves for months or years. I suspect that it is a much more primal than that. I sense it is the longing for the dog food, which that master had dispensed over the years, sort of a conditioning reflex.

I hate to take a morbid turn in this story but I think it is pertinent. I once shared an office with a podiatrist, Steve, who was also the county corner in Marquette County, Michigan. Oddly, being a corner was his hobby. He ran for the office as an elected official. It didn’t pay that well. But I could tell he had a passion for the job.

Steve used to bring me some of his corner’s textbooks, thinking as a medical provider that those photos and stories would be interesting. I didn’t find them so. Mostly they were about identifying human bodies in a variety of situations and looking for tale-tale signs of mischief.

There was one chapter, which caught my attention. It was titled something to the effect of, “Recovering Bodies in Homes with Pets.” In that chapter it described the invariable consequence of a person dying alone with a pet in their apartment or house. Simply put, the pet eats their masters . . . always. As soon as they are cold, and apparently dead, the pet starts to nibble. There is no mourning, no sense of awe at the remains of the loved one. The chapter had plenty of horrible photos to prove the point. So I think we often project our very, uniquely human, sense of mourning onto animals, when they work from far more basic sense of instincts of hunger and reproduction.

So my point is, humans are exclusively programmed for mourning the loss of someone who has died. But this special sense goes far beyond just mourning. It has to do with consciousness, self-awareness and what I would call the love of life and longing for eternity. Don Richardson calls it, “Eternity in their Hearts.” My good friend, Coco (my Saint Bernard) has no sense that she is getting older and will probably die within the next couple of years. Sure, she doesn’t like her joint pain. But I really don’t think she has a sense of death, dying or mourning. When her dear friend (fellow Jones pet dog) Sparky died, her only concern was his corpse was blocking her food dish.

I know that there are those within the A perspective camp who would argue this point. There is a lot that we don’t know about animals and their sense of consciousness. But no one would argue that humans are not unique in our level of awareness of life, and the love there of.

Schaeffer talks about this rise to consciousness among men (meaning mankind). It suddenly puts us in dissonance with the reality of the universe. Here we are, a people who longs for life and eternity both in ourselves and in those we love. Yet, the universe in which we live, dictates a different outcome. It creates an incredible tension, of which, mourning, grief, depression and severe longing is the consequence.

He (Francis Schaeffer) further points out, that if you approached this situation from a clean position A (when I say “clean” I mean, not counting the theistic evolutionist but the strict atheistic evolutionist), then we have evolved beyond what the universe dictates. While biological laws dictate that evolutionary changes (except for brief mutations which are destructive and self-limiting) increase our likelihood of reproduction. But this sense of eternity creates a tension that makes us even more discontent, and leads to a less likely change of reproduction.

Schaeffer describes it like a fish in a sealed in a closed aquarium (without any perching stones or even free air) that evolves to the point of developing lungs. That evolutionary change would be more harmful to the fish and make this less likely to survive. They will eventually drown.

From the position A perspective, we humans have evolved into a situation where we now have “lungs” in a universe where there is no free air. We long for eternity for ourselves and for the people whom we love. We ache, suffer and grieve when that eternity is interrupted.

I will come back and talk more about the position B perspective next time. It is more obvious where I’m going with this but once again I’ve run out of attention span.

The Pain of Death Testifies of the Existence of God Part III

There are certainly differ ways for people to mourn, some more emotionally healthy than others. Of course I can not tell a person what is the best way for them. I do have a hunch that the Mediterranean/Arab cultures do it best and us northern European and Asian descents the worst.

I had the unfortunate experience of witnessing a few accidental deaths in my time in Cairo. One morning I was riding my mini bus on my ninety minute commute to Arabic school. The streets were always extremely chaotic and crowed. In between the old broken down buses were a river of cars, donkey carts, camels and thousands of pedestrians. To my right I happened to catch a tragic event. A man stood on the side walk holding the hand of his, about 7 year-old, son (one would assume it was his son) who was wearing the typical gray school uniform. You could see the dusty red school bus approaching quickly. Just before the bus pulled up beside them, and for reasons I can’t understand, the boy stepped into the street. Immediately the huge front tire ran right over him. There was no hope of survival as the boy was squashed flat beneath the tire. It was a scene seared into my mind forever.

To my surprise, the father didn’t run to the boy’s entangled body, but instead, began running down the street. He was screaming. He was pulling his hair out by the handfuls and he ripped his shirt entirely off and fell face down on the dirty sidewalk while he pounded himself in the face. It was an intense out-pouring of emotion with no reservations.

I find it perplexing to see how the Arab’s vent their emotions without hesitation. The reason it seems strange is their philosophical orientation. They are extremely fatalistic. Everything is done by God’s willing hand. Different from evangelicals, they don’t see God delivering a tragedy to teach them patience . . . but always in judgment. They have an omnipotent God, not a benevolent one. But despite that, they show their grief on their sleeves. I’m not sure if I understand how that works out. I do think that in Christian countries, we have learned to suppress our emotions because we want to appear spiritual.

With that said, I wanted to move on to my last point and that is the how the pain of death, in my opinion, testifies of God’s presence. I realize once more I’ve run out of time and attention span (mine and yours) and I will have to finish this up next time.

Death Part II

(the painting is by Caravaggio in1608 and is titled The Raising of Lazarus)


I’ve heard two perspectives on the John 11 passage preached from the pulpit. I will paraphrase each.

Perspective 1:

Jesus was busy and got word that His good friend was very sick. Jesus knew that it was serious . . . even terminal. But Jesus had work to do where He was, plus it was dangerous going back to Judea so He waited a few days.

As Jesus and His disciples approached Bethany, word came that His friend was dead and He was too late. Jesus said, “No problem. I can raise him even from the dead.”

He arrived at the tomb and His friend's sister was irritated that Jesus was too late.

Jesus shook His head and thought, these pathetic humans. They don’t have the faith to believe what I can really do. Then He cried over His frustration and grief about the silly humans’ failures.

Perspective 2:

Jesus heard that His friend, whom He loved dearly, was seriously sick. Jesus hated the effects of the Fall on the people He loved, especially sickness and death. It was one more battle Jesus wanted to fight.

But he was busy where He was and He knew that He would have to fight back the darkness in Bethany and redeem His friend from the grave.

When He approached Bethany, people came to Him to tell Him that His friend was already dead and had been dead for several days. Jesus felt grief because He understood the pain that death brings these people whom He loved.

He approached the tomb and the humanness of Jesus was overwhelmed with the grief of death and all the suffering, which death (authored by the prince of darkness) has brought to the world. Jesus began sobbing.

In my opinion, it is this second perspective, which is most correct. Jesus hates the Fall and its consequences. He hates death. He doesn’t intentionally use death as an instrument to bring good . . . such as to teach someone something.

This brings me to my last point . . . another slippery path up in the high places. This is where the one in anguish, reaches the conclusion that God was never there in the first place. How many people have walked away form God when their child dies or their spouse or a friend?

In my next, and final, post on this topic I want to describe why death, and its aftermath, is one of my most convincing evidences that God really is there.

On Death and Mourning

(The painting is of course Van Gogh and is his "The Raising of Lazarus.")

It seems to be an oxymoron to speak of the fact that death is a part of life. While I’m sure the intent of my notion is understood, of course death is really the antithesis of life. But I must put down some thoughts about it as this bad season, of death, has visited our family once more. A week ago today Denise’s father passed from living his days here on this earth. So the thoughts of death and the observance of a life gone have consumed—of course Denise—and all of us this last seven days, and many more to come.

It doesn’t seem right to be thinking on death during this glorious season where the center of our focus is the birth of God on earth. Even the early Church picked December 25th as the day to remember the birth of Christ, because it represented beginnings. Occurring just after the winter solstice, it was the rebirth of the light as the days were growing longer.

Yet, the theme of death has always been the kid-shadow to the holidays. I think for one reason, as I said before, that the holidays are those great buoys or roadside markers, which reveal to us the passing of our lives. With that, it is also a time that we always tend to remember many people, whom we have loved and with whom we have celebrated Christmas, but yet are no longer here.

Of course we all know that the holidays are the most depressing time of the year and I think part of that sadness (in the midst of joy) is that constant longing for the whispers from the past, the grand parents, the old friend and the parent. I can’t imagine the pain that Christmas brings to those who have lost a child, a child with whom they had celebrated glorious mornings of excitement and true joy and then to be hushed forever on this earth.

It also seems that more of the people whom we have loved have departed us during the holidays. I’m not sure why. I realized it could just be a psychological factor that makes it seem that way but, at least for me, it seems real.

I think of the people whom I’ve lost and the vast majority of them were taken away from me during the holidays. My Grandfather, the first person I lost, died one week before Christmas. I can still remember, and I think I was only eleven, finding my mother collapsed in the kitchen floor on Christmas Eve. She went it to check the turkey and never came out. We use to spend every Christmas Eve with him. Mom was lying on the floor, shaking and crying and saying over and over, “Do you realize that was my daddy we just buried . . . that was my daddy . . . that was my daddy. We will never have Christmas with him again.”

My favorite uncle died just after Thanksgiving. A couple of years later my close high school friend, Amanda, was killed the day after school let out for the Christmas break. It was her very first solo driving trip. She was only going to the store three miles away to buy eggs for Christmas baking. That Christmas of 1974 fell silent. It became the year without a holiday season. Three years later, my good, college, friend Owen took his own life about three days after Christmas.

Although my own father did not die at Christmas, I said my goodbyes to him then. I knew I would never see him alive again. It was surreal. How do you say goodbye to your fully vigilant father knowing that the next time you would see him would be in his open casket? It was horrible. I had driven from his house in Tennessee, back to Michigan many, many times and it was always full of tears . . . but that time the pain was unbearable.

But I have to think about death because it is always intrusive. There is never a better way or time to die. I’m not writing to be a downer to myself or anyone, but, like I said it is a part or anti-part to life.

I’ve seen death handled by Christians in a variety of ways . . . some more dysfunctional than others. I helped Barb, a good friend in college, and her mother celebrate her father’s death. When I used the word “celebrate” here . . . is wasn’t what you think. It was a true celebration. They were a deeply religious family and their gross misunderstanding of death made them think that the proper way for Christians to face it was in a loud party. There were no tears allowed. There were balloons, noise makers and the sort . . . to celebrate their father/husband’s sudden, and un-expectant, entrance into Heaven. It was as bizarre as it sounds. I don’t know how deep they had to dig to bury the pain but it had to go somewhere. I saw the same happen when a friend’s son was killed in a car wreck. The father and mother were so hell-bent in proving to the world that they were godly, they never shed a tear . . . at least not then.

But death is not a gift nor was it ever intended to be that way. It is not a happy ending and any time we try to put a positive face on it, it is the same as trying to say the Fall of man . . . had its good side. Death is an aberration. It is offensive. It is un-natural. It is not the grand finale or the relief from suffering . . . but the fulfillment of suffering . . . suffering gone wild . . . suffering triumphing—through temporally—over us.

An acquaintance of mine died a few months ago mountain climbing. He was an avid mountain climbing and truly loved it. He was also in his early seventies. So I must have heard a hundred times, “Well he died doing what he loved and that was nice.” Hell no it wasn’t nice! He fell a thousand feet to his horrible death. He must have been terrified on the way down. He had to have felt the pain of hitting the ground. But worst than that, he felt the pain in his heart during those few seconds of knowing that he was leaving the wife and children, which he loved, and the grand children, who he will not see grow up. Death is always bad. It is worse than bad. Okay, maybe if Hitler died in his youth it would have been a good thing. But only God knows that, and it still doesn’t sound right. I think Bonheoffer struggled with the same concept.

I have also heard of Christians who start to loose faith in the midst of the tragedy of death. The thinking goes, “How could have God allowed this?” It is the age-old question of, how can God be both loving and in control, yet this great pain has come to us? This is the slippery path in the high places were we can so easily stumble. We can fall to one side and blame God forever and either walk away from Him or become to Him a statue of cold marble. On the other side, we fall into the abyss of believing that God is the author of death. In that frame of mind we believe that God not only willed it, but designed it. Oddly, it dictates that God painstakingly formed each second of the suffering and catastrophe with his loving hands. Now that’s an oxymoron.

There is much more I want to say so I must continue this later. I will end with a passage from John 11, which I want to speak to when I’m back. Once again I’m sorry about the typos but I just got off a plane and I’ve had about three hours sleep.

John 11

The Death of Lazarus

1 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8 “But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”

9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the daytime will not stumble, for they see by this world’s light. 10 It is when a person walks at night that they stumble, for they have no light.”

11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”

12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.

14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

16 Then Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus

17 On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was less than two miles[b] from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”

23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”

24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32 When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

35 Jesus wept.

36 Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”