Musings: Notes From My Daybook

Earlier in March, I had occasion to drive north from Cambridge to Edinburgh while in Britain.  With a couple of hours on hand, I eagerly made my way to Durham to see the cathedral there.  One of the oldest cathedrals in Britain, it offers a beautiful example of Norman construction.  A number of people important  to the Christian community are buried there--including Cuthbert, an early saint and pioneer not only of Durham but of Lindisfarne and Bede, the historian.

But in my time walking through this wonderful space and enjoying the way in which the present Christian community use the building in worshipful and forming ways, I found a stone in memorial of one of the deans of the cathedral that caught my eye.  Spencer Cowper, born in 1713 and who passed in 1774, served as a leader in the Christian community there nearly thirty years.  What I found most riveting was the brief comment on the stone.  Spencer Cowper, Dean of Durham:  "Life spent in the uniform practice of unaffected Piety, Friendship, Humanity, Hospitality, and Charity."

I like that description--the uniform practice of some very basic and valuable virtues.  It can be easy, from time to time, to show piety or friendship.  However, to do so faithfully, consistently every day is no small matter.  To be uniform, consistent, focused, and purposeful about our virtues sounds like high praise.

I hope for something similar to be said about me. 

Traveling to Ohio and back in four days is not what I call a rushed trip, but it was not exactly a leisurely visit either!  However, when Vickie's uncle passed away and the funeral was set for Saturday, it worked out that we could get out of Atlanta and join family in Urbana and so we went.

Funerals tell you a lot about a person.  Seeing children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, along with nieces and nephews and half the county made a certain statement about the kind and quality of life Von lived.  I don't suppose most folk who knew him would call him a saint, but I can assure you that if he gave you his word you could take it to the bank.  And if you needed help pulling a tractor out of the ditch or putting up the last of the hay, then he would be there.

When a man lives in the same township all of his life and on the same farm for 40 years and does business with the same grain elevator and buys his chemicals and fertilizer from the came co-op, then you get to know the person.  And Von got to know you.  And in all that living, joy and sorrow, good times and heartache was shared.  

I first met Von on Thanksgiving Day in 1981.  I was the boyfriend of the niece who showed up for dinner.  After the usual teasing and the traditional trip out to the barn/machine shed to look at the latest tool acquisitions, I was just one of the company of men.  Though slightly distrustful of persons who made their way in the world by using their mind instead of their hands and back, Von pretty much took people as they were.

Not a bad philosophy all in all.  Honesty, family,  quiet self-confidence, and a willingness to take people as they were.

So sitting in a funeral home last Saturday was a good reminder of some rather important things.  What did you learn over the holiday weekend? 

I’m attending a seminar at Rochester College on preaching and the various offerings have been strong.  But what has been particularly encouraging is to see old friends and make a few new ones as well.  In particular, was the trip to Olive Garden (a traditional haunt of the past) with Kent, John, Max, Rex, and Sam.
As I looked around the table and thought of the things that I have shared with three of these good brothers I felt a great sense of gratitude and connectedness.  Short of my own family—and even here I was blessed today by a phone conversation with my cousin Matt, these guy’s lives have intersected my lives at various significant times in life.
One lecturer, Gail O’Day, working on the seminar’s larger theme of the gospel of John, chose to engage the gospel through the framework of friendship.  Setting aside present day casual notions of friendship as someone that you hang out with, O’Day introduced the robust concepts of friendship of the Greco-Roman world.
In the ancient world friendship reflected commitment to one another, a willingness to do for another, even to die for another.  Friendship meant honest, open speech.  A friend was one who spoke truth to you.  The opposite of a friend was a flatterer—who spoke to your vanity.
Using this robust concept of friendship, the gospel of John begins to take on a new hearing.
Listen to the gospel of John:
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  –John 15.13-15
What Jesus is doing, according to John’s gospel, in going to the cross, is simply doing what friends do.  And, in so doing, he embodies the ideal of friendship.
In a world where relationships are fleeting and multiple diversions distract us from even our families, it might do us good to take Professor O’Day’s lead and think again about the way of Jesus.
. . . .And what would happen wherever a congregation of people take up such a lens for understanding community?

Last week I spent a few days in Chicago with Brian and Ike at a conference held at Wheaton College.  The focus was on resources for Christian theology and faith that come to us from the early centuries of the church.  A renewed interest is happening among various church traditions (and among evangelicals) to learn and use the wisdom of early followers of Jesus.

 I particularly appreciated the breadth of representation.  Scholars represented various church traditions--free church, Baptist, Methodist, Mennonite, Reformed, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic to name a few.  Of particular interest were papers presented that addressed the vitality of discipleship and the practice of prayer.

The early church has a number of common links with present day experience.  The ancient world was a pluralistic one with many different options for faith and ethics.  Christianity was only one of many different options.  And although one must be careful in drawing too tight a parallel, simply arguing that the Bible has all the answers or that the church is always right made little sense then as  it does now.

Rather the early church grew and flourished in a context of mistrust and as a minority.  In fact, it is when Christian faith is in a minority position that it presents itself in the most vibrant way.  As a number of presenters pointed out, in the changing contexts of our time many people can become fearful and reactive, attempting to harden the edges of Christian belief and practice.  However, for early Christians, they merely sought to fully embody the way of Jesus and embrace the teaching of the church.

They were not embarassed by faith or practice.  Rather, they found it a joy to embrace the mystery of the Christian faith and to live their lives in community with each other.

 At another time I will give a summary of some of the papers I heard read.  Suffice it to say, in summary, the word I heard was prayer and practice, worship and ministry, orthodoxy and orthopraxy are inseperable.  Talking the talk and walking the walk is not an either/or option.  It is both/and.

 In other notes, Brian introduced us to the finer options of deep dish Chicago pizza--on consecutive nights.  ( I vote for Ginos!)  And I have seen baseball games called because of rain--but standing outside of Wrigley Field looking in at three inches of snow on the grass and being told the game has been cancelled was a little unreal!  The only thing that made it real was the 35 degree temperatures and members of the Houston Astros walking out and getting on a bus.  They looked very ready for some sunshine!

Last week William (my 18 year-old son) and I headed to the coast for a few days camping on beach.  As every parent knows, the days you have with your children are numbered and the numbers are about to expire for William.  Heading off to college in a few short months, he and I decided we would take a trip--father and son.

I can't report any deep emotional breakthroughs nor any revelatory moments.  If you haven't said or taught or coached all along, four days together at this stage does little good.  What I can say is that we had a great time together.  Doing things together is the best way for fathers, sons--men--to engage and relate.  Stringing tarps, setting up tents, frying freshly caught shrimp on a 50 year old Coleman camp stove are the sorts of things that simply have to be done with someone else.

We climbed lighthouses, snooped around after an aligator, ate real South Carolina bar-b-que (yes, it really is a mustard based sauce!), and walked the beach in the heat of the sun and by the light of the stars.  We played poker every night using M&M's (Will always seemed to win!) and we explored a civil war fort.

And through it all, we talked. The mundane and the sublime met each other like the tide coming in and out.  Laughter and fears, hope and uncertainty swirled around--yet all in the context of the beautiful and the ordinary.  To set in the shade of a tree with an ice-cold IBC root beer and talk about the upcoming Master's tournament and the character of a man whose model is Jesus is a good way to spend an afternoon.

The one thing that matters most in life is the one thing we think so little of.

Taking time with and for others--not to mention for yourself--is the one thing that you will never regret.