tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50821895600350318582024-03-05T00:57:41.008-08:00Hammer and Tongs: Living and Working with GustoRabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-10637040241691436462023-06-24T16:54:00.000-07:002023-06-24T16:54:29.303-07:00To Kate<p> “You are my Sunshine…”</p><p>Always were,</p><p>Always will be.</p><p><br /></p><p>When you were little</p><p>Your golden hair</p><p>And radiant smile</p><p>Made ME smile</p><p>In my heart </p><p>And on my face.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your wit and humor</p><p>(So Smith-like)</p><p>Your insight into people</p><p>(So Cooke-like)</p><p>Made me proud.</p><p><br /></p><p>You love for Creation</p><p>And all it’s critters</p><p>Great and small</p><p>Filled me with joy.</p><p><br /></p><p>When you were wounded</p><p>With a deadly hurt</p><p>I grieved with you</p><p>As one who had lost</p><p>A beloved friend.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sturgill put words to your pain</p><p>And mine</p><p>I would sit listening to him</p><p>With tears streaming</p><p>For you.</p><p><br /></p><p>When we wounded you</p><p>The pain was even greater</p><p>Joined with fear</p><p>That we had lost you</p><p>And the Sunshine was gone</p><p>Forever…</p><p>Forever.</p><p><br /></p><p>But, the memories of touch</p><p>And affirming words</p><p>Of plains and mountains </p><p>Of discoveries and wonders</p><p>Held…Held</p><p>And, we returned to one another</p><p>Wiser and more grateful</p><p>Than before.</p><p><br /></p><p>You are</p><p>You have been</p><p>You shall always be</p><p>My Sunshine </p><p>“You make me happy when skies are gray”</p><p>And…</p><p>When they are Not!</p><p><br /></p><p>Love,</p><p>Papa</p>Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-28538330656281949752023-05-13T15:59:00.000-07:002023-05-13T15:59:22.361-07:00<p> To T</p><p><br /></p><p>You were-even before you were born-</p><p>Full of wild energy.</p><p><br /></p><p>Your mother</p><p>Despaired at that energy</p><p>Even as I stood off</p><p>And laughed.</p><p><br /></p><p>In your youth</p><p>You channelled</p><p>That Wildness</p><p>Into your music</p><p>That I did not understand </p><p>And loathed.</p><p><br /></p><p>You worked,</p><p>You sweated, </p><p>For me,</p><p>For the family.</p><p>Work was a release,</p><p>An affirmation,</p><p>A curse to be cursed.</p><p>You came to hate work</p><p>And, me.</p><p><br /></p><p>And, in your adulthood </p><p>With the help of your friend, your dear companion,</p><p>You found a channel for your wild energy.</p><p>You worked,</p><p>You forced that wildness, that energy</p><p>Into books,</p><p>Into math and science,</p><p>And,</p><p>ART.</p><p><br /></p><p>In art you found your way</p><p>And began the path you yourself chose.</p><p>You hewed a way, so your own, </p><p>And so unlike mine</p><p>(Or anyone else’s).</p><p><br /></p><p>You found your way</p><p>And produced </p><p>Strange, wonderful, and</p><p>Beautiful things.</p><p><br /></p><p>And, so…</p><p>You have arrived </p><p>Without finally arriving </p><p>To the beginning</p><p>Of your life,</p><p>Your art,</p><p>Your purpose.</p><p><br /></p><p>You have</p><p>Achieved,</p><p>Are achieving,</p><p>Shall achieve.</p><p><br /></p><p>I am proud.</p><p>I am astonished.</p><p>I am full of a deep peace</p><p>And gratefulness.</p><p><br /></p><p>Enjoy.</p><p>Rejoice.</p><p>And give quiet thanks</p><p>For the Wonder</p><p>You have become.</p><p><br /></p>Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-70653246069028037692022-11-06T17:51:00.000-08:002022-11-06T17:51:20.993-08:00<p> Someday</p><p>(May it be far off)</p><p>I will lose you,</p><p>Or</p><p>You will lose me.</p><p>Life will change.</p><p>Life will stop</p><p>(As will the clocks)</p><p>For</p><p>A while.</p><p>And, then,</p><p>Painfully,</p><p>Inexorably,</p><p>Life will start again.</p><p>We have live for each other</p><p>For over fifty years.</p><p>But, I am not your life.</p><p>Neither, are you mine.</p><p>This</p><p>We have lived to for those years.</p><p>“Lose,” “Lost”?</p><p>The loss will be profound,</p><p>Permanent, </p><p>But, not </p><p>Final.</p><p>Nothing </p><p>In Christ </p><p>Is lost…</p><p>Because </p><p>We know where it is.</p><p><br /></p>Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-9065918288552416342021-07-23T11:31:00.006-07:002021-07-24T10:08:23.775-07:00<p> Fragments from Home</p><p><br /></p><p>I came to you in the night-</p><p>or so Linda told me-</p><p>Daddy brought me</p><p>Limping in his grief</p><p>Bent over in his shame at giving me up.</p><p><br /></p><p>"Can you take him?</p><p>At least until I get settled."</p><p><br /></p><p>I can imagine Papa</p><p>Standing, arms crossed</p><p>In the dark corner by the dying fire.</p><p>Silent (for he was a silent man).</p><p>Unable to comprehend the grief or the shame.</p><p>Weighing what a baby would mean</p><p>In a household of a wife, three children, a granny woman, and a hired hand,</p><p>The youngest girl nearly a baby herself.</p><p><br /></p><p>"Just til I get settled.</p><p>I have a job on a rig in Young county, Texas.</p><p>When I get settled, </p><p>I'll come back for him."</p><p><br /></p><p>Limping and bent he left,</p><p>The little girls watching his red tail-lights disappear</p><p>Up the sandy road.</p><p><br /></p><p>So you brought me to your bed</p><p>And to your bosom-</p><p>A warm sweet place-</p><p>While Papa pretended to sleep</p><p>With his face to the wall.</p><p>In the glow of the remaining embers</p><p>You cooed me to sleep.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>At breakfast I sat above everyone</p><p>On a tall metal stool made by</p><p>My great-uncle Ray.</p><p>Biscuits and gravy,</p><p>Sausage and eggs,</p><p>Jelly and molasses,</p><p>Between Papa on my right and Mama on my left.</p><p>I would sing (I was always singing)</p><p>Until Papa would say,</p><p>"Don't sing at the table!"</p><p>Then Granny Eller would smile</p><p>And begin to hum under her breath.</p><p>Catching her old, wizened face,</p><p>I would laugh.</p><p>Partners in crime.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>On the floor</p><p>In front of the devouring fireplace</p><p>I devoured magazines and books.</p><p>Reading the pictures-</p><p>an Andrew Wyeth, an Edward Hopper-</p><p>Surrounded by the Rosetta Stone of text.</p><p>I am still reading pictures</p><p>And the Rosetta Stone has been deciphered.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>The grassless yard</p><p>Swept regularly with a broom</p><p>(Grassless and swept for fear of snakes and fire)</p><p>This was my first world-my kingdom.</p><p>Sometimes I would hunker</p><p>Under the castor bean plant</p><p>Watching my world,</p><p>Like Jonah of old, </p><p>Watching what God would do.</p><p>My world was inhabited by</p><p>Chickens, geese, guinea fowl,</p><p>Cats and dogs,</p><p>For a time, a pet fox squirrel.</p><p>Insects would skitter across the dusty floor of the yard</p><p>Leaving their tracks in the sand.</p><p>Flowers every where</p><p>Planted by my Mama's loving, strong hands.</p><p>A cedar and chinaberry tree</p><p>Among the old oaks.</p><p>Granny would stroll in the cool of the day</p><p>Singing "Barbary Allen."</p><p>In the fastness of my umbrella-ed plant</p><p>I saw</p><p>I observed</p><p>I watched</p><p>I wondered.</p><p>And I understood more than</p><p>The big people would allow.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>I became a collector</p><p>Of bugs and bones</p><p>Of stones (rare on that sandy hill)</p><p>And discarded pieces of metal.</p><p>I learned to catch bumble bees</p><p>By trapping them inside hollyhock blooms</p><p>With trembling fingers.</p><p>Once I caught a horned toad that</p><p>I hypnotized by rubbing his yellow-white belly.</p><p><br /></p><p>But, in my world dangers lurked-</p><p>Copperheads and coon-tailed rattlesnakes,</p><p>Cowkillers, and, in the dark places, black widows</p><p>With red hourglasses on their shiny bellies,</p><p>Goat heads and sticker burs as big as my childish thumb,</p><p>Wasps and yellow-jackets,</p><p>Cactus spines and rusty nails.</p><p>I learned to be careful-</p><p>And to be intrepid.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>Once I went with Linda and Mary Lou</p><p>To Papa's spring-fed creek</p><p>Under the oaks and sycamores.</p><p>We dammed the lazy flow,</p><p>Dribbled sand castles from our fingers,</p><p>And chased water bugs that skimmed</p><p>Over the water's surface</p><p>With magic feet.</p><p><br /></p><p>Provoked by some real or imagined slight,</p><p>I threw my aunt's birthstone ring into the sandy current.</p><p>It could not be retrieved </p><p>So we trudged home</p><p>In silence and sobs.</p><p>A keen peach tree switch </p><p>Awaited my naked legs.</p><p><br /></p><p>As an old man</p><p>I still regret the childish, malicious act.</p><p>The ring is still there </p><p>Under three-score years of sediment.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>I rode in grand-daddy Black John"s old wagon</p><p>Atop a pile of freshly cut </p><p>Post and Blackjack oak</p><p>(the memory of the tannic smell remains)</p><p>Singing and shouting</p><p>Almost above the roar of the tractor.</p><p>A little prince</p><p>Happy and carefree</p><p>Insulated by the love that surrounded me,</p><p>That formed me, </p><p>That would keep me</p><p>In the dark and ugly days</p><p>That were coming,</p><p>Coming,</p><p>Coming.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>On cold nights </p><p>I would sleep with Papa</p><p>In the middle room.</p><p>"Don't fan the covers."</p><p>"Get in my crook."</p><p>He smelled of sweat, and tobacco smoke,</p><p>And once a week,</p><p>Of Old Spice.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or I would sleep with mama,</p><p>Smelling sweet from her talcum and cold cream,</p><p>Pulled close to her big warm breasts.</p><p>"Don't twiddle my hair," she would say.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>Some days</p><p>I would be watched by Granny.</p><p>We would go to the winged-elm thicket</p><p>Where she would gather green twigs for her snuff habit.</p><p>She would chew their ends into brushes.</p><p><br /></p><p>Or, on hell-hot days</p><p>We would descend into the storm cellar, cool and musty.</p><p>The back wall was a tapestry</p><p>Of color and reflected light.</p><p>Row upon row</p><p>Of canned tomatoes, okra,</p><p>Corn and peaches.</p><p>She would sing with her reedy voice,</p><p>And, I, with her.</p><p>"Old Suzanna" was our favorite</p><p>With "Shall We Gather at the River" a close second.</p><p>She would delve into her old trunk,</p><p>Her treasure chest</p><p>And retrieve from its musty depths</p><p>An ancient album in faux tortoise shell.</p><p>Turning its thick gold-edged pages</p><p>She taught me my history,</p><p>My Ancestry,</p><p>In pictures.</p><p>"That's your great grand-daddy, my husband, Mister Smith."</p><p>"That's your uncle Pat in his uniform in France."</p><p>"What is France?"</p><p>"A place across the ocean."</p><p>"What's the ocean?"</p><p>"Hush, Shitpot!" ended the interrogation-</p><p>For a while.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>The dominating presence,</p><p>The omnipresence in all this world was Mama,</p><p>The meekest of dominant women.</p><p>("Mama," or "Big Mama" to distinguish her from my</p><p>"Little Mama"-now deceased.)</p><p><br /></p><p>Beautiful.</p><p>Stately.</p><p>Happy.</p><p>A lilting voice.</p><p>Omnicompetent-</p><p>Calmly planting a flower,</p><p>Or weeding a garden,</p><p>Or gutting a chicken.</p><p>A queen baker and cook.</p><p>A seamstress and quilter.</p><p>A gardener of flowers and vegetables.</p><p>Making a wealth of beauty</p><p>With a dearth of resources.</p><p>Bearing and raising seven children</p><p>And then me, an eighth.</p><p>Living with an irascible and hateful mother-in-law </p><p>With kindness and equability.</p><p>Plagued with bad health ("Woman Trouble" from too many big babies),</p><p>Up first in the morning and to bed last at night.</p><p>Cooking two big meals for eight every day.</p><p>Laundering on a wood fire in the kitchen yard</p><p>With a big black cast iron pot.</p><p>Canning produce in the hell-hot summer</p><p>Over a wood stove.</p><p>Carrying water in the winter whose</p><p>Frozen surface had to be broken.</p><p>Weeping over her wayward sons.</p><p>Worrying over her girls</p><p>Holding faith in the face of so much</p><p>That beggars belief.</p><p><br /></p><p>And loving a motherless boy</p><p>In her late middle age.</p><p>Taking care of me</p><p>When she could barely take care of herself.</p><p>Teaching.</p><p>Training.</p><p>Correcting.</p><p>Guiding.</p><p>Comforting,</p><p>And, all the while,</p><p>Praying for what I would face,</p><p>What I would become.</p><p>Building a wall about me</p><p>That the shocks and assails</p><p>Of the near future</p><p>Would bring.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>Papa and I in the woods.</p><p>The hickories are cadmium yellow,</p><p>The oaks taking on their russet hues.</p><p>The Winchester '90</p><p>Is in his hand,</p><p>The barrel points like a finger to the tree tops.</p><p>"How long, Papa?"</p><p>"Just sit tight, Toss."</p><p>In the loft of a giant cottonwood</p><p>Ablaze with fall</p><p>The little thing pokes its head out from behind a branch.</p><p>The rifle cracks</p><p>And "the hairy-tailed rat" (his description)</p><p>Lands in the leaves with a thud.</p><p>He takes his long-bladed Case knife</p><p>And pierces its hind foot, </p><p>Cuts a green twig and passes it through the wound.</p><p>I was the Carrier.</p><p>The bushy tail bobbed all the way home.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>I am surrounded by brothers and sisters</p><p>Who are my uncles and aunts.</p><p>And surrounded by their loves and hates,</p><p>Their knowledge and ignorance.</p><p>My own ignorance is lessened</p><p>By what they teach me.</p><p>My prejudices strengthened by their ignorance.</p><p><br /></p><p>Johnny Roy would push me on the tire swing </p><p>Under the big oak,</p><p>Twisting the tire</p><p>Until I was drunk with joy.</p><p>The world swirled giddily and mixed with our laughter and shouts.</p><p>He would amaze me</p><p>With his prowess as a marksman,</p><p>Breaking pop bottles with the old</p><p>Single-shot Winchester</p><p>That shattered into shards</p><p>Of glorious light.</p><p>Sometimes he would let me shoot.</p><p><br /></p><p>Linda, the older sister,</p><p>Shared Granny's role a s</p><p>Keeper of the child.</p><p>Next to Mama</p><p>She was mother to me.</p><p>Her strong maternal self found purchase in me.</p><p>(She would not have children of her own for years.)</p><p>So she doted,</p><p>Protected,</p><p>Corrected, </p><p>Instructed,</p><p>Spoiled,</p><p>And delighted</p><p>In the Child.</p><p>"Tom Cat" was her nickname for me...and still is.</p><p>In her love and care</p><p>I learned to trust love and care-</p><p>And to take it for granted.</p><p>In my near future </p><p>Such love and care would dry up and blow away.</p><p>And trust would wither in that desert.</p><p>But the memory survived</p><p>And in its survival,</p><p>I survived.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mary Lou- five years older-</p><p>Was my near sister.</p><p>We were grubby colleagues</p><p>Keeping boredom at bay by our</p><p>Explorations and experiments.</p><p>Going for the mail</p><p>We ran in our bare feet from shade to shade</p><p>Across the tracks of boiling sand.</p><p>We watched dung beetles- "tumble bugs"- </p><p>Roll their fragrant balls.</p><p>We dug up doodle bugs-</p><p>"Doodle bug, doodle but, won't you come home..."</p><p>We laughed at Granny</p><p>As she circled her lilac bush over and over</p><p>In her dementia.</p><p>Once, tiring of my company,</p><p>She sent me off to the army.</p><p>I returned, after a very brief deployment,</p><p>A hero.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>From time to time </p><p>Daddy would come-</p><p>Once with a car trunk full of catfish,</p><p>Some still heaving with life.</p><p><br /></p><p>And then, just as quickly, he would go,</p><p>Holding back tears</p><p>As I released mine with abandon.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once, he said,</p><p>"I'll come and see you next Saturday, We may go fishing."</p><p>Saturday came.</p><p>Breakfast finished, I sat in </p><p>My little read rocker on the front porch</p><p>And watched the road</p><p>For his black Ford...</p><p>All morning.</p><p>At dinner time (the noon meal)</p><p>I wolfed down my food</p><p>And returned to my post</p><p>A little sentry.</p><p>Watching and waiting.</p><p>Waiting and watching.</p><p>The hot afternoon crawled past,</p><p>The setting sun painted the road gold.</p><p>I sat and watched,</p><p>And waited,</p><p>And rocked,</p><p>Buoyed by his promise.</p><p>A big yellow moon</p><p>Kissed the horizon.</p><p>The twilight faded into blue tones.</p><p>In the early dark,</p><p>Mama came and with a thick voice said:</p><p>"He's not coming honey; he must've got held up. Bed time. I made you a milkshake before bed."</p><p>The promise melted in my heart-</p><p>The first of melted promises.</p><p><br /></p><p>(Sixty-plus years later...</p><p>It is Daddy's seventieth birthday.</p><p>I am hundreds of miles away to the North-</p><p>Engaged in business.</p><p>I call late in the day to wish him</p><p>Happy birthday.</p><p>"I watched the road all day long. thinking you might come," he said.)</p><p><br /></p><p>And he settled</p><p>After another marriage.</p><p>("One too many," Papa said, "And to <i>that</i> human being if she is a human being.")</p><p>He settled.</p><p>And, he came for me.</p><p>He kept that dark promise.</p><p>He came in the night</p><p>And Mama put my few things </p><p>In a brown paper bag.</p><p>She wept.</p><p>Papa stood in the corner by the fireplace,</p><p>Red eyed and swallowing hard.</p><p>Daddy took me in one arm</p><p>And the brown paper bag under the other.</p><p>I clung screaming to the door facing.</p><p>We drove up the same watched road,</p><p>The road home, </p><p>And, now the road away from home.</p><p>At the hard road, exasperated at my crying, he exploded,</p><p>"Well, go back then!" and put me out in the dark-</p><p>The dark that had been my terror before,</p><p>But, was now my ally-</p><p>My way back to Mama and Papa.</p><p>To John and Linda and Mary Lou,</p><p>To home.</p><p>Through the shadows of the big trees</p><p>At the old well I ran.</p><p>I could just glimpse</p><p>The yellow lights from the windows</p><p>Of the old house.</p><p><br /></p><p>I was almost free.</p><p><br /></p><p>But, he had followed me in the black Ford</p><p>With the lights off</p><p>On that familiar road in the moonlight.</p><p>I was captured-again.</p><p>Home was lost,</p><p>Lost,</p><p>Lost.</p><p><br /></p><p>...</p><p><br /></p><p>Where I was taken in my captivity</p><p>Was a world away from what I had known on that hill.</p><p>It was a dark place,</p><p>And its darkness dyed my soul.</p><p>It was a place imbued</p><p>With sadness and violence</p><p>That has left a chasm of sadness</p><p>That remains in my old age.</p><p><br /></p><p>But, surrounding that pit,</p><p>Like fall trees and Mama's flowers,</p><p>Were the memories of when</p><p>I was a little prince,</p><p>Loved and adored,</p><p>Taught and corrected,</p><p>Made moral by the purity and decency </p><p>Of the people</p><p>In that beloved place.</p><p><br /></p><p>The darkness and sadness</p><p>Could not and would not have</p><p>The Final, Destructive Word</p><p>For I had known life,</p><p>And love,</p><p>And joy,</p><p>In the life and love of</p><p>That man</p><p>And that woman,</p><p>And all the others.</p><p><br /></p><p>...and I would come to know these things...</p><p>Again.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-13667219493912247312014-03-30T07:00:00.002-07:002014-03-30T07:00:34.029-07:00Each man's life is a drawing...Each man's life<br />
Is a drawing-<br />
Planned, but taking on<br />
A life of its own.<br />
<br />
Line.<br />
Shape.<br />
Value.<br />
Texture.<br />
Color.<br />
Perspective.<br />
<br />
With many<br />
Searching lines,<br />
False starts,<br />
Erasures,<br />
Light, nervous impressions,<br />
Deep, dark lines of<br />
Frustration and fear.<br />
Sweat drops<br />
Tears.<br />
<br />
The pencil moves<br />
Into the unknown void<br />
Of the white paper<br />
With satisfactions,<br />
Disappointments,<br />
Always fears-<br />
Some little,<br />
Some big.<br />
<br />
Moving towards<br />
Finality,<br />
But never finished.<br />
Moving into accomplishment,<br />
Never accomplished.<br />
Groping for perfection,<br />
Never perfect.<br />
<br />
Finding joy<br />
In the movement,<br />
When the object is forgot<br />
As object.<br />
Finding reality<br />
In the real<br />
When the real is forgot.<br />
Finding pleasure<br />
In the process<br />
When the end is forgot.<br />
<br />
Viewed with pleasure<br />
And disgust.<br />
Viewed with love<br />
And not-quite love.<br />
Viewed with unsettled peace<br />
That is both peace<br />
And disquiet.<br />
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-38978852597922573082014-03-19T11:46:00.001-07:002014-03-20T14:24:45.852-07:00Two Worlds: the Puritan and the Anglican (To Max)My dear friend,<br />
<br />
I will try to answer your question in the following way.<br />
<br />
We are talking about two worlds- the term "world-view" is so hackneyed now that I will avoid it.<br />
<br />
On the one hand is the world bequeathed us by the Puritans, not the Reformers, per se, but the English Puritans. Of them, C.S. Lewis writes<br />
<br />
"…the marks of a puritan, in my sense, are a strong emphasis on justification by faith, <i>an insistence on preaching as an indispensable, almost the only means of grace,</i> and an attitude towards bishops which varies from reluctant toleration to implacable hostility." <i>English Literature in the Sixteenth Century</i>, page 18. (emphasis mine)<br />
<br />
Our heritage from the Puritans in the contemporary evangelical churches is that which centralizes preaching, almost to the diminishment of every other thing. The recovery of worship in these churches over the past twenty or so years with praise songs and the contemporizing of old hymns seeks to remedy this, and, as such is laudable. But, in the circles you and I have traveled in, preaching is central and supreme. And, preachers are central and supreme, as it must follow. <br />
<br />
Here, is the source of what I have criticized as "the personality-cult" among evangelicals and especially contemporary Reformed evangelicals.<br />
<br />
Now, preaching is a means of grace, a gift of the Holy Spirit, and a blessing to the Church. The same things must be said of those who are extraordinarily gifted to preach. The problem lies in our fallen tendency to exalt and idolize the gifts of God, even the spiritual gifts of God, to an impertinent and perverted place. This is the tendency of our hearts with everything, so we should not be surprised to see it in action in the realm of preachers and preaching.<br />
<br />
The result of this in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries was that preachers were exalted and people went to hear preaching as people now surf the Net. Those who went to hear the preachers at St. Giles, Cripplegate, had to do so very early in the morning, and they did for years. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries were the same. These were centuries of "great preachers," the greatest being Charles Haddon Spurgeon, 1834-1892. Spurgeon may be called the first "rock-star" preacher (though some would grant this to George Whitefield, 1714-1770, who was Spurgeon's "idol preacher"). Spurgeon is the first preacher whose success was based, not just on his extraordinary spirituality and oratorical gifts, but on a wave of marketing methods employed primarlily by his publishers, Passmore and Alabaster. This, I think, along with the availability of cheap (and excellent) printing, made the Victorian age of preaching the father of the modern marketed church, with it many marketed preachers. There was the market: in those who loved preaching; there were the marketers: like P and A; and there were the preachers, who too often (always?) failed to see what this might mean to the spiritual health of the larger Church. In this sense, I might venture the opinion that Passmore and Alabaster were the grandfathers of the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the 700 Club. (I am exposing myself to fiery missiles here!)<br />
<br />
The free church tradition of Spurgeon and others, was always (like their Puritan fore-fathers and mentors) hostile to the Liturgical Tradition of the Historic Church as being popish and foppish. Preaching became central and, as the result, the "great preacher" became paramount. This period gave rise to sobriquets like "the prince of preachers," "the kings of the pulpit," and,"pulpiteer." Woe to those who suffered from what Spurgeon called a "slender apparatus" (inferior gifts)!<br />
<br />
This has carried over into the present situation. The new favorites are John Piper, Mark Driscoll, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, et al, who are men of saintly spirituality and extraordinary gifts of personality and oratorical skill. Given the milieu that they and their followers come from- the preaching-centered and liturgically skeptical one- it is inevitable that a cult of personality has grown up around each of them, and sometimes around them together. While it is possible to live in such an atmosphere without it going to one's head, it is extremely rare and the situation created by it is spiritually dangerous and sometimes, fatal- to the preacher and the devotees. I could name many examples, but it would make for sad reading.<br />
<br />
What I have been trying to say in my other communication with you on this subject is this: The Liturgical Tradition of the Historic Church (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican) avoids this dangerous and sometimes fatal set of circumstances by having the Right Things in the Right Place, including preaching (though I will not vouch for this in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Communions because I have no real experience of them).<br />
<br />
Nor will I place my imprimatur on all Anglicanism. It is well known that contemporary Anglicanism is in a real mess. But, I will speak for my own denomination, the Reformed Episcopal Church (though my experience is limited, even here).<br />
<br />
From the beginning the Reformed Episcopal Church under the aegis of founding Bishop, George David Cummings, 1822-1876, sought to give the Lord's Supper and preaching their right place as the right things in the context of the Liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer. <br />
<br />
What this means to me and other worshipers in our Communion is this:<br />
<br />
1. Preaching takes place in the environment of worship, i.e., confession/absolution, praise with Psalms and hymns, the reading of the Psalms, Old Testament and New Testament- the written Word of God, the confession of our Faith in the Creeds, the offering of ourselves and our worldly goods to God, and the Holy Communion, and prayers, prayers, prayers!<br />
<br />
2. Preaching is seen, ideally, as preparation for the Eucharistic Meal at the Lord's Table, where we receive by faith in the Gospel, the Real Presence of Christ Himself and enjoy fellowship with the Holy Trinity and all the saints, in heaven and in earth.<br />
<br />
3. Preaching is controlled by the Collects, the Propers, and the Lectionary of the Church. This keeps us from running off on our personal tangents and riding our personal hobby horses.<br />
<br />
4. Preaching is done under the scrutiny of our Rector and Bishops. If we get off often enough, we are called on it. This protects the congregation and ourselves.<br />
<br />
5. Preaching, then, is a means of grace but not "almost the only, means of grace" Lewis, ut supra, nor even the central and supreme means of grace. It is a servant of the the Liturgy and the Holy Communion, and therefore of God and His people.<br />
<br />
Thus, we can have poor preaching and still be fed on the Word of God and the Flesh and Blood of Jesus. We can, as preachers, have a bad preaching day and the people are still ministered to by the Holy Spirit and Word. We can be unexceptional preachers (as most of us, alas, are) and still be good, faithful, and useful preachers in the Church of God.<br />
<br />
And we and our hearers are thereby protected from the noxious and toxic "personality cult" I am so critical of. (I do not say, for a moment, that we are not subject to the temptation to this, or that we never fall into it. But, when that happens our Pastors, the Bishops come a'calling and you really don't want that to happen…if you know what I mean.)<br />
<br />
So, dear Max, this is the long answer to your short question. I am sure we can flesh it out even more in further conversation and I hope to do this with you personally this summer.<br />
<br />
The Lord be with you and with all whom you love.<br />
<br />
In Christian love,<br />
<br />
Tbone+<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-67526517807867083842014-02-10T09:45:00.000-08:002014-02-10T09:51:43.215-08:00Reflections on a Long Parish MinistryWe were partners in a strange marriage,<br />
An arranged marriage in which<br />
We gave our consent to a life together<br />
We had neither prescience or understanding of.<br />
But, it was a marriage and because<br />
We honor marriage, we determined<br />
To make the best of it.<br />
<br />
I loved you and did not know<br />
How to love you.<br />
And you loved me and shared<br />
The same ignorance.<br />
<br />
All the things that sour a marriage were there:<br />
Pride, fear, confusion, inflated expectations.<br />
But the things that save a marriage were there, too:<br />
Forgiveness, humor, respect, and satisfaction.<br />
They worked contrary to one another in such a way<br />
As to produce a persevering resignation and trust.<br />
<br />
And the result was a good thing for both of us.<br />
We brought to one another<br />
What the other lacked.<br />
We were bettered by the conflict,<br />
By the discipline,<br />
By the failures,<br />
And by the many renewals of love.<br />
Thus, we were made more like one another<br />
And more like the Thing<br />
We both supremely loved.<br />
<br />
And in my aging days I look back.<br />
My regrets stare back at me with hollow eyes.<br />
But, there is no bitterness<br />
And the pangs of longing are mixed with joy.<br />
The regrets and pangs make me wish<br />
That I could have been a better man, a wiser man.<br />
And, yet, even in that longing<br />
Is also something of love.<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-80803355993389762932014-01-22T07:56:00.000-08:002014-01-24T11:53:28.423-08:00To John Peter Boonzaaijer, "Batiushka"And so, you came to me:<br />
Young and impressionable,<br />
A sponge, ready to drink in everything<br />
I could give you.<br />
And, like a sponge,<br />
Rough and wooly on the edges.<br />
And I taught you<br />
All I could,<br />
Ancient truths,<br />
And the lore of the woods and fields,<br />
(Remember when we skinned the raccoon?)<br />
And the forgotten crafts<br />
Of wood and iron,<br />
Of water, fire, earth and air.<br />
And you left me richer than you came,<br />
Dripping with newly acquired knowledge<br />
And a modicum of experience.<br />
You left happy<br />
And I watched you go with a<br />
Sad joy.<br />
<br />
And so, I came to you:<br />
With white hair and wrinkled eyes,<br />
Still longing to know,<br />
Still thirsty to drink from<br />
Wells of knowledge.<br />
And you taught me,<br />
All you could,<br />
Ancient truths,<br />
Venerable forms,<br />
The lore and luster<br />
Of the Ancient Church,<br />
The old light shining with<br />
New illumination upon the Sacred Text.<br />
You taught me<br />
The holiness of real things,<br />
Bread and Wine,<br />
Water and Oil,<br />
Holy smoke from<br />
God's own forge.<br />
And we stand together now,<br />
Not parted, not parting,<br />
Until death shall come for one of us-<br />
And I hope it will be me first,<br />
And you will<br />
Watch me go with a<br />
Joyous sadness.<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-40415350529650646532014-01-08T08:40:00.000-08:002014-01-08T09:13:00.929-08:00A Christian "Culture of Complaint"?We are hearing a good deal these days about the persecution of Christians in current American culture. (Most of the noise is to be heard from the 24-7 news (?) media and the social networks like Facebook.) Much of this so-called persecution has revolved around free enterprise operations like Chick-Fil-a, Hobby Lobby, and the television series "Duck Dynasty." I rarely shop or eat at the first two, and I have never seen an episode of the last, so I have no emotional investment in any of the them.<br />
<br />
I have been cautious about commenting on any of this, and once, when I did, I was grossly misunderstood, ended up alienating a few friends, and was cautioned by my Rector. The scalded dog avoids any water thrown in his direction.<br />
<br />
But, the more I have listened to this noise, the more I have thought that something is missing. It was only last night that I think I saw what that something is.<br />
<br />
Years ago, the late art-critic, Robert Hughes described America in the 90s as a "culture of complaint." American's in the 90s had become hypersensitive, whiny, complaining, self-absorbed, quick to take offense and shrill in their response to it (real or imagined). I agreed with Hughes' analysis then, and I think that thirty years later, we are not only the same, but worse. So goes the culture and that does not cause me a lot of concern.<br />
<br />
What does concern me is this: The same charge can be leveled at Christians in America at the present time. And with justification. <br />
<br />
In the present climate with all the talk about persecution and "rights" the outrage and complaint are palpable and the whining and self-pity are thinly disguised (if at all). "Poor Christians, we are always getting a raw deal."<br />
<br />
What is missing from all of this is the attitude of the early Church, and the Church throughout the ages and <br />
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even now in other parts of the world. What is missing is what Jesus commended and commanded in His disciples when confronted with mistreatment. What is missing is Joy.<br />
<br />
"Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you for my sake and the Gospel's" "Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." This is what the Founder of the Christian church said, and having said it, went on to model it before the world. Even unto death. Even unto death on a Roman torture stake.<br />
<br />
The early Christians understood this. They took up the cross, suffered mistreatment, persecution, and death and did so without complaint. Indeed, they did so with joy and rejoicing. "They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus' name."<br />
<br />
We may be watchful about the current of contemporary culture. We may be concerned about the loss of freedom in a free society. <br />
<br />
But, we must never whine and complain. This is a tacit denial of a core ethic of our Faith. The world understands this better that some Christians do. <br />
<br />
And it is watching...too.Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-91048752877999625122013-12-14T09:37:00.001-08:002013-12-14T09:37:28.739-08:00A Little Incident at the Baptist College by E. D. "Shinbone" Smith, Bomar, Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory, ITFor a spell I thought I was called to preach and preach I did with a license from the Thackerville Baptist Church. I was young and zealous and full of fire- more fire than light, I'd say now.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, everybody thought I should get some education, and Lord knows, I needed it. So, I packed up what little I owned (it fit in one big suitcase) and headed off to the Baptist college. I always loved books and reading, so in one way I was in my element. There was plenty of books and plenty of time to read. Trouble is, I'd get interested in something one of the professors said and start reading everything about it I could get my hands on and the rest of the class and the professor would take off and leave me behind. I learned a right smart, but not always what I was supposed to be learning.<br />
<br />
There was a lot of preacher-boys like me at the college; some of them was smart and some was as dumb as a 'possum. Pretty much like life in general, I expect.<br />
<br />
One day we was studying the life of King David in the Book of Samuel and there is this story there about how old crazy King Saul was envious of David and had reneged on his promise to give David his daughter's hand in marriage for killing the giant. To thicken the soup, King Saul told David he could have the girl if David brought him a hundred foreskins of the Philistines. You can read about this in I Samuel 18.<br />
<br />
Now there was this country preacher-boy named Clovis from down around Gotebo, Oklahoma in the class. There was a right smart of 'possum about old Clovis. When he heard this story, his face kindly screwed up in a grimace and his shoulder started to jerk. Finally, he raised his big hand.<br />
<br />
"Dr. Blackwell, " he said, to our old wizened professor, "I was jist wondering, did he have to kill them fellers to git them things?"<br />
<br />
Old Dr. Blackwell, leaned back, drew breath, and with just the fuzz of a smile, said,<br />
<br />
"Well, son,<i> he'd have to kill me to get mine!"</i><br />
<br />
I always loved old Dr. Blackwell and I don't know what ever happened to Clovis.<br />
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-32665475068934563742013-06-16T19:30:00.001-07:002013-06-16T19:40:53.449-07:00A Reply to a Friend, Part IIMy dear Friend,<br />
<br />
My move from my previous position, which I held for nearly forty years, in a very profound way came of my coming to see a conflict and controversy between<br />
<br />
<br />
things, real things on the one hand,<br />
<br />
and, ideas or thought constructs on the other.<br />
<br />
I will try in this post to explain what I mean by this.<br />
<br />
As Protestant Christians you and I believe that sinners are saved by grace. Sinners and sin are not ideas, they are real things. And grace is not an idea (nasty thought!). Grace is God himself acting in undeserved and unmerited favor to deliver and heal sinful men and women. We are not saved by an idea of grace, even a correct theological idea of grace, we are saved by the Triune God of grace.<br />
<br />
My previous world-view was made up chiefly of ideas. My previous life was spent in trying to find and maintain the right set of correct ideas about God, human critters, and the world. It was an endless and exhausting task. It was also a delimiting one. Once I came to the right idea about sin or grace, the second coming, the nature of the Bible, etc., I was ready to plant my flag and scan the horizon for those potential foes flying a different one. This is one of the essential marks of the fundamentalist, whether he reads Greek and Hebrew, or cannot read at all. But, it is finally about ideas, not stuff, not the stuff of God's creation. This is why the fundamentalist has such a hard time loving anybody but those who share his ideas. The fundamentalist loves the Big Idea, he does not love the world that is there.<br />
<br />
This view is really just another form of the old Gnostic heresy. Ideas matter, stuff does not. (In fact, I can trace my earliest unease with my views to a book,<i> Against the Protestant Gnostics</i>, by Philip J. Lee. Highly recommended and still in print.) <br />
<br />
The catholic and Anglican view is that this view of the world and of God's work in the world is completely, utterly wrong-headed. The Biblical view is concerned to stress certain realities against certain other ideas.<br />
<br />
Things vs. Ideas<br />
<br />
The Whole Person vs. The Mind<br />
<br />
Scriptural Declarations vs. Propositions or Constructs<br />
<br />
The Embodied vs. The Disembodied<br />
<br />
Sacramental Reality vs. Spiritual Ideals<br />
<br />
Life in the Body and in the World vs. Life in the Mind or Spirit<br />
<br />
The Community of the Church vs. Individualism<br />
<br />
The catholic and Anglican emphasis on the left hand side of these things is the one that seems to me to best represent the reality presented in the Bible. This means that grace and faith are not mere ideas, but realities that are lived out the way the rest of our lives are.<br />
<br />
Illustration: I married Kathy forty years ago this coming December. That marriage was formalized in solemn vows before God and witnesses and bonded in our sexual union of oneness on our wedding night. Since then, a whole series and complex of liturgies have blessed and deepened our devotion to one another over these many and happy years: Touches, kisses, words of endearment and commitment, shared sorrows and joys, three living children and one lost little girl-child in her sixth month of life, cards, gifts, shared homes and travel, memories kept in photos and journals, and on and on... In addition, there have been hurts, wounds, harsh words and cold shoulders, misunderstandings and grievances, and much, much forgiveness, forgiveness marked by real words and actions. Who can doubt the importance of these small sacramental gestures in bringing health and joy to this marriage? Thus, our marriage, like all good ones has been supported by a liturgy of daily acts of love and considerateness. Marriages, real and good ones, are not just based on ideas or even shared points-of-view at every point, but on faith and faithfulness, love and mercy, grace and patience lived out in real words and acts in a life that is messy, fallen, and earthy.<br />
<br />
In the same way, the life of God is lived out in the same way. Not simply in the mind or "heart," but in a host of acts and actions. We bow our heads, we bend our knees, we lift our hands, we receive water upon our heads (or in the immersion of the whole body), we receive bread and wine, chewing and swallowing it, we receive the oil of blessing, healing, and unction, we sing, we speak, we read, we hear- in a word, we use all our senses in acts of worship and service. Toward the people of God, we listen, speak, weep, pray, touch, hold, hug, kiss, laugh, etc. This is an embodied spirituality, spiritual, not because it takes place in the mind alone, but because it is incarnated in acts of love and service.<br />
<br />
Does this mean that the mind does not matter? That truth does not matter? Of course not! But, it does mean this: A life that divorces the mind in ideas from worship and service in earthy, imperfect, but beautiful acts cannot claim to be the religion of the Bible. It is this last point that I will try to develop in my next post.<br />
<br />
I hope this is helpful and I wish you every blessing, my dear friend, in Jesus.<br />
<br />
Tbone+<br />
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-1646590823122660582013-06-16T17:29:00.001-07:002013-06-16T17:29:54.992-07:00A Reply to a Friend, Part I"So how did you come from being a Baptist to being an Episcopal (Anglican) sacramentarian?"<br />
<br />
This is the question asked me today by an old friend. Many of my old friends have wondered the same thing, though most of them have not asked. I gave it some thought and concluded that this would be a good place to start an explanation of the journey. I will not start with exegesis, though there is an exegetical infrastructure under the whole thing. But, we fool ourselves if we think that exegesis stands alone in our theological constructs. We are complex and our constructs are complex. <br />
<br />
The fact is this: I have spent all my life trying to understand how the world works and how human persons work within it. I have spent nearly fifty years trying to understand the world and human persons as God's critters, His creation. More and more in the past twenty years, I came to believe that the world works and that God's world works in much the same way.<br />
<br />
I believe in the creation, in the stuff of creation, in "what is there." "God loves 'stuff;' he invented it." C.S. Lewis. The stuff is there. It is reality. What we think of it and how we construe it is not the same- though our thought processes are a part of the reality. God's original idea, his Big Idea, was to create the world as a home-place for a race of human critters made in his image (sonship language). When sin violated this original idea, God's purpose in redemption (purposed from all eternity) kicked in. It was still his idea and purpose to have, to possess a human family of men and women being the divine image.<br />
<br />
This redemptive purpose would not be executed outside the creation, but within it. Thus, the Biblical story from Genesis onwards. It is earthy, real, and messy-rooted in time and space- in history. The Climax of this is seen in the Incarnation of the Son (Image) of God, Jesus Christ. He is conceived, born, circumcised, trained, tested, perfected, as a real Man in the real world. As the True Man he works out the salvation of men in this world, all of which culminates in his rejection and death. But, as a real Man he is raised from the dead, not as a disembodied spirit, but as an embodied human being.<br />
<br />
When he sends his Spirit on Pentecost it is in order that he may be embodied in human beings who now exist as his temple, his dwelling place- the Church. Now, if you want to see something earthy, real, and messy, just look at the church. The church, in all its weakness and sin, far from being the argument against the Christian Faith that it is thought to be, is really the proof of the pudding: God's intention is this-worldly, not other-worldly. Like I said (or was it Lewis?) he loves stuff. And he loves the church and those messy sinners who constitute her reality in the here and now.<br />
<br />
So, I began to see that God's purpose is rooted in his love for his critters. His purpose is to save his critters, human persons and physical creation itself by bringing both into perfect and loving congruity with himself.<br />
<br />
From this perspective, the whole creation and the whole person- real "stuffness," is the object of this purpose. Not disembodied souls, or minds, but the whole complex of mind, affections and will in a physical reality that is God's good making. <br />
<br />
From this place it is not a huge jump to come to believe that the spiritual life is about the same stuff. And, the spiritual life outlined in the Bible is concerned with things like speech, blood, fire, oil, wine, bread, and water. In the New Testament this concern is linked with sacraments (outward signs of promised inward spiritual graces). There can be sacraments without grace and faith, but <i>normally,</i> there cannot be grace without sacraments. These sacraments are represented in water, bread and wine. By partaking of these in faith, we enter into fellowship with the Father as sons, through the death and resurrection of the Son, and in the power of the Spirit of adoption (as sons and daughters). Thus, when the NT speaks of partaking of these things it is never as just symbols, but in the reality. Baptism saves, cleanses, unites us with Christ, washes us in regenerative grace, etc. The Lord's Supper feeds us on the real body and blood of Christ and enables us to participate in the life of the Covenant God whose supper it is. There are mysteries here and, as an Anglican, I do not try to explain them or to explain them away (Like the Roman Catholic and Lutheran or the one hand or the Baptist on the other). I come to them in the faith of the Gospel of Christ and in the promise of God to give grace in them. God gives grace in his word, his water, his bread, and his wine. He has promised to do so and fulfills that promise to all who receive his promise in faith. Thus, God chooses to work in the world in the same way he has always worked, <i>in and through the stuff of creation.</i><br />
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Well, that's enough for now, but by now you, my inquiring friend, can see the trajectory of my thought and of my journey. Grace and peace in our Lord Jesus Christ. Tbone+<br />
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-34964483765585368572013-05-19T15:38:00.000-07:002013-05-19T15:38:19.340-07:00Against the "God-Talkers"They talk<br />
And talk<br />
And talk:<br />
Asserting their certainties.<br />
Affirming their formulae.<br />
Arguing their auguries.<br />
<br />
Let them.<br />
Let them<br />
Talk<br />
and talk<br />
<br />
and talk<br />
<br />
and talk.<br />
<br />
Let them affirm.<br />
Let them assert.<br />
Let them argue.<br />
<br />
I will be silent.<br />
I will hold my peace.<br />
I will keep my counsel.<br />
I will remain absolutely aloof.<br />
<br />
Until...<br />
Unless...<br />
They learn to listen.<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-57965675988887080002013-04-23T19:13:00.000-07:002013-04-23T19:14:05.631-07:00A Poem for a Friend<br />
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"All and All" for FB</div>
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<br /></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">And so shall all things lost</span><br />
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Be restored to us </div>
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(and more than restored),</div>
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And the memory of loss erased from our hearts.</div>
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And the Joy that </div>
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We only now glimpse,</div>
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In moments all too short,</div>
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Shall swallow up the void</div>
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That we feel all too deeply</div>
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And all too often.</div>
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And all, all, shall</div>
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Finally, infinitely, eternally,</div>
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Be well.<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-52673837961109596332013-04-08T17:24:00.001-07:002013-04-08T19:12:07.950-07:00Father ColeJim Cole is a priest. He is a priest in the Reformed Episcopal Church and serves as assistant priest at the Chapel of the Cross in Dallas, Texas. He serves with me, a curate, in the same parish.<br />
<br />
Jim and I both grew up in Gainesville, Texas, and maybe that is where our bond began...though unknown to us. Our greater bond is in our faith and union in Christ and in the ministry of the Church. <br />
<br />
For Jim is, above all else, a minister in the Church of Christ. He has all the marks of this ministry: Love for God and His Word, love for the people of God, and love for the Liturgy of the Ancient and Historic Church. This is where he shines- like a beacon on a desolate shore.<br />
<br />
Like me, like all of Christ's ministers, Jim has his weaknesses- "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power might be of God, and not of ourselves." He and I are bound by our remaining sins, our innate weaknesses and ignorances, our inability to reach beyond ourselves in all of these things. But, Christ, who alone is Holy, is pleased to use our pitiable weakness for his glory. "That no flesh should glory in his presence."<br />
<br />
The thing that overshadows and covers all of this in Father Jim (and I hope in myself) is that he LOVES. He loves God and he loves people- all people and especially the people of God.<br />
<br />
Vance Havner (an old Southern Baptist friend of mine from years ago) used to tell this story. He went to pastor a small rural church in North Carolina as a young man. He had not been there for long until he began to hear people talk about "Brother Brown," a former pastor. "Brother Brown" this and "Brother Brown" that. One day, Havner (not a little intimidated by this long-gone pastor) visited one of his parishioners in a field where the man was plowing. After sharing small talk for a while, Havner ventured the question, "What was so special about Brother Brown?" After pausing for a moment, the man said, "Wall, I expect he jist loved us."<br />
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That, <i>that,</i> is Jim Cole.<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-74725849067368303352013-04-07T12:26:00.000-07:002013-04-07T12:52:04.188-07:00A Happy Life"Well, I just want you to have a happy life," she said. She loves me and her wish was not misplaced. ("She" is my wife's mother- and mine.)<br />
<br />
"I guess that I have come to have a different idea about a 'happy life' than the one I used to maintain," I replied.<br />
<br />
The fact is I do have a happy life. I am reasonably healthy. The woman I have loved for over forty years is still in my life and still loves me. Our children are healthy and happy. We have a grand-child who is the embodiment of Christmas morning, with all the presents under the tree. I have deep and lasting friendships with fine men and women. I work with my head and my hands, making paintings and sermons, forging iron and carving wood. I am surrounded by hundreds of books. I make music and poems. And, I know God and am known by Him.<br />
<br />
All of that is happy and makes for a happy life.<br />
<br />
But, my life has been marked from its beginning by deep tragedy and profound sorrow. I have known many afflictions that have diminished me, broken me, and humbled me. (The same things have enriched me, rebuilt me, and calmed me.) I have a deeply melancholic temperament that hides beneath a jolly, loud, and laughing personality.<br />
<br />
In all this, I have come to think, as the author of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes says, that happiness is not something we make or possess. It is something that <i>comes. </i> It comes in short seasons, in small spurts, and sometimes, these last for a few days or so. Then, the cares, the labors, the fears, and the weariness, the "vanity" of it all return- and we plod on. The happiness is the gift of God, the surprise of human existence, the thing that makes the rest bearable and endurable. We take it as it comes and give thanks.<br />
<br />
I spent a happy day of ten hours or so with "She." I thank her for her wish, wish the same for her, and am grateful that her remark got me thinking, and, I hope, thinking more deeply and clearly about the "happy life."<br />
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Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-57032003291503242532013-02-16T17:54:00.000-08:002013-02-16T18:47:04.017-08:00Navigating the Season of LentSo we step into Lent once more. The dusky browns and grays of a Texas winter seem perfectly to fit the spirit of the season. But, the naked, dormant trees are budding. I saw a young maple today against the Western light of the descending sun and it was crimson in the flower of spring (spring comes early in Texas). The season of Lent co-mingles the grays of winter and the colors of spring.<br />
<br />
Spiritually, Lent co-mingles sin and grace, weakness and strength, mortality and everlasting life, and the vanity of life under the sun with the hope of life in a renewed creation. Lent gives a script, a score, to the groanings of creation, and even the groanings of those who have the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:18-27. These groanings are birth pangs, filled with the anticipation and hope of the new birth of all things, seen first in the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead.<br />
<br />
So why has the Church through the ages participated in the Lenten season with ashes, confessions, fastings, contrition, penitence, and other voluntarily acts of self-abnegation? Let me suggest a few things to help you navigate your journey through Lent.<br />
<br />
<b>First, like all of the Church's Calendar, Lent guides us into the Gospel, the Story of Jesus and His Kingdom.</b> Lent brings us in our own time to share in the time of Jesus. Lent leads us to the beginning of his sufferings and then leads us to the apex and nadir of those sufferings in Good Friday. In an odd way, this was done through much of my Christian life (before I began to deliberately practice Lent) in the gospel songs we sang.<br />
<br />
For me it was in the Garden<br />
He prayed 'Not my will, but Thine,'<br />
He had no tears for His own griefs<br />
But sweat-drops of blood for mine.<br />
<br />
Fasting alone in the desert<br />
Tell of the days that are past;<br />
How for our sins he was tempted,<br />
And was triumphant at last.<br />
<br />
These are just two examples of songs from a non-liturgical tradition leading us into the reality of Christ's life of suffering. They are "Lenten" meditations.<br />
<br />
The Church Calendar, in Advent, in Lent, in Eastertide, leads us profoundly into a re-enactment of the Gospel, not in any sense as a re-doing of the finished work of Christ, but as a profound sanctification of our hours, days, weeks and months, immersing us in the Story of Jesus. <span style="background-color: white;">Lent reminds us that Jesus suffered temptation in every respect as we do, that because he suffered, he is able to empathize with our temptations, and that in his heart-felt identification with us in his full and true humanity as the Son of God, he is able to succor us, that is, "to come to our aid." The season of Lent takes us back to the Life of Christ and brings forward the Life of Christ to us.</span><br />
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<b>Lent reawakens us to the reality of God's love and saving grace.</b> The Anglican Reformers were deeply concerned to reinterpret Lent in these terms. This is seen in Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's Collect for Ash Wednesday:<br />
<br />
<b>Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Cranmer in this prayer takes us by the hand and leads us into the Lenten season, a season gray with winter, but drenched in the soft rains of early spring. These rains are the love and mercy of the God who has revealed himself in our Lord Jesus Christ. And where do we see this love? In the life and sufferings of Christ.<br />
<br />
From the wilderness temptations and fasting, to the Garden and its agonies, to the direliction of the Cross, Lent sets forth the love of God in its most exquisite forms, love that suffers for others, in the place of others, holy love suffering for fallen, sinful, rebellious men and women.<br />
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The point I wish to emphasize is found in Cranmer's lovely words, "who hatest nothing that thou hast made." The Creator who made all things, loves that which he has made, despite the rebellion of the original creation to himself. The Creator has determined in the greatness of his love to save and <i>have</i> that creation as his own. While the creation in its fallen rebellion hates him, God does not respond in kind. He does not hate what he has made, but loves it, and loves it in such a way as to recover it in his own sufferings in the Person of his Son, Jesus. Lent brings us back to this foundational reality and truth. "God is love." Lent reminds us that "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."<br />
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Finally, <b>Lent brings us to a fresh awareness of our sinfulness and of our need for lamentation and repentance.</b><br />
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True Christianity is a penitent faith. It sees the sinfulness and horror of sin, and, facing this reality about ourselves, it moves us to reject and renounce ourselves and our works to trust the Loving God of the Christian Message. <br />
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The acts of self-denial that Christians engage in during the season of Lent are not performances whose goal is to satisfy and placate an angry God. They are, rather, acts of self-negation that are motivated by a profound sense of gratitude to a saving God, the God who has given himself for our sins- in bloody sweat, suffering, and death. <br />
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This penitential color, symbolized in the purple color of the season, is a color that dyes all our life and acts. We are sinful, God is gracious. We are unworthy, God is generous. We are needy, God is full of largesse. The Anglican poet, George Herbert (whose birthday we recognize on the 27th of this month), puts it succinctly and beautifully in his poem, "Bitter-Sweet."<br />
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<b>Ah, my deare angrie Lord,</b><br />
<b>Since Thou dost strike;</b><br />
<b>Cast down, yet help afford.</b><br />
<b>Sure, I will do the like.</b><br />
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<b>I will complain, yet praise;</b><br />
<b>I will bewail, approve:</b><br />
<b>And all my sowre-sweet dayes</b><br />
<b>I will lament and love.</b><br />
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It is in the spirit of these three things that in enter again the season of Lent. It is by these three things that I navigate these forty days before Easter. In them is memory, confidence, and self-awareness. We need each of these things and all of them together to be finally, fully human.<br />
<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-86303710891300340282012-12-24T13:27:00.001-08:002012-12-24T20:17:23.820-08:00FENCES: DIVINE AND HUMANIf you look at a map of southern Oklahoma and north Texas, you will see the Red River winding like a ribbon from the Panhandle of Texas towards Louisiana. And almost in the middle of the bottom of Oklahoma you will see a little tit of land, a pure peninsula, that is the southernmost part of Love county. That is where I was raised and there are parts of that country that I know as well as the room I am now sitting in.<br />
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My earliest introduction to that country was as a small boy in the presence of my grandfather, daddy, and uncles. But, by the time I was ten or eleven, I was exploring it on my own, glad of my freedom and solitude. When I was still eleven, I was permitted to carry my great-grand-daddy's shotgun on these lonely tramps. It was an interesting gun: a twelve gauge double-barrel with hammers, one of which was gone forever. It kicked like a mule and would have taken off most of my head if mishandled. The point was that, unlike a .22, it had a limited range and was therefore less likely to injure unsuspecting neighbors or stock. I had been instructed in a stern school concerning gun safety: where and where not to point it, how to treat it as always loaded, and how to safely cross fences with it.<br />
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Fences were a ubiquitous, omnipresent reality in that country. Most of the farms and ranches were only a few hundred acres in size, so fence lines had to be coped with by any budding frontiersman. They were all "bob warr" and they were to be treated with respect.<br />
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The country itself was a mixture of cultivated land and woody hills. The cultivated land was often scarred by deep gullies, "canyons" we called them, where mismanagement of the red, sandy soil had caused serious erosion and loss of arable land. Some of these were forty feet deep. The wooded hills were often rough country, and in certain locales outbreaks of limestone made them rougher. There were creeks, spring-fed branches, and, in every direction except north, "the River." These natural boundaries and obstacles were simply "there," and if you had good sense you treated them with a respect that was several notches higher than that shown to fences. There were some things that you just didn't mess with.<br />
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There weren't many "posted" places in the area and you were generally welcome to cross fences and go about your business as long as you behaved on the property in a neighborly way. There were a few grumpy old men here and there, and some were purported to warn off unwanted visitors with a shotgun blast to the sky. But, most of us never saw a fence we wouldn't cross if a hound went that way or if it would cut a half a mile off a tired trudge home.<br />
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The natural fences of river, canyon, thicket, etc. were a different thing altogether. The thing was what it was and you respected it or prepared to suffer the consequences. In this sense, the natural obstacles were "feared" in that they were deeply respected. This fear was taught from childhood and when childish rashness tempted you to test the boundaries, you came away from the experience with a deepened sense of respect- if you survived. Some didn't, but this only deepened that sense of reverence when a spot was marked by a tragedy, as in "that's where that Foster boy drowned," or "that's where old man Sims broke his back."<br />
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I have been thinking lately about the differences between man-made fences and creation boundaries, and I have concluded that much of the the way I think and behave ethically and theologically has to do with my early training in Love County with its fences and natural obstacles.<br />
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In my view, there are Divine boundaries that are to be feared and respected. They are there, always there. People who mess with them, no matter how many near misses they are accounted, finally get messed with or messed up. This is at the core of the Ten Commandments: they are there to protect sacred realities, whether in regard to our relationship with God and His world, or in regard to my neighbor in this world. They are immutable and inexorable. When respected they keep us from folly.<br />
When violated, they expose us to endless misery.<br />
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On the other hand, there are man-made boundaries. I honor them as far as respect and neighborliness require. I have a few myself, though I am careful not to impose them on others. But, when someone attempts to put these things on par with the Divine lay-of-the-land, I just might be found climbing a fence on some dark, warm, coon-hunter's night.Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-25178067835583817702012-06-18T11:05:00.000-07:002012-06-18T13:05:24.636-07:00A Journeyman's Training, Part IIThere was a time when I would have said that the most important part of my training was <i>books.</i> Books have been massively important in my life; this is obvious from what I have said in part one of this story. But, to live in books is to live in the world of ideas, to live inside one's own head, and this is a large part of what is wrong with the Church in our time and place. Life is more than ideas. Life is about human beings shaped and formed by ideas. But, more fundamentally, life is simply the gift of being in the community of others. So while my formation has come from ideas, these ideas have most profoundly molded me from my intimate interactions with other people. These are my friends.<br />
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I have through all these long years, forty-five or sixty, been surrounded by people who loved me, cared for me and shaped me.<br />
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Of course, of first importance are my family and the family I came to have because of Kathy, my wife. I hope to write about Kathy's family, and especially about her noble father, the Rev. Paul Cooke, in a future post. I have already written much about my own family. Those I wish to remember in this posting are friends outside my family.<br />
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From the beginning of my Christian life and to this day I cannot adequately express my debt to the Rev. Clyde Billy Spann. A native of West Texas, a USN vet, Baptist pastor and high school English teacher, Clyde Spann befriended me, a young, eager, and ignorant boy, from the time he met me in the mid-sixties. His love for language and books attracted me. (He was also a rigorous disciplinarian; he gave me the worst paddling I ever got in school, when such things were still countenanced.) He gave me books, encouraged my writing, and counseled me in my personal life. He also introduced me to the Christian Faith, baptized me, and gave me my earliest training in doctrine and preaching. He used to patiently sit in the empty sanctuary of the Thackerville Baptist Church, while I, the preacher-boy, stood in the pulpit and practiced my sermons before him. He gave endless hours to me and bought me numberless hamburgers, while talking and listening at the Curtwood Restaurant in Gainesville, Texas. He taught me to tie a tie and gave me clothes from his own fine collection (he was an immaculate dresser). He took me once to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and on the same day bought me the first seriously scholarly work I ever read, Shepherd's <i>Christ of the Gospels</i>. When I got into some pretty serious trouble, he helped me out, restored me, and encouraged me to carry on. (And when he went through some particularly bad times, I was there visiting him in the Veterans' Hospital in Ft. Worth.) Some of the things I remember from him are<br />
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"Humility, Tommy, in its most basic sense, is teachability."<br />
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"The same sun that melts wax, hardens clay."<br />
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"Always stay with the (Biblical) text."<br />
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He called me, "the Poor Ignorant Soul," publicly and privately. This reflected the tough sense of humor of his West Texas origins. I never took offense at this, you might say, because I was too ignorant. But, he admired my gifts and feared where they might lead me without correctives. He would never let me read other people's sermons, because "you have the ability to develop your own style and that might be 'clipped' if you read Spurgeon and others." He hated the Scofield Bible and when I secretly bought one, I had to sneak it around him like it was a girlie magazine. He cautioned me about theological extremes and once when he heard me preach quite powerfully on the cry of dereliction (My God...why hast thou forsaken me?") thanked me for the sermon and then quietly said, "God was <i>in Christ</i>, Tommy, reconciling the world unto himself." It was this same quiet way that he often used to correct and direct me. He was remarkable for his learning and wisdom, highly educated for his time and place. He, more than any other, gave me an early love for scholarship. He also taught me to speak and write correct English. He had a wonderful sense of humor, but could, like other West Texas Baptist preachers, cuss if profoundly provoked. He hated pious talk and what he contemptuously referred to as "Euphemisms!" He lived an worked in obscure and sometimes crushingly discouraging circumstances, but with an intrepid faith and wry sense of humor.<br />
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My whole life has been formed around the mold he gave me in those early years. He had a liberal mind, though he was a conservative man, and this, too, he imparted to me. He watched my career, loved my preaching, helped me financially, assisted at my wedding, and never did anything his whole life but encourage me. <br />
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In his last years, he enjoyed nothing more than studying the Biblical text, especially the New Testament in the Greek. We would talk by phone occasionally and he would ask for my recorded sermons. Years passed between our last talk and when I called him on the final occasion. His wife, Janie, answered. We visited a while and then I asked for "Brother Spann." "Oh, Tommy, didn't you know? Clyde died late last year!" I was dumbfounded. I still miss him.<br />
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To have had Clyde B. Spann as my mentor was one of God's finest and most lasting gifts in my life. A blessing be upon him in heaven, his memory, and upon his living children and grandchildren.<br />
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I think that "Poor Ignorant Soul" is a good attitude for the Christian, at the beginning, the middle, and the end of our journey.<br />
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-66470154729108664712012-05-20T06:42:00.001-07:002012-05-20T15:44:32.508-07:00A Journeyman's Training, Part ISo how does a Southern Baptist preacher boy become an Anglican priest? It's a long story, as the old saying goes, a story that covers forty-five years of spiritual pilgrimage.<br />
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I was baptized into the Christian Faith by the Rev. Clyde B. Spann at the Thackerville Baptist Church, Love County, Oklahoma in August 1967. Very shortly after that I began to speak in churches as a Baptist "preacher boy." I was as dumb as a sack of hammers. Dumb, but educable, as one of my friends used to say. But, I was a winning personality, with a natural ease before a crowd and a gift of gab. I had always been an avid reader, with a thirst for knowledge and my daddy's steel-trap memory. Rev. Spann, who was also my high school English teacher, began to put books in my hands. One of the most important of these was W.T. Conner's <i>Christian Doctrine</i>. Little by little, I began to understand something of the Christian Faith I was trying to preach. I also memorized long passages from the Bible. My public speaking skills were being honed to a sharp edge.<br />
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As I entered Oklahoma Baptist University in 1970, I read myself into a very high Calvinistic theological position, indeed, an almost hyper-calvinist position. These were the days of great foment in the Southern Baptist Convention and its institutions of higher learning, with men and women teaching in the universities and seminaries things contrary to the faith held by most Baptists. Under this perceived attack on my own faith, I began to read the work of the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. This work was grounded in a high view of the Bible's inspiration, as well as a solidly Reformed theology. This helped me to survive the subtle attacks on the Bible's trustworthiness that was the daily classroom diet at OBU at the time.<br />
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In time, I tired of the battle and decided to attend the Moody Bible Institute. Here, I was plunged into an environment that was just the opposite I had known in Oklahoma. At MBI the emphasis was upon evangelism, Bible teaching, and missions, all based on the unquestioned authority of the Bible. Little by little, I began to suffer from a overload of this emphasis. Here we were, in the middle of one of the world's great cities, a treasure house of history, art, and culture, and it was as if nothing existed but the enclave at 820 North LaSalle Avenue.<br />
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And then I discovered Francis and Edith Schaeffer. I began to devour their books. Here is what I had been looking for and had failed to find both at OBU and at MBI. Here was a faith that affirmed on every hand the Bible, but simultaneously celebrated the goodness of creation and of creation pursuits. It was only a matter of time before I had read myself out of the Bible college ethos.<br />
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But, Chicago also did something else for me. In the loneliness and homesickness of that bleak Lake Michigan winter of 1972-73, I was broken in a way that I had never been before. My practical Christian work assignment from MBI meant that every week I traveled on the subway to preach to the denizens of a run-down hotel on the North Side of Chicago. Here I began to learn to love the people I was preaching to almost as much as I loved preaching. I spent many hours at the Art Institute and began to love in a deep way the great art of the Western canon. I began to read outside the fundamentalist box I had been nurtured in. When I drove away from Chicago in the Spring of 1973, I was a different young man from the country boy who had arrived nine months earlier. Theologically, I had come to understand that the creation mattered and that creation pursuits like art and work mattered as much a salvation pursuits like preaching and teaching. More importantly, I had come to see that <i>people </i>matter. <br />
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For the next 33 years I would work out the implications of all this in pastoral ministry in two Baptist churches. During the earliest parts of these years, I would be a trenchant critic of much that I have come to embrace. But, little by little, I would come to have doubts about it all. The doubts were the result of seeing two central things clearly: <b><i>What we were doing was not working and what we were trying to do had already been done.</i></b> All of this would be the result of two influences.<br />
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-14528758289258733392012-04-23T13:30:00.002-07:002012-04-23T13:30:45.439-07:00"I'm Back and Rarin' to Go!" Shinbone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-37137778275210436022012-04-23T09:31:00.000-07:002012-05-20T14:24:58.944-07:00Mr. Deahl and the Bees by E.D. "Shinbone" Smith, Bomar, Oklahoma, formerly Indian Territory or "IT"J.A. Deahl was my near neighbor for over twenty five years. He was a stocky feller with a grim face that always surprised you when it broke into a grin; you wouldn't have thought that face had a grin in it, let alone <i>such</i> a grin. He had been through the worst part of the Pacific conflict during the War, so there was a lot to be grim about. But, like most of them boys that went off to the War, he came home, married, raised a family, and went to work. He didn't set around feeling sorry for himself and he seldom talked about his war. But, it had marked him, for sure. There was always a brutality about him, whether it came to raising his kids, or getting rid of a passel of cats on his place. As a neighbor he was fine and dependable, minding his own business, and willing to do anything in the world for you, like most of us in the community. He was shy about conflict with anybody, especially his neighbors. Still...you wouldn't want to mess with him.<br />
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When J.A.'s kids was young- there was six of them- a feller from over around Pilot Point, Texas bought the place next to J.A.'s. Now, this feller was an amateur bee-keeper and he placed his hives on the fence line right up next to the Deahl place. After a while there wadn't a day went by without one or more of them Deahl kids getting stung by bees. This went on for a while and finally Mizz Deahl laid down the law: "If you don't go an' talk to him about them bees, <i>I'm </i>goin' to." So, reluctantly, J.A. went to visit his bee-keeping neighbor.<br />
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He found him out with the bees. He stood watching for a spell until the man noticed him, standing there.<br />
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"Howdy! What can I do for you?"<br />
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Quietly, J.A. said, "Purty day. Them bees is workin' fine."<br />
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"Yessir, they are. What can I do for you?"<br />
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"Lot of blossom this year. That'll work good for them bees and for you, I reckon."<br />
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"Yessir," said the neighbor, "it shorely will." And after a pause, he said, "Look, you can see I'm busy. Is there something I can do for you? I ain't got time to stand around and natter."<br />
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"Well..." drawled J.A., "actually, I was wondering if you could move them hives? Them bees have been stinging my children, and the old lady is kinda miffed about it, not to mention the kids. I thought maybe you could move them hives away from the property line."<br />
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Now the neighbor jist stood there for a few seconds, glaring at J.A.<br />
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"Jist <i>who the hell</i> do you think you are, I ask you, coming over here on my land and giving orders about my property?"<br />
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Quietly, J.A. said, "I don't believe I was giving orders. I was trying to be polite and neighborly. I'd jist like my kids to be able to play in their own yard without gettin' bee-stung."<br />
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"You can jist go straight to hell. And, while you're at it, you can git off my property," the neighbor said, with husky anger in his voice.<br />
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"Sorry you feel that way," said J.A. "Adios." And with that he turned and slowly walked back to his place.<br />
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When he got home, he went to his shop and looked around for a few minutes, then went to the house to get the keys to his pickup.<br />
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"Where're you going?" the Missus asked.<br />
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"I'm going to Marietta to see a man about some bees."<br />
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Before Mizz Deahl could say, "Do what?" he was out of the door and on his way.<br />
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When he got to town, J.A. went into Woodson's Hardware and Feed.<br />
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A young clerk asked, "What can I do for you today, J.A.?"<br />
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"I need a yard of that zinc hardware cloth, an eight foot extension cord, a roll of solder and a can of flux, and a jar of honey if you've got any."<br />
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"You will have to go next door for the honey, J.A., but I'll have these other things ready for you when you get back."<br />
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When he returned with his honey, everything was bagged and ready, the hardware cloth rolled into a tidy roll.<br />
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"Watch them sharp ends on that wire, J.A., they're boogers," warned the clerk, sucking on his thumb where one of the "boogers" had got him.<br />
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"Ain't they though," said J.A.<br />
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"What are you up to, making a chick brooder?"<br />
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"I'm a going into the bee-keeping business," said J.A., and before the clerk could comment, he had gathered his parcels and left.<br />
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When he got home, he took his stuff to the shop. With the hardware cloth he made a cylinder approximately eighteen inches tall by twelve inches across. He cut the female end of the extension cord off, split and stripped the wires and soldered them to the bottom of his cylinder. He plugged in a longer cord and carried the business end of it out to about twenty feet from the fence line where the neighbor's bee hives were. Then he rolled a wooden cable spool to the same place. He went and got his cylinder with its cord and the jar of honey. Taking off the lid to the honey jar, he placed it on top of the spool and then he placed the cylinder on top of that so that the jar was in the middle of the wire cylinder. Then, last of all, he plugged the new cord into the longer cord leading back to the shop. He looked at the whole thing for a minute and then called the kids.<br />
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"Y'all git in the house for a while."<br />
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"Oh, Papa, do we <i>have</i> to?"<br />
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"You do like I told you."<br />
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"Yessir!" And one by one they retreated to the house.<br />
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Going to the porch, J.A. told the Mizzus to keep the kids in the house.<br />
<br />
"What are you up to?" she asked, but J.A. said nary a word. He jist set down in a rocker on the porch and stared at his contraption.<br />
<br />
After two or three cigarettes, the dead bees in and around the wire cylinder were about six inches deep.<br />
Directly, he heard a shout and watched as the neighbor came and gripped the top wire of the fence, staring in horror at his dead and dying bees.<br />
<br />
"Deahl! D-e-a-h-l!" he wailed, "What in hell are you doing? You are <i>murdering</i> my bees!"<br />
<br />
"Deahl! Deahl!" he kept calling, while muttering to himself, "Oh, damn, oh damn, oh double-damn!"<br />
By the time J.A. sauntered out to the bee killer, the neighbor was in tears.<br />
<br />
"What do you mean," he sobbed, "You are murdering my bees!"<br />
<br />
Quietly, grimly, but finally with that surprising grin splitting his face, J.A. said,<br />
<br />
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"Oh, no, this ain't murder. <i>Them bees is committing suicide!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i><br />
By nightfall, the hives had been moved to the other side of the neighbor's place.<br />
<br />
I loved old J.A. He was fine feller. But, you wouldn't want to mess with him.<br />
<br />
<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-82040673865247639212012-04-22T17:39:00.001-07:002012-04-22T17:39:27.191-07:00On Writer's (Painter's) Block or On the Normality of Dormant Periods in the Creative ProcessMy dear friend and patron,<br />
<br />
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<br />
So, you have not yet got the painting. Neither have I. Nor can I promise a date. (I shouldn't have been so optimistic when you called last month.) I would send you your deposit back, but I don't have the money- either.<br />
<br />
The fact is that I am in long period of creative dormancy, commonly called "block," i.e., "writer's block," "painter's block," et cetera, ad nauseum. I have learned to avoid the term, "block," though; it sounds so much like a complaint of the lower bowel. It is not a disease, though it causes dis-ease. It is more like the fallowness that the earth goes through each winter. It is part of the natural flow of things. Or the natural unflow of things. The river is frozen, and while the current still runs deep under the ice, the surface is lifeless and impenetrable. Sorry that you were the one to get caught on the floes. If it is any comfort, I am here with you, trying not to mutter and cuss, waiting for the rifle-shot cracks that signal the breakup and the coming of spring.<br />
<br />
There are plenty of reasons for this winter. You may remember that your commission was given when I was in the midst of a turbulent career-altering set of circumstances. These were things that I had no control over. Believe me, I was black and blue before I finally gave up and admitted this. Then there was the move. ("First, the shove, then the move," I had almost said.) Eight months later I am still looking for painting supplies that were before so organized that I could have found them in the dark. Then there was the "settling in"- deceptive phrase. Who can adequately describe the fears, anxieties, four o'clock in the morning terrors, humiliations, embarassments, intimidations, and countless little daily insults of settling in to a new and strange place. It's more like "<i>un</i>settling in." Add to this the work load of my daily job, the new things and people to learn, the sheer exhaustion at the end of the day. There is little doubt that all of this has knocked my inner-life into a bumper-car experience of disorientation. And when the inner-life goes, the creative life goes with it.<br />
<br />
You may well accuse me of bitching and whining. I will not argue with you. Though <i>I</i> think that I am simply trying to explain to you what I have already explained to myself: that is, how I got to where I am and why you have not yet got your painting. I can go on and knock something out for you, but I won't be pleased with it and neither with you. Be patient with me as I am trying to be with myself. We are not talking here about laziness, or procrastination, or unethical dilly-dallying. We are talking about creativity and the tug and tow of its tides. As Victoria Nelson has written in her book <i>On Writer's Block, </i>"The creative experience can and must be guided, but it cannot be controlled" p. 35.<br />
<br />
So, again I plead, be patient with me and try to remember how much you (used to) love me. The painting will come. Of that I am sure. Unless I am hit by a bus or felled by one of the many medical foes of a sixty year old man who loves tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, and barbecue.<br />
<br />
Cheers and jeers,<br />
<br />
Rabbi Tbone<br />
<br />
<br />Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-73287392092914605102012-04-07T17:34:00.003-07:002012-04-07T17:52:40.609-07:00In Lent<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyuUUT1iUCkMFHmhw_mDDzxiFtNUMF7my6y4tplOd87XBvzr8jEJD2VR_NUVlt16YJuIB-kLlxPQaqoAIn1gws9WwwBfxjclNPJEP2gAG9puXBcmakX-ejGgQy16ZQ0bsd5KjzRIXwdu_/s1600/DSC_0554.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjyuUUT1iUCkMFHmhw_mDDzxiFtNUMF7my6y4tplOd87XBvzr8jEJD2VR_NUVlt16YJuIB-kLlxPQaqoAIn1gws9WwwBfxjclNPJEP2gAG9puXBcmakX-ejGgQy16ZQ0bsd5KjzRIXwdu_/s320/DSC_0554.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5728825545044397058" /></a><br />The way is long.<div>The climb is hard.</div><div>Upwards.</div><div><br /></div><div>But pain</div><div>Pulls down-</div><div>Body and spirit</div><div>Pull down</div><div>On the upwards climb.</div><div>The summit is yet ahead.</div><div>I cannot see it.</div><div>Others</div><div>Who have been there</div><div>Tell me it is ahead.</div><div>They tell me:</div><div>"Keep on!"</div><div><br /></div><div>This I know:</div><div>The mists part</div><div>From time to time.</div><div>I glimpse</div><div>The landscape below.</div><div>I have inhabited</div><div>That landscape</div><div>For many years.</div><div>I have known its parts.</div><div>Parts I know well.</div><div>All its parts</div><div>I have loved.</div><div>Knowing it well </div><div>Does not mean</div><div>I know it whole.</div><div>(We can love completely</div><div>Without knowing wholly.)</div><div>Even now,</div><div>In the glimpses</div><div>Through the mists,</div><div>I see its wholeness</div><div>Without knowing it whole.</div><div><br /></div><div>The way is hard.</div><div>The climb is long.</div><div>There is joy in the pain.</div><div>There is peace in the downward view.</div><div><br /></div><div>Holy Saturday, 2012</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5082189560035031858.post-63594132232396385242011-12-11T16:04:00.000-08:002011-12-11T16:26:30.934-08:00A Letter to Former and Present Members of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, Columbia, Missouri<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjxlmOb-n9iGrI0c7jLdlA-LiBnQBRP9vw8i2d-j-cbXyVDD_c9g8eZ5aF5ZQSqEYgO9WjfBlEkmoz2cbBBpmBL4HU8g-u02GDnRANyVh_-hAMapgeXNAeTXGSZX0SpZsl6UzqM7_YowC/s1600/DSC_0221.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIjxlmOb-n9iGrI0c7jLdlA-LiBnQBRP9vw8i2d-j-cbXyVDD_c9g8eZ5aF5ZQSqEYgO9WjfBlEkmoz2cbBBpmBL4HU8g-u02GDnRANyVh_-hAMapgeXNAeTXGSZX0SpZsl6UzqM7_YowC/s320/DSC_0221.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5685030136443631442" /></a><br />Dear Friends,<div><br /></div><div>I learned today that you have called a new pastor. I am pleased about this and wish you and him every blessing in your new life together.</div><div><br /></div><div>It was my joy to serve you as your pastor during some of the happiest as well as some of the darkest days of your history. I thank God for this. In His good Providence those times prepared all of us for the work we are now doing and shall be doing in His Church and Kingdom.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kathy and I want to thank you for your generous gift upon our leaving Columbia, for all of the help that you gave us in our move (and in working on the house), and for all of the kindnesses you have shown to Emily since our departure.</div><div><br /></div><div>We are settling in to our new responsiblities, to life in the city, and to life away from each of our children. We have found grace in time of need and much joy in our new work in the church and school here.</div><div><br /></div><div>We join to wish you a very blessed Advent season and a Merry Christmas!</div><div><br /></div><div>In the unbreakable bonds of the Gospel,</div><div><br /></div><div>Thom and Kathy</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Rabbi Tbonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17444391228364765439noreply@blogger.com0