TREES

Since my house is three blocks from my office, I usually walk to work. I have, at times, been rather boastful that the only traffic I encounter is when a child leaves his tricycle on the sidewalk or I have to walk around a slow-moving gaggle of high school girls walking to the Catholic school in the neighborhood.

The community is old, comprised of homes built between the great wars. The oldest dates to about 1920, and the newest houses were finished just before the outbreak of World War II. The choke-hold of a harsh winter has finally eased and I am sure that the maple, oak, sycamore and elm trees will soon explode into a canopy of leaves over the street. It is said that a squirrel can get from one edge of town to another, going from tree to tree, without ever touching the ground.

The story goes that the council of our town passed an ordinance in the 1930s that the city would provide a sapling to every homeowner for just $1 each. The young trees were put out on the town square for residents to claim and plant. The idea was to encourage the young families building the neighborhoods to participate in the conversion of the landscape from open prairie to a warm and inviting community.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, of trees were bought and planted during those early years. Many of them are now the majestic oaks and sycamores that magnificently beautify the community.

Imagine the stories those trees could tell. As they have extended their branches sunward they have provided beauty and shelter for workers like me going to their offices. They have held swings for children and lovers to laugh in. They have dropped thousands of acorns on the heads of teenage boys raking up their leaves in the autumn. As years have become decades they have stood under oceans of rain and snow. Still and all, they have grown stronger and mightier with each passing day.

But, we must remember, every one of them began when the city council and the homeowners made a commitment to enrich the quality of life for themselves and for those around them. They made the investment in the saplings. They took the time to carefully and lovingly plant and protect the trees when they were yet fledgling and fragile. They didn’t wait for someone else to “think of something to do...” They opened their wallets and they took their shovels out of the garage and set themselves to work. They also had to know that they would never live to see the trees in all of their splendor, but they had a vision of a better world that would live beyond themselves.

I believe that this is what we are doing right now in our vocation (and avocation) of music and ministry. The saplings you are planting are enjoyable to see, but with each sprouting leaf we can see the promise of immortal music from the heart of God through the pen of great composers to the voices of our choirs to the ears and spirits of many who come to hear.

This is a blessed opportunity. When the rehearsals get long and the notes come hard, let us never forget how good it is to be a part of the struggle. When the logistics seem impossible and when the support is so hard to build, let us never forget our calling as pioneers and prophets.

My mentor, Robert Shaw, once said that at length he came to an understanding of the literal reality that God is Love. Not just that God inspires or creates love, or that He is loving, but that He IS Love in true essence. And if God is the Loving Creator, then just maybe He is still about His work of loving and creating.

When we sing music that is greater than ourselves, we reflect the profound majesty and wondrous love of our Creator. Even more, we become a part of His work of continual creation, and we sing Wondrous Love on behalf of ourselves and everyone who has come before us. We sing not only to everyone who hears us, but to their children, to their children’s children, and to every ear that will live and breath, love and hope, in our community.

May we give thanks for the privilege of being a part of the pattern in the seed.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Bill

GIVE IT UP, BABY!

I got a chuckle listening to the radio the other day, hearing the story of how college students have given up Facebook for Lent. While I admire the spiritual commitment of the interviewed young people, I couldn’t help thinking that they sounded like recovering crack addicts in withdrawal!

I heard a story about a minister who is using the discipline of fasting as a Lenten-oriented weight-loss program. In fact, he is bringing a scale into the chancel of his church so that he can be weighed before the congregation during services to be affirmed in his achievement.

I have thought of giving up grilled cheese sandwiches for Lent, but I remembered that I was allergic to cheese anyway. Then I decided to forego praise choruses and contemporary worship, but I remembered that I despise them anyway. I am ashamed to admit it, but I have struggled to find a worthy sacrifice that I am willing to accept for myself.

Where does this idea come from? Does the Bible command us to “give up something” for Lent?

Of course not. Precious as the Church Year is to the spiritual journey of Christians, it is a creation of Man for the purpose of focusing our faith and building our understanding of the story of salvation.

The genesis of Lenten disciple comes from Jesus’ 40 days of fasting in the wilderness as He prepared for His ministry. During our 40 days of Lent, we follow His example of self-denial as a spiritual discipline that can open our minds and hearts to the power of His scriptural word and the working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

The part of all this that I think we often miss is the importance of adding something for Lent. You see, we “give it up...” but we forget to add something in its place. The spiritual discipline of Lent should focus our mind, heart, soul and spirit on the redeeming love of our Savior, but that cannot happen by only giving something up.

I hope you will join me during this Lenten season in taking a few minutes every day to exchange (give it up, baby!) a comfort with a spiritual discipline. I think for me it will be my habit of getting a cup of coffee and a cookie in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe I can take that time and spend it reading through the Epistle to the Romans, or the Gospel of St. Matthew. For you it might be a silent walk every evening talking to God and listening for His voice. Your spiritual discipline might be to listen to sacred music quietly for a few minutes every day, or read a good devotional book.

God calls us to live every day in His abundance. When we give something up for Lent, and replace it with something the ushers us into God’s presence, we open the door to a new gift of abundance.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Bill

ASHES & DUST

I can’t remember the last time, but I know that I have thought often, and occasionally written, about the natural disconnect between Lent and the beginning of spring. Has it ever seemed weird to you that we focus on “ashes to ashes” and “dust to dust” at about the time baseballs begin flying in Arizona and Florida, and we are once again seeing the ground on a fairly regular basis. Within a few weeks now it will be warm enough to fire up the grill and work in the yard again.

Now, of course, I know that our fathers in faith who laid the outline of the church year did so mindful only of their call to faithfully tell the story of sacrifice and salvation. It is a sure bet that baseball, yard work and barbeque were not on their agenda at all. The forty days (not counting Sundays) beginning Ash Wednesday start with the solemn mark of the cross on our foreheads and the dreadful, but perspective-establishing words, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In the spirit of honesty I must say that I don’t groove with this whole business of returning to dust. I am having a great time on this earth, and I don’t want to see my fun come to an unexpected conclusion any time soon. What my selfishness really wants is for my church to ignore the whole business of betrayal, sacrifice, scourge, sin and crucifixion so that I can spout a few praise choruses and blithely pretend that every Sunday is Easter.

Not only does life not allow me -or you, or anyone else- to get away with such fantasy, neither does the God of our Bible or the tradition of our faith.

A couple of hours before writing these words, I learned of the death of my best friend in childhood. Eight months older than me and yard neighbors from birth through my teen years, we played trucks together as toddlers, baseball and basketball as grade-schoolers and Steppenwolf and Jethro Tull as young teens. Though I had no contact with him at all in adult years, hearing of the death of anyone at my age -especially someone who was a part of my life for a long time- was quite rattling.

But, you see, this story is the reality of life and the true presence of a real and living God. God is not a vending machine that doles out trite feel-good blessings in response to our token coins of prayer, faithfulness and good works. Neither is God a great juke-box well-stocked to play our favorites upon our whim and request.

God is the God of dust, and He is the God of ashes. He is the God Who calls us to mourn our sins that He might redeem them, not ignore them. He doesn’t allow us to pretend that death is not real, but He gives us the sure and certain hope of resurrection and life eternal. Yes, dust to dust and ashes to ashes, but dust and ashes that live anew, never to die again.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Bill