I'm on a Block (Awesome...(God)...)

As part of Abby's first (sentient) Advent, we asked her family and friends to make her a little card or symbol relating to the meaning of the season to be opened each day leading up to Christmas. The items are stuffed inside little numbered bags that Leah hand-made, and are hung from nails on a branch (my contribution to the endeavor). Tonight's bag contained a very thoughtful note from Abby's godmother (my sister), along with the suggestion to dance to the youtube video of Hillsong Kids' "I Am Not Forgotten," which was actually pretty dope. Well, we decided to keep parousing the various samplings of childrens' worship music on the market, and came across this. The visuals speak for themselves:



Cool track, but its missing something...mmm - T-Pain!

Somehow, I'm thinking this is not what Rich Mullins had envisioned when he wrote the song - unless he had accidentally mistaken peyote for a conventional supplement to his evening cooking...still, Abby seemed to deeply cherish this, so she thought I should share it. Enjoy what might have been had Rastafarianism, and not Nicene Christianity, prevailed as Christian orthodoxy.

(In the Spirit of offering alternatives, I propose putting the dude from the video on the ark with T-Pain and Noah (played by Andy Sandberg) and calling it "I'm on a Boat (Awesome God Remix)"...).

Collecting Manna: Theology of the Boss

Bruce Springsteen is a Roman Catholic, but in this recent interview with Rolling Stone, discussing the "vampire schedule" he often keeps while working on records like his recently reissued masterpiece, Darkness on the Edge of Town, the theology of the Boss sounds a lot like Luther's theology of the cross:

I'm an alienated person by nature, always have been, still am to this day. It continues to be an issue in my life, in that I'm always coming from the outside, I'm always operating at a distance, and I'm always trying to overcome my own internal reticence and alienation - which is funny, because I throw myself the opposite way onstage. But the reason I do that is because while the stage and all those people are out there, the abyss is under my heels, and I always feel it back there. I've accepted that just as my nature and it's given me the ability to write a "Rosalita" or "The Rising" or "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" or "Nebraska" or "Straight Time" or "the Ghost of Tom Joad." You can't write those without having had at least a taste of the abyss. It's allowed me to have an emotional breadth and subject matter in my work that is very wide, but then, you also have to live with it [laughs]. (11.25.10 issue, p62).

Luther might put it this way:

One deserves to be called a theologian, however, who comprehends the visible and the "back" of God seen through suffering and the cross. The "back" and the visible things of God are opposites of the invisible, namely, human nature, weakness, foolishness. The Apostle in 1 Cor. 1.25 calls them the weakness and folly of God...now it is not sufficient for anyone, and it does no one good to recognize God in God's glory and majesty, unless one recognizes God in the humility and the shame of the cross...This is clear: One who does not know Christ does not know God hidden in suffering. Therefore one prefers works to suffering, glory to the cross, strength to weakness, wisdom to folly, and in general, good to evil...God saves no one but sinners, God instructs no one but the foolish and the stupid, God enriches no one but paupers, and God makes alive only the dead; not those who merely imagine themselves to be such but those who really are this kind of people and admit it. (Quoted by Tuomo Mannermaa in Two Kinds of Love: Martin Luther's Religious World. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010, 28, 33)

I think the Reformer would join with me in experiencing the grace hidden in suffering in The Boss' powerful prayer, "My City of Ruins," left off his list above, but in my opinion, not only one of his finest, but one of my favorite songs of all time, with which I bid you good evening:

A Mass for the Doubters: A Recommendation of Erik Poppe's Troubled Water

I'm very thankful for my librarians here at LTSS. Every time I walk into Lineberger, there is an array of new and fascinating books, films, and musical selections waiting to be discovered and enjoyed, and their recommendations seldom fail to intrigue and delight. I'd like to pass along the favor by commending a film which they led me to, Erik Poppe's Troubled Water. It's, quite frankly, one of the most powerful movies I've ever seen. (And, it's currently available to Watch Instantly on Netflix!)

At first, the movie appears to be a standard redemption story: Jan, convicted for the murder of a four-year old boy, has been released on parole to serve as the organist for a church in downtown Oslo (the film is Norwegeian with English subtitles), a talent he has developed while working with a chaplaincy ministry while incarcerated. His hauntingly beautiful music and gentle demeanor earn him the respect of the church council president, the love of the priest, Anna, and of her four-year old son Jens, who reminds Jan, now going by the name Thomas, of the boy of whose blood he claims he is innocent. One day, leading a tour of the church, the mother of the victim of Thomas' crime recognizes the talented organist, and becomes obsessed with protecting the priest's son from what she believes is imminent disaster. Thomas continues to resolutely state his innocence, while Agnes' (the mother) life continues in a downward spiral in search of closure and resolution.

Part of the film's brilliance is the way in which it skillfully reveals the perspectives and back-stories of both Jan/Thomas and Agnes, exploring the ways in which doubt, woundedness, and the desire for redemption shape their relationships to their loved ones, to themselves, and to one another. While Agnes' husband seeks to move her away to Denmark to give her a new lease on life, Thomas struggles to make sense of what it means to believe that good can indeed come of evil. In a dialogue with Anna, the substance of which I am sure is partly lost in translation, he challenges the priest's conviction that "God has a purpose for everything" by asking "what about evil? Is evil also an act of God? Or maybe you just like to bring in God when all other explanations fail?" Later in the film, Jan will challenge Anna with the same set of questions, forcing the priest to come to grips with the complexity of her self-admitted naive beliefs (if that sounds vague, I simply cannot reveal more! its worth the price of admission, however). The drama of the film revolves around such reversals and recapitulations, not to blur and make ambiguous, but rather, to reveal, to re-imagine, and to re-form our prejudices about theodicy, forgiveness, and grace.

Particularly powerful for me was the film's setting in the midst of the Lutheran monoculture of Norway, where Lutheranism is a state religion and an inexorably interwoven aspect of the general culture. While much of what is said between characters may strike more orthodox ears as undeniably liberal, there is also something to the film's frank and unassuming meditations on the ways in which God and God's grace show up in the midst of the every day and the unexpected. This is not a "Christian" film with a religious agenda - but grace is an undeniable aspect of the backdrop of the world. Baptismal imagery abounds, from Jans' holding the dead four-year old boy in his arms in a raging river, to Agne's therapeutic swimming sessions. And the Eucharist makes an appearance as well. A good candidate for the identity of the film's "bridge" over the troubled waters is the church council president, who despite knowing of Thomas' crime, resolutely tells Agnes that "this is a church. Everyone who comes here gets a second chance...If he can't get a second chance here, where will he?" Rather than accuse Thomas when he discovers his past, the councilman compliments the latter's playing of the St. Thomas Mass, "a mass for doubters," and asks, "have you ever attended communion?" When Thomas shares his disbelief in the sacrament, the councilman replies, "you don't need to believe. It's flesh and blood, bread and wine. It'll work regardless."

As the film unfolds, it becomes apparent that not only in the sacraments, but in the living out of life, of being confronted, acknowledged, unmasked, and finding oneself brought to one's knees, that grace finds us, takes hold of us, and brings us to the depths of the new life offered in the depths of the troubled waters of baptism. Not by offering a bridge, perhaps - but by being with us in the depths into which we plunge when we find the bridge has vanished from beneath our feet. In this sense, the entire film could be described as "a mass for doubters." Regardless, it is a powerful viewing experience. Whether you agree with its theology, "it'll work regardless."

I've included the International trailer for the film below. While it lacks subtitles, it is worth the view for the sample of Thomas' organ playing about two minutes in. Dip in, and if you feel moved, come to the waters to be troubled, to be moved, and to be changed.

Reconciliation on Story Hill

A friend at LTSS recently introduced me to the folk duo Storyhill by passing along their latest album, Shade of the Trees. I haven't listened to another disc since. Montana natives Chris Cunningham and John Hermanson channel the Americana simplicity of Simon and Garfunkel, recording live around a single mic to weave hauntingly wrought tales of heartbreak and human frailty, reaching deep into the Jungian shadows of the nation's collective unconscious. On the harrowing "Caught in a Mess," for example, the duo reflects on the disillusionment with the American Dream following the economic and political turmoil of the past decade through the lens of the ending of a relationship, singing "the power you used to heal/can harm."

But the tune that has stayed with me is "Better Angels:"



The lyrics are a meditation on the dying words of Stonewall Jackson, recorded in 1863 by Dr. Hunter McGuire, who also amputated the general's arm, as follows:

A few moments before he died he cried out in his delirium, "Order A.P. Hill to prepare for action! Pass the infantry to the front rapidly! Tell Major Hawks"—then stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished. Presently a smile of ineffable sweetness spread itself over his pale face, and he said quietly, and with an expression, as if of relief, "Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees."

The man who once advised "always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy" is himself mystified by the possibility of peace beyond the relentlessness of war, and Storyhill juxtaposes this revelation with the famous words of Abraham Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, which closes with mystification of its own by appealing to that place over the river in all of us:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

It strikes me that Storyhill's bringing together the words of the legends of each side of the American Civil conflict is itself a performative of the kind of reconciliation we ardently hope for and desperately desire, especially in this time approaching what looks to be a bitter midterm election. Here are the full lyrics:

Better Angels, of our Nature
stay awake now, you're in danger
The coming night is dark and deep
Cross over the river and rest, in the shade of the trees

Keep going forward, 100 abreast,
the horses are thirsty, they will protest
Tonight we will water them, in Tennessee
Crossover the river and rest in the shade of the trees

They outnumber, but we're at our best
As willing we stumble, into their bullets blessed
Hold the line, stay close to me
lets cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees.

Better Angels of our nature
stay awake now, you're in danger

~

Recently I've had the pleasure of drinking a foretaste of the sweetness that can only come through striving of a different kind than the times sung here. Having signed up as a supply preacher and organist for the ELCA South Carolina Synod, I was invited to fill the pulpit at a rural parish about an hour outside of Columbia. Having been warned by a member of the church to keep mum on my identity as a Northerner, the first thing my eyes could not help but notice as we pulled up was the vast church graveyard filled with tombstones resting under the shadows of gently waving Confederate flags. Sad to say, I found my indignance at such prejudice met with stereotypes and judgments of my own. Luckily, my wife, who is always quicker to charity than I, reminded me that the better angels of my nature were in danger, and needed to "stay awake now." I think another charitable One once urged his followers to do the same (Mk 13.24f)

Only later, after being warmly greeted and invited to Sunday supper at a church member's home, did I learn that these were these stars and bars marked the graves of family members who had died fighting for the CSA, that the roots of this little country church reached far deeper than any I had known in my Yankee suburban existence, and that they represented far more to their descendants than simply slavery, states rights, rebellion, or anything else the history books and media would use to lull us into the slumber of hypocrisy. I'm not ready to go for BBQ at Maurice's yet, and I'm certainly not willing to start talking about the "War of Northern Aggression" or agree with the flag at the capitol building downtown. But sharing pot roast, sweet potatoes, and stories, watching joyfully as relations in the faith I never knew I had took my daughter for tractor rides to pick us fresh pears from their roadside orchard, reminded me that, over the river, in the cool shade of the country trees, we can indeed rest in presence of our enemies, reconciled by a power far greater than America, or the forces that have divided her. These folk helped revive a better angel in my own nature, and I'm thankful there are voices like Storyhill whose words point, perhaps unknowingly, to an angelic light, glowing dimly in the shadows.