Getting Loose

The Cherubim

In the Bible study I have been teaching on Wednesday mornings at the village church, we recently were looking at chapter 6 of the scroll of the prophet Isaiah.  That led to a discussion about the 9 ranks of angels with the seraphim being next to God himself, and the cherubim just below them. 

I had remembered that P. I. Tschaikovsky, one of my absolute favorite composers, had composed some piece of work about that rank of angels, and here it is.

I remember how it blew me away the first time I heard it by chance at night on my car radio years ago.  I was alone.  I tell you, the composer was a genius . . .  or very, very sensitive . . . like Mozart.  As I listen, I shake my head in amazement and wonder.

If you want to get blown away, turn up the sound and listen to it at night with the lights off, or with just a few candles lit.  You will be within aural proximity to the antechamber of paradise.

The Psalter and Altar Calls

In the last three Protestant Episcopal Church services that I have attended (two of them being amongst the largest in the country) neither one of them used the Psalter during the eucharistic services.  That did not dawn on me until I had finished going to the third church.

It's hard for me to go and worship and just be a participant.  I keep looking at my watch trying to sense the pacing.  Are they going to have enough time to get all of the liturgy in without feeling rushed?  And shockingly, with more liturgy and more people than I have got, they get it all in, with the eucharist every Sunday.

The tradition that I come from uses far more of a call-response type of rhythm than what they use, though clearly that is there in their services.  My tradition virtually begs for an altar call each service, and that is foreign to theirs, so some time is used up there.

Yet interestingly, the very service where I have received the most people into membership, I never do an altar call in it.  And the service where I rarely receive members, I virtually always do an altar call there.  Go figure.  I know I still am.

Preaching at the Seminary

I think a secret, latent desire of some clergy is to be invited back to the seminary to deliver a sermon. Show the profs, the colleagues, and those know-it-all rookie seminarians how well we are doing, how much better we’ve gotten since the days of theology school.

That will probably never happen to me. I graduated from the seminary at SMU in Dallas. The people invited to do sermons there are accomplished authors or big name preachers.

But . . . I did get to preach to a seminary crowd—St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Seminary in Houston. I was invited by the Rector to address the assembled congregation for the Liturgy of the Hours Evening Prayer on a Sunday evening. I used as my text the first few verses of 1 John 1 and basically pointed out the enthusiasm that John had about his relationship with Jesus, and sort of wondered out loud where our passion, our enthusiasm might lie?

The theologues listened intently, much more so than the normal Sunday morning crowd who may often interpret my musings as something they have to put up with in order to get to the end of the worship hour. The seminarians wanted to see my manuscript. They noticed that I hardly looked at it. How had I arranged it? Look at the enlarged font I had used. Where did I come up with such a novel way of proclaiming the word? Did I know how closely that reading fit in with the gospel reading for that selected day, etc.

All in all it was a very heady occasion for me. I loved it. It fed my soul. It was neat preaching to such a younger, thirsty set of men (and Betsy!)

Easter, 2009

Every Sunday ought to be Easter.  And in a sense that is always true.  No matter what season through which we are passing, every Sunday ought to be a little Easter.

In spite of the very threatening weather, we had more people at church this year than last.  It was gratifying to see all the visitors and be able to show off new programs and venues.  Life can be good!

Wordle

Here is my sermon for this coming Sunday:

If You Go to Church, You'll Live Longer

Every so often, these studies come out.  And if that isn't enough for you, here is another study that says that being an active member of a community of faith may well help you to recover better from a stroke.

1st Class Church Fund Raiser

Last night we went to the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral Greek Festival.  Man, you talk about knowing how to do a fund raiser, it was phenomenal.  Here were just a few of the things that impressed me:

• It is held on 4 successive nights
• Lights were strung up outside attracting people like moths
• A pared down menu that included quality items with lots of meat cooking and the wonderful smells drifting through the air
• Big open-air white tents set up
• Big, portable see-through fencing set up close to the street so that you could see through and get activities closer to the traffic to attract people
• Select beers and wines (I've seen Methodist Churches in Iowa with beer at their church--but it was like one of those under the counter operations)
• Dancing
• Live shows with lots of people
• $5 entrance fee (they could have doubled that and I still would have gone)
• Quality, select, vendors
• They had to have made easily hundreds of thousands of dollars

I'll bet we spent over 2 hours there, and they got at least $70 out of us.  On top of that it was absolutely an impulse decision for us to go.  We were going to stay home and eat, but I had had my car in the J & T Automotive, and I gather that the people who run this place are Greek (the front desk woman's name means "wisdom" in Greek, the General Manager's last name means "God is with us" in the Greek form of the Hebrew, etc.)   Anyway, as I was peeling off the bills to pay for my car repairs, the young man said he couldn't wait to go to the Greek celebration.

I said, "What celebration?"

"It's like a festival."

"Where?"

"On Yoakum Street."

"Where is that?"

"It's a little difficult to explain."

"Yeah?  Well try."

Blank look.

"Is it connected with a church?

"Yes!"

"Which one?"

His mind was whirring, and then he blurted out, "Annunciation!"

"They're having it tonight?"

"Yes!"

I thought, Well that sounds like fun . . . but . . . I'll need to check in with the War Dept. first though to see if that is a possibility.

Ike Strike--14

There is still no electricity or phones at church. I will go tomorrow to join some people to help do some more clean-up of the grounds.

I worked outside some today hauling broken limbs to the curb side, and walked the dog twice. The second time we got to see a couple of bucket trucks work on some high voltage lines. That would petrify me. There cannot be even a pin hole in the gloves they wear to work on those lines, plus the bucket has to be in phase with the voltage line.

When the man finally descended from his bucket, I asked him if he ever got scared working on those lines, and he grinned with the whitest teeth and said, "Only when I’m drunk."

I thanked him for a job well done and how appreciative Houston was for his coming over to help us out (he was from Tulsa).

The weather has held out well, and will be in the 60's tonight. I’m keeping the windows open and am saving on the utilities.

I visited some with my wife on the phone and she talked some about our granddaughter. She said to me, "You sound sad."

I didn’t think I was. I guess it is just a swirl of things that have been going on in life. Maybe the hurricane that came roaring down our pike set off a whirl of things and disarray that it is difficult to get back to normal.

But then, maybe normal has moved.

Ike Strike--4

I hate, I mean I hate exercising early in the morning. I just am not a morning person.

I can do it if I have to, but I hate to.

The mayor of Houston yesterday basically told everyone that only essential personnel should be working today.  We closed down the church on Thursday after some evening activities.

I usually work out on Fridays.  I did not know if 24-Hour Fitness (what a joke of a moniker—three nights a week they close at 10: some of my prime time to work out) was going to be open today, so, since my wife was going to be up at 6 a.m. anyway to run Viki Vizsla, wouldn’t I want to go ahead and run my 3 miles at the track?

Well, what a dumb question.  Of course I would not want to run 3 miles at the track early in the morning when I am grouchy and not yet woke up properly.  Besides I have a touch, I think, of the gout in my wrist of all places, and I still can’t do push-ups because it hurts too much when I bend that wrist (as if that had anything to do with running!)

But I jerked myself out of bed by the psychological scruff of my neck to put in my time (muttering a lot of the way internally) at the track—I was shocked that I did it in under 30 minutes.

It was so dark to begin with.  And then the first rays of dawn.  And then a few banded, high clouds.  Greyish.  Reddish. 

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

My wife reminded me of that.  Isn’t that how that saying went?

Nick Chopper

Well, Oz never did give nothing to the Tinman that he didn’t, didn't already have. Probably true. But we all feel at times as though there is something essential that we lack, and spend a lifetime looking for completeness in this or that activity, desiring this or that relationship.

My church in one of the Villages of Houston is putting on The Wizard of Oz, and I play a character whose first name was Nick, but you’d never know it from the play, because he goes by the name of Tinman. There are a lot of lines to learn, and one of these days I’m going to get them under my belt.

I’ve got a really neat costume and people will love it when they see me in it—axe and all. It will appear the last weekend of September and the first weekend of October.

Pray for me!