Tongues of Fire

Caution! Achtung! Warning! There's a sticky subject ahead. Not that we shouldn't admit that we have elephants in the room, but we do often have a difficult time doing so. Still, it must be said that we are called to redeem, to be Christ wherever we go. In recent years, it has come into vogue in our world of the Kingdom to be glad for our freedom to curse. Or, since I think that how Scripture (and indeed any authoritative text of the ancient world) defines cursing is a far cry from our so-called four letter words, I will heretofore refer to it as 'cussing.' That sounds much earthier than, "You shall walk on your belly, and dust shall be your food." ¹ Truth be told, one word obviously is derivative of the other, but we shall let slang refer to slang, and the high speech of the Lord and his servants of old will not come into this discussion.

I've chosen to write about this, in part, because it has both perplexed and irritated me for some time now. But truly, no matter my thoughts on the subject, the Scriptures, a few mature authorities, and sheer common sense have a good deal to say to us all. To begin with, the issue is that cussing is not the language of redemption. Let's allow some air into that before we continue. Am I saying that the oft-mentioned situation of hitting your thumb with a hammer is not a prelude to any vulgarity that may cross your mind? Of course not. Most of us are going to cuss sooner or later, and I don't think we should dwell very much on the specifics of things you don't want to hear from a 5-year-old's mouth.

Men will have to give an account of every idle word spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned. ²

What concerns me most is the revelry in freedom from a law which has been fulfilled. The Sheep have been loosed from their green-swathed pen to follow the Shepherd through the Dark Countries if they will. But on the way, we enjoy rolling in the mud and filth now and again, just to prove to our fellows that our Sovereign won't give vent to his anger over such trivialities. In the back of all our minds is the possibility that he might rebuke us, but we don't dwell on it. But that same Sovereign has made it our task to let our light shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. ³ Let us make way for the possibility that, in some small part, the use of uncouth language in any form may bring about that redemption of the language simply according to the purpose of its use and the person who uses it. If Jonathan Edwards rolled out of the pages of history and said, "I hope [insert frustration here] burns in Hell," I think I'd pay attention. But if Chris Rock says it, it gets filed away in our memory banks under "Mildly Humorous" and we long to laugh about it at the office coffee pot. It's true, we don't like high speech. We prefer Hemingway's pointedness to Fenimore Cooper's florid descriptions.

But when musicians kick off the sales of records with the idea that it's controversial to say "shit" and artists paint nude studies with emphasis on genitals, then we've crossed the line from redeeming words and pictures to selling shock. And honestly, unfortunately, it's no longer shocking. Except, of course, to the legalism crowd who has thrown out the baby of untamed great art with the bathwater of borderless voyeurism - and yes, they're found mostly in churches and older generations. The younger and perhaps more urban Christian that finds it hip to cuss has missed the purpose of speech entirely. Even Pagans (that is, those who are not Christians) have discovered this. Consider a letter to the editor from my hometown weekly.

Every time I am reading your publication and come across a term like “really sucked” or “kicked ass” or “it takes balls,” it is like being in an art exhibition and coming across a canvas where someone has merely blown their nose. These sentiments never change and I just long for more eloquent times; Virginia Woolf and Henry James would have gotten any point across without having to subject readers to unnecessary vulgarity. ⁴

Blown their nose? Yes, I believe that about sums it up. And our personal speech in this Soundbyte Era is little more than a collection of mindless and profane exclamations. Amongst believers, we must be reminded not to "use our freedom as a cover-up for evil." ⁵ But "let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you will know how to answer everyone." ⁶ Should we expect Believers and Pagans alike to express anger in their language at times? Most certainly. But amongst those called to redeem culture and "take every thought captive," we should also expect speech to be a little more efficient in its usage, and more beautiful in its scope. ⁷

And if you made it this far, enjoy one of my favorite slam poetry performances by Taylor Mali.

1. Genesis 3:14.
2. Matthew 12: 36-37.
3. Matthew 5:16.
4. Cynthia Markert. Metropulse. Letters to the Editor. September 23, 2009.
5. I Peter 2:16.
6. Colossians 4:6.
7. II Corinthians 10:5.

Friday at the Square Room

This just in: Because of new FTC guidelines, I must disclose that I received my copy of North! Or Be Eaten for free from Waterbrook/Multnomah Publishing, in exchange for writing a review. I probably should have mentioned this anyway, but it did not occur to me. All legalities aside though, I still could not help but thoroughly devour such a delicious tale. And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Live at the Square Room
Friday, October 16th, 8pm

Andy & the Andys

If you're doing nothing this Friday night, you should leave your nothingness and go with all haste to the somethingness of this concert. If, perchance, you are doing something, then you should stop immediately upon the hour of 7 tomorrow evening and go to the concert. Not only are three of the best songwriters I know gathered under one roof as a band, but my friend Andy Vandergriff is opening for them. I would geek out and pee on myself while spouting the unintelligible gibberish of the socially inept. But I'm not opening for them, Andy is. And yes, we've all thought of every possible joke about Andy and Andy and the Andys, so we won't mention them. I'll see you at the show.

The Carpenter's Furniture

Here is a story I wrote after sweating and cursing through the refinishing of two antique pieces of furniture for my daughter's room. I love heirlooms and storied family treasures. The idea is to keep a copy of this story with the furniture for future reading. Enjoy.

The Carpenter’s Furniture: a Redemption Story

They began life as a handful of seeds. Or perhaps what merely amounted to a handful, for they had never been gathered together or held in anyone’s hands. Long they lay in the ground, waiting while winter visited its breath upon their elders above the surface. But then, something inside said that it was time, and they began to change. It was hardly noticeable, really. No one paid much attention when any of the thin green saplings poked their brave noses above the dirt. That was as they wanted it.

But soon their skin hardened into bark and they added years to their lives, piling on the seasons of flood and drought, until one day, a man came and called them by a name. It was not the name they had known when they were born, the name that ran through their sap and roots and stretched out to the smallest twigs of their branches, the name that the sky spoke when it looked down upon them. It was a foreign name: “May-puhl.”

“May-puhl?” they thought, and they questioned one another along the breeze that ran through their grove. The man was young, it seemed. Men did not live as long as trees, but this one seemed to think himself old enough for judgment. Then he took out a long, serrated knife, and cut them all down. It hurt terribly, and they didn’t understand, but they bore their fate with the patience given their kind. Other men came and carved up their bodies and carried them away, where they were divided up and rendered unto planks and facings.

Time passed, and the planks were bought and sold and nailed and glued together. A carpenter from Alabama happened upon a collection of them and paid out quite a sum, taking them back to his shop excitedly. For many days he stared at the wood and drew up plans, hoping that his work would feed his family. Then, on a Saturday in April, he began to work, beveling edges and routing grooves, ripping boards and gluing joints. His wife would occasionally look in on him. He moved from the larger bits to doing some scrollwork on the apron of two pieces. They seemed to his wife to be turning into a bureau and a vanity. The scrollwork was new to him, but he threw his heart into it, and in the end it turned out well. The bureau and the vanity were sanded and stained and went up for sale in his tiny storefront.

There they sat for a time, and the carpenter began to think less of himself and wondered about the value of his skill. But upon an unexpectedly warm day that September, a lady came in the door. The timing seemed queer, Uncanny as the carpenter’s wife later put it. For the lady searched round the storefront and decided on exactly those two pieces which had languished for months. She offered a sum for them which was strangely a few dollars more than what the carpenter needed to make rent. The carpenter took it with a meek and thankful look in his eyes, and he loaded the pieces into a truck to deliver them to her house, which turned out to be a small affair tucked away on a large farmstead near a bend in the river. Cotton bolls were beginning to open in rows stretching away to a line of elms that towered in the distance toward the south. The field to the north, away from the river, held a vast crop of late bush beans that hung like green jewels in the sun. The dirt road ran straight on a slight causeway between fields. The carpenter drove up to the house, which had apple trees surrounding it and a large kitchen garden. He unloaded the bureau and the vanity and carried them into the sitting room, hoping to meet the farmer himself, but the man was nowhere to be seen. The lady thanked him and offered a basket of vegetables to him as he left.

She, though her frame was delicate, worked happily to move the two pieces into respective rooms, cherishing the idea of her husband’s return. And return he did. Late in the evening, he came down the road in the seat of a red tractor, his weary shoulders slightly hunched at the wheel and an exuberant border collie dashing about the path around him. His wife met him at the front door. Dinner was ready, but she wanted to show him a surprise first. She led him into the back bedrooms of their tiny house, and he stopped in the doorway when he saw the new furniture. His mind quickly rifled through the accounts, drawing up beads of sweat on his forehead when hard times came fresh on his memory, but then he saw the joy in his wife’s face. He let it be in good faith, and he smiled and thanked her for the gifts.

It was several years later, when the farmer’s wife took sick. She lay in the bed trying bravely to manage a smile on her wan face, as the farmer did his best to work his land and care for his wife. He wished that she had borne children who might help with the work, but they had none. At last, the malady conquered her, and she died. He buried her and mourned deeply, but did his best to continue the work with his dog for company.

As time passed, he fell in love with another woman, much younger. They married at length, but she, being immature in ways, was jealous of her husband’s first wife. She despised the bureau and the vanity, knowing them to be cherished gifts. Late one afternoon, out of youthful spite, she hewed the legs off of the vanity, and painted both pieces a creamy white. To be truthful, it was a rather dashing hue, although the vanity was now little more than a child’s desk. The farmer himself said nothing, hoping not to upset her.

Years crept up and flooded away again, and they, despite this offense, were faithful to each other and bore two children: a daughter and a son. The young girl inherited the carpenter’s furniture as a bedroom set. Initially she did not know the tainted history of it, but as she grew they saw fit to tell her. Soon, she married a quiet man, a jack-of-all-trades as it were. He was a musician but was studied in many arts and had industrious hands. They also bore two children: a son and a daughter. The little girl inherited the carpenter’s furniture in her turn, and cherished them as heirlooms.

Upon leaving home to attend school as a young woman, she met a strange young man who liked music. Different though they were in their persuasions, they fell in love and were wedded. They bought a house in the city, and she brought the furniture up from her mother’s house to be their own. In the course of time, she came to be with child, and they decided upon a use for the carpenter’s furniture. Their child would also inherit it, but they desired that its history should come upon a different chapter. The young musician liked wooden and storied things that were well built, and bent his mind toward stripping the furniture of its creamy coat, which had now crackled pleasantly over the first finish. Many commented on the quality of the cracking, saying that it had class and was beautiful. But the musician and his wife reasoned that, as the paint was applied in spite, it should be undone in love.

Many hours of longsuffering work they spent, painstakingly removing the layers of yellowed paint and even the stain beneath. The musician’s friends came by to help. A black man from New York worked side by side with him, and alongside their work, they freely discussed the angst between the races of black and white men in the South. They worked as brothers, and were glad to have a freedom from the constraints of fear, at least between themselves. The musician found a man begging on the side of the road, and gave him the chance to live with dignity again by working for his food. They ate and worked with each other for a day, and the musician prayed over him and sent him off.

Most of all, the musician’s wife worked beside him, even though she was greatly with child and could not easily move about. After they had stripped away the years of paint and stain, they put new legs on the vanity and sanded the carpenter’s furniture again. Once, the vanity was left out on the porch, and the wet air bowed the paneling on one side. The musician was angry with himself, but sought knowledge about kerfing. He kerfed the panel himself and patched it, sanding it again when it was dry. The musician and his wife also began to stain the furniture a deep and dark tone, nearly black. Patiently they worked as the furniture took up all the space where they once dined as a family. Persistently, they stained and sanded and stained until it was done. It was polished and handed down as a set to their first child, a daughter. That is how it came to be here.

Book Review: North! Or Be Eaten

According to George Lucas, the second section of a story is where you must place your characters in the worst situation possible. This only works if the audience identifies with the characters, if they care about them, and I’ve found that I can’t help but care about the three Wingfeather/Igiby children. They have now proven themselves to be the seedlings of the royalty that runs in their lineage, and in Andrew Peterson’s second installment of the Wingfeather Saga, North! Or Be Eaten, their royalty is pitted against a vast and sinister array of villains. Even more difficult are their battles with the devils on their shoulders as they flee the soulless Fangs of Dang, the Stranders of the East Bend, and the pitiable beggars who lost children to the Fork Factory. Uncle Artham, the elder throne warden, does his best to remain lucid as he slips toward madness. Tink broods uncertainly and reluctantly over his future kingship and the responsibility thereof. Janner struggles to live up to the task of protecting his often frustrating and argumentative family.

Meanwhile, we are allowed in on the spotty and questionable history of the Igiby clan as we know it. Why is Podo Helmer so afraid of the sea? What brings him to scoff at the dragons that everyone else finds so majestic? We find out more about the power behind Leeli’s songs and the abominable origin of the Fangs. As I turned through chapter upon chapter, I found myself more and more on the verge of tears as the family was ripped apart and sent through one crucible after another. Janner goes to the Fork Factory. Tink faces the bitter end of all those drawn away by the Black Carriage. Podo finally greets his grim history. And Nia and Leeli are forced to watch patiently as these men, young and old, scramble to stand on two feet as they are repeatedly tried. Through all of the family’s seeming failures they somehow draw nearer to a victory, the face of which they never could have recognized before.

The environs of North! are bedazzling in themselves. Andy takes us from the green boughs of Glipwood Forest to the dizzying heights of Fingap Falls and Miller’s Bridge, to the grimy and oppressed streets of Dugtown, where hundreds of secret hallways tunnel beneath the city. Beyond that there are the crystalline chambers of Kimera, the cold and stony passageways of the Phoob Islands, and finally, the Dark Sea of Darkness itself. But if all these places weren’t enough, Andrew has crafted a world beyond them, complete with history and rife with tales and characters that cry out to be unearthed. We discover the ancient and tragic lives of the dragons themselves and the reasons for their deep and painful sorrow. Early secrets of Aerwiar are revealed, and we are told of the greedy sabotage of Ouster Will and the fall of the world.

After On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, Andrew Peterson again attests to his craft as a consummate storyteller, bringing his love of narrative (which has long been a part of his songwriting) once more to the written page. I am so glad that this is the sort of story he has chosen to tell. The more I dig into the annals of Anniera, the more depth I discover. There are older languages which have yet to be fully expounded upon, maps which invite me to consider the boundless adventures beyond my own horizons, and the predominant temptation of genealogy that calls me to consider well the rock from which I am hewn. I hope fans of Tolkien, Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Wendell Berry, and the like discover this book and its predecessor. A great shortage exists of authors who are willing to undertake the monumental task of spinning a world and all its history and trappings out of literary thread. It’s good to know that there is another of these daring souls at large.

-Andy Peterson's website
-The Rabbit Room
-The Wingfeather Saga Online
-Waterbrook Press

A Long Draught of Truth

It's the greatest feeling when you're playing at an outdoor venue and innocent passersby stop in their tracks and cock their ears to catch what's happening. If one were to be slaughtering chickens in person to the music of Liszt played backwards, I think the stopping in the tracks would also occur, but for different reasons. All told, we had a great time playing at Market Square, begging like Elijah that there would be no rain for the next hour.

Here's a bit I wrote before my last trip to Scotland. Many thanks to Ted for graciously asking me to write it, even though I didn't seem a very good sport at the time. I beg your indulgence, as it's rather long as blog posts go, but I feel that it unearths many things that might help you understand whence I come where my faith is concerned. Come, let us open the bottle. 'Twas a good year.

I usually wake up every day feeling like I’m walking with all certainty toward the gates of Hell. This does not bode well for a life of faith, some would say. Others, deeply concerned for me and my pathological need to be validated, would tell me to abandon Christianity and find something that affirms me more effectively. The problem with that is that I can’t cling to Christianity. I can try, but all things around which I can wrap my mind will eventually crumble. I’ve been asked to write my testimony, my story, as a Christian. That is, what Christ has done for me. I consider myself a writer, sort of. I’ve written pieces which have been published, if only in a small collegiate anthology. I’ve written songs that people have identified with and recorded an album which has sold a few copies, but my mind balks at the task of narrating what Christ has done for me.

This is not, let us be assured, because he has done nothing for me. He has rescued me, does rescue me, and continues to rescue me from myself, from “this body of death.” (Ro. 7:24) He has changed me from a lustful, fearful, narcissistic, prideful wretch into a wretch who is still all those things, but doesn’t desire them as much anymore. The change, you might say, is negligible. But you would be wrong. I don’t really know if I’m as lustful or fearful as I used to be, but my desiring to be other than that is cataclysmic. There are other things as well that I don’t know, such as if I’m going to heaven or hell. I have many characteristic idiosyncrasies, but certainty is not among them. The irony is that, the more time I spend in the company of Christ, the less certain I am. I heard a program on the radio today that trumpeted assurance as one of only a few qualities that defines Christians against the milieu of worldly doubt. I assume that the man who preached this is a studied apprentice of Scripture and has had more education than I care to imagine, but somehow, I disagree with him. If doubt were not so human, faith would not beguile us so. I do know followers of Christ by sight sometimes. It’s a light in the eyes, a lift of the tone of voice, a choice of words, a holy silence that often gives them away. These things are only the outworking of love. Still, I couldn’t tell you who is “getting in,” myself included. My friend Doug and I laughed together about our inability to go around looking up people’s Calvinist skirts. In the midst of all my religious insecurities though, in the empty shrine of certainty, there resides a brilliant seed of hope.

Of that, I only know that God, in Christ, desires me. My company. And he desires that I should desire him. And how I am desirous of him, and how I long to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Come and share in your master’s happiness.” In this I hope. And how I fear the quick and tasteless dismissal, “Away from me, I never knew you.” Like all loving fathers, his wrath is far better than his absence.

But, I don’t remember ever getting saved. That’s a term that church-goers use to describe those who will be in the presence of Christ at either death or ascension, whichever comes first. All others, according to the Scriptures, will experience death a second time, which doesn’t sound so bad at first, except that the second time around, death is possessed of a little more longevity. Jesus, in order to describe it, quoted Isaiah, saying that:

“… ‘their worm does not die,
And the fire is not quenched.’”
                         -(Mark 9:48)

In the same breath, he called the second death by a name: Hell. The New Testament records it as Geenna or Gehenna (Γέεννα), which is a transliteration of what Jesus was actually referencing: the Valley of Ben Hinnom. It’s remembered as the place where Canaanites sacrificed their children by burning them alive to appease the god Molech.

That’s the sort of thing we need saving from. But I grew up in a church-soaked society where getting “saved” was about praying what folks commonly call “The Sinner’s Prayer.” It usually goes something like this:

Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I am helpless to do anything right on my own. I need you. Please forgive me of my sins. Please come into my heart and life and be my Lord and Savior.

It honestly sounds a little bit silly when you say it like that. We in the church derive this odd practice from Paul’s epistle to the Romans. He says that “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) Imagine that you had a friend you had known for a couple of years. This person has taken it upon himself or herself to befriend you and listen to you and stand by you and serve you in your needs. All of a sudden, you wake up one day and decide that it’s a good time for it, so you call your friend up and ask, “Will you be my friend, from this day forth?” I would honestly be a bit hurt by that phone call. Haven’t we been friends all this time? We could say that “The Sinner’s Prayer” is a bit like a marriage vow, for our relationship with God in Christ is compared to marriage often enough in the Scriptures. But even then we must admit that the marriage vow itself is not love, which is learned over a lifetime of practice both before and after the wedding ceremony. And not all marriage vows are “[believed] with [the] heart.” But the vow is important.

Now, I’m not writing this to denounce “The Sinner’s Prayer” (which will ultimately be either denounced, or affirmed, or both by the Scriptures) or to say that my understanding of Romans is above and beyond yours. The point is that I’ve been saved countless times. That doesn’t mean I’ve prayed a certain way or that I’m holier than the next man. I couldn’t tell you, though, the day that Jesus breathed his Holy Spirit upon me and I became a new creation in Christ. Did it happen on one of the two or three times I walked the aisle at church to become a Christian and be baptized – my “public profession(s) of faith”? Maybe, but I doubt it. It is more likely that I was pursued by God long before those days and that I did not begin to fall in love with him until much, much later. I was, and am, the hard-to-get bride.

I suppose that a few people were blessed by my baptisms and altar-call responses. If so, that is the redemption of Christ, not the holiness of those symbolic actions. After those days, I was a little hellion. I spent a great deal of time getting into relationships that ended in terribly broken hearts and inflicting wounds on other people as well as myself. I was egotistical. I didn’t think much of the church, and I was cynical and bitter. I was interested mostly in myself.

I can’t say that God has set me free like he’s set some people free from alcohol addictions or drug addictions. This story isn’t very dramatic. It’s not movie material. Thank God, because I don’t think I’m strong enough not to become unhealthily interested in its darker chapters. What I do know is that, today, whatever day you are reading or hearing this, there have been small graces and unnoticeable instances in which God has set me free from the slow, chilly bonds of iniquity that I bring upon myself. There have been small raindrops in this desert that I am. Tiny blossoms blink from the fringes of my landscape like the faces of faeries glimmering through the grey foggy curtain of this rusty, wishful, and staggering world. I don’t know if I’m going to heaven or hell. Most days, my desire for good theology coupled with my incredible self-possession sits like a February stratus cloud upon the understanding of my soul. In the end, though, I do know a few things.

He loves me. Jesus, the Father, the Holy Ghost, loves me. They love me. Three-in-one, the Godhead, the mystery of the Trinity, loves me. And it’s too much of a blessing for my intellect to bear. My mind can’t take it in, and my heart longs for it so. Second thing, when I was saved doesn’t matter. No one’s going to buy me a bland white sheet cake with my name in salvation bracelet colored icing for my “Salvation Day.” Salvation is hardly about us. The fact that God loves us more than we can guess or measure is only secondary in matters of salvation. The primary issue is that he is able and he is Love. And though my salvation is secure in Christ, who sees this grand prism of time as merely a picture painted, it is also a daily wrestling – a daily “work[ing] out… with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2:12-13) As my friend Kenny said it, “I was saved; I am being saved; I will be saved.” I must meet the angel daily at the ford of Jabbok, strive against him, and receive the crippling and humbling blow that becomes a blessing. (Genesis 32:22-31)

Every prayer is a sinner’s prayer. God still uses me, addicted in my own right to the feeding and numbing of myself in many ways, in his unfathomably rich and loving plan. He has used me to write music that has brought people hope and, somehow, freedom. I have connected with strangers through music. I have prayed with people and there have been cracks mended in broken spirits in some small measure (and also cracks made in my own hubris). All of this is by the working of the Holy Ghost. It is the keeping of “treasure in earthen vessels, so that we know that this all-surpassing power is from God, and not from us.” (2 Corinthians 4:7) I am still egotistical. I still want to serve only myself. All appearances to the contrary are usually self-serving in that they increase people’s view of me as a righteous person. But somehow, the work of the Spirit is deeper.

There are geothermal vents on the ocean floor, radiating heat into the frigid darkness of the deepest ocean trenches. Life explodes around them, existing in the warm afterglow of the earth’s molten flesh. That is the work of God in my life. Against all the odds, warmth and light exist in the deepest blackness. Life flourishes. Blessing is given and received. And so, I must arise and pray for grace to escape the cocoon of self that forms around my soul like a second skin in the night. And there is boundless grace. I must say with Paul, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Christ Jesus our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)