Sustained

The third of a three part series on suffering. The story began in Stripped, continued in Pruned, and concludes here.

“Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.”

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

One of my favourite musicians, a spoken-word and hip-hop artists called Propaganda, released a song last year called Crimson Cord. Its verses, recounting tales of abandonment and moral failure, are contrasted with the repeated chorus: 

The pain that guides us
The strings that tie us
The coincidence that proves to us God's existence.
Joy we misplaced
Beautiful mistakes
The scarlet thread
The Crimson Cord.


Wear your scars out loud
That's the fingerprints of the Lord
A crimson cord, baby, a crimson cord.
A timeline, a scarlet thread
A crimson cord, baby, a crimson cord.
Let me celebrate your crimson cord.
And that's beautiful, a crimson cord.
No regrets, boy, a crimson cord.
Evidence of God's love, that's a crimson cord

The point of Prop’s song seems strange. How can such discouraging stories result in a chorus and, ultimately a song, so hopeful? Propaganda is looking beyond what is glaringly obvious in the here and the now. He looks through the lens of faith and sees a God who is at work and is redeeming the brokenness, even using it, towards something good. 

In my previous entries in this series on suffering, I described the troubles of my past year. One afternoon, at the height of these struggles, I found myself on my lunch break thoroughly discouraged and almost despairing of any hope. 

But like the beam of light from Galadriel’s phial that encouraged Frodo in his darkest hour, I remembered Psalm 118:17: “I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.” I began to remember all the small examples of God’s kindness during this period, the small knots on the rope I was hanging onto. I recalled the timing of my diagnoses, the wise council of my parents, and precious conversations with my pastor Gavin giving me guidance and encouragement just when I needed it. I recalled the moral support from friends at work, the understanding of my boss, and words of wisdom from friends at church provided at just the right season. I recalled the conversations (mentioned earlier) with my pastors and even the music from Josh Garrels and the quotes from books that proved so timely. I recalled my own Crimson Cord. 

Here is another example, another knot from this scarlet thread. Over the last 12 months my church offered a “book of the month” for our congregation to read and discuss. The book for the month of May was the puritan Jeremiah Burroughs’s ‘The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.’ No doctor could have ordered a better medicine for my soul. I’ve already quoted excerpts from this work that spoke strongly to me. Several nights I would leave work having received a particularly devastating piece of news and think to myself; “the only way I can handle this is to go home, cry, then read another chapter of Burroughs”. I clung to the volume’s comfort and wisdom as it counselled, consoled, and built me up in the strength of the Lord. How kind of the Lord to have this reading assigned at just such a time!

As I write this, it is early October, five months since these trials were at their peak. Life still isn’t easy. Certain issues have been resolved, others I continue to struggle with. I’ve gone off and had other adventures and the Lord has taught me new things. I look back on this time of suffering and I remember the darkness. But I also recall a certain strange sweetness. The Lord was good. He provided. He brought those trials upon me and, in the end, I am glad for it.

At the beginning of 2015 I read I book of essays examining the influence of C. S. Lewis. In one, theologian Kevin Vanhoozer described a certain vocabulary Lewis repeatedly used. “For Lewis, waking is a way of describing one’s conversion, a coming to new life. The Christian life is all about wakefulness. Theology describes what we see when we are awake, in faith to the reality of God, and discipleship is the project of becoming fully awake to this reality and staying awake.”

That concept of describing the Christian life as “the project of becoming fully awake to this reality and staying awake” has stuck with me and churned its way through my thoughts this whole year. I become so focused on the here and now. My way of thinking defaults to that of the world around me, which feels so real and is so all-consuming. But it is not ultimate. It is, in fact, the “shadowlands”. That is not to say it is not real, or does not matter. It matters very much, for it is made by God and is in fact the theatre of God’s salvation, the world in which we learn to be in awe of him even more. 

But when my eyes get lazy and when I fail to see God at work, I then walk around with my nose to the ground, stumbling over roots and rocks rather than beholding the vistas of greatness all around me. So I need discipleship. I need community to alert my to the unseen and align my vision with that of God’s Word. I need to reorient myself daily in the Bible and seek the face of God in prayer, and then I need to continue to be awakened throughout the day. 

“I believe” cries the psalmist.  “Help my unbelief!”

So I’ll continue to seek God’s glory. Not by just by aiming to succeed in lofty accomplishments, but by a life of what my friend calls “radical ordinariness”. A life of seeking his face through prayer. A life of seeing his face clearer by fighting remaining sin. A life of bearing fruit. 

Fruit

Fasting Through Black and White

For another year I have taken an unusual Lent fast: a fast from colour. In the weeks leading up to Easter I have applied a greyscale filter to my iPhone’s camera. Everyday, except for Sunday,  I chose one of these photos and pair it with a passage from the Scripture readings from that day. Photos are then edited in VSCO Cam.

Why Lent? As someone whose convictions are firmly evangelical and reformed, I formally scoffed at the practice. It wasn’t until I began to study works from outside the narrow slice of evangelism I was raised him,  that realized the rich history of the church calendar throughout church history, including the Reformed and Anglican streams. I recalled how my annual observance of Advent prepared my heart for the celebration of Christmas. In contrast, Easter tends to sneak up on me and leave far too quickly, without much observance of its impact on my heart and my world. 

Someone coming out of Roman Catholicism might benefit from abstaining from Lent, focusing solely on disciplines ordained by God in his Word. But I have benefited from time set aside to sombrely reflect on this world and its disappointments, my sins, and the hope we are preparing to celebrate at Easter. The dull and sometimes gloomy tones of the black and white filter emphasis this, but they also showcase a complexity of pattern and texture that suggests something deeper at work. And the brilliant contrast to the full colours on display following Easter remind us of the unending implications of the Resurrection here and now, amongst us. 

Now that this project is completed you can enjoy the gallery below. (Please click on an image to open it in full screen and hover on the photo to view the matching passage of Scripture; an essential part of the experience.) You can also enjoy my posts from 2014, which were posted here. 

Bach and the Joy of Work

I am already out of town by the time I realize what music my sister is playing as she drives me. James Ehnes is performing the final movement of Bach’s Sonata No. 3 in C for Solo Violin and the notes come fast.  They tumble and tangle, cascading into breathless arpeggios. Rolling and echoing, distinct and quick, they are like the details of a complex mosaic. I could stare at the details, marvel only at their perfection, and miss the greater masterpiece that they bear witness to. And what a masterpiece! Listening to the intricate arpeggios is like ridding a strong and sensitive stallion up a mountain, or directing a sailboat into crest after crest of wave, water, and wind. This music should peak, I think. There is no way it could reach a pinnacle higher than the one it just reached. But then it does and I am overcome with joy.

The video starts with photographs but after that you can see Milstein´s performance. Nathan Milstein plays, at age 82, Bach´s Sonata for Violin Solo No.3 in C, Allegro assai. This was his last concert.

I’m simply listening and yet I’m experiencing such pleasure. I am not playing this music, mastering it, coaxing it off the written page and into reality. Nor am I Bach writing this music, taking simple chords, scales, and turning them into something new.

And yet a trace of joy that is chipped from the same vein is witnessed when I am doing my work well. When I am using my skills, my knowledge, my personality, and my abilities to help someone, it is like every string in my instrument is tuned to the perfect pitch, making music. What satisfaction and what pleasure! I experience it too in hobbies; the rare occasions that my film review clicks into place and explains a truth, or when the composition and lighting of my photograph have gathered together to convey a visual idea.

When I do this I worship; I glorify God to the best of my abilities, using his gifts to their fullness in order to accomplish what he has set before me. As Dorothy Sayers wrote, “Work is not, primarily, a thing one does to live, but the thing one lives to do. It is, or should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties… the medium in which he offers himself to God.” Or in the more blunt terms of Eric Liddle: “'God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

But how rare are these moments! So often I come close to that satisfaction, yet miss it, brushing past its greatness instead of meeting it head on. Something gets in the way. Often it is my own inadequacies and my self-centredness. Sometimes it is someone else’s failures. Maybe I get bored, tired or lazy. Oh the frustration of corruptly bearing God’s image amongst his tainted world!

Now think; if work is worship, what than should we expect from our worship in Heaven?  What would be possible without the limits of our own finitude, our own and others sinfulness, and the fallenness of our earth? With God Himself before us and in our midst, think of the masterpieces I will photograph, the endless beauty and complexity of the films we will create (and review), the redeemed people we will call our colleagues, and the music that Bach and his friends will compose and perform. All for the pleasure of our King!

For this King is making all things new. And I am called to join him. Until that day when my sinfulness and this world’s fallenness is eradicated, may the hope and reality of his redemption have me return to this fallen ground, spade in hand, tilling for my Master.

Joy of Work2

Evan Koons and For the Life of the World

A capstone experience in my young life was the summer I was invited by my church to write and teach the Bible curriculum for our summer Vacation Bible School (VBS) program. We were unhappy with the quality of the provided materials and my task was to create a teaching that walked the kids through the story of Joseph. The outcome included transforming one classroom into a filthy prison (complete with a costume that I aged by leaving in the mud for one week) and another into an elaborate throne room, enlisting my youth pastor and a church grandfather as fellow actors, and writing a script that both captivated the kids and taught them about God and our response to Him. God’s blessing was on the efforts and the result was unlike anything I have ever done.

A quick snapshot of me in costume as Joseph.

A quick snapshot of me in costume as Joseph.

So I’ve always been excited by the possibilities of combining creativity, performance, and impactful teaching. A tour of the workshops of GoodSeed International was one example, my recent introduction to the online video series The Bible Project is another. And this summer I have come across a third: For the Life of the World: Letters to Exiles.

This video series is created and narrated by Evan Koons, an charmingly awkward young man who sits in a large house in the middle of a forest and ponders big questions like “What is our salvation for?” Seven short episodes explore the implications of these questions. Topics include the place of Christians in the world, the reason of our work, the meaning of love and family, and the place for creativity and order in the world.

FLOW1

The series is outstanding for its cohesive use of creativity and imagination. Every episode features at least one visual illustration that later becomes an analogy for the teaching. A Rube Goldberg machine that attempts to cook Evan’s breakfast backfires and become an example of the banality of utilitarian work. A ruined paper lantern that lands in Evan’s front yard later is later used as a moving visual illustration of how our lives in the world are offered up to God as a prayer. A punk motorcyclist arrives on Evan’s front porch and uses puppets to tell a illustrating the importance of a believers call to hospitality. While on paper these come across as trite and cheesy, they are subtly woven into the fabric of the video’s narration, beautifully shot, and scored by new music from Jars of Clay.

And yet Evan is not a sage on a stage preaching to his viewers. He is himself perplexed by these issues and so he brings his questions to a recurring cast of teachers, including Stephen Grabill from the Acton Institute and artist Makoto Fujimura. Their advice, illustrations, and wisdom clearly cause Evan and his audience to respond to truths through the way that they live. Evan is one of our peer on this journey, inviting us to join him in a greater understanding of the implications of God’s redemptive work for the world.

FLOW2

And these implications are life changing. In the church we often focus on the gospel’s private spirituality, but seldom on how it influence on our day-to-day life. What are the repercussions of the gospel on the mundanity of work, the meaning and purpose of knowledge and creativity, or the day-to-day actions of service and sacrifice in the life of a family and the life of a church? This theology is necessary to integrate the truths of Christianity into the life of the world. Anyone who watches the series will be introduced or reminded of these doctrines, but Evan is not content to let such truths sit dormant on the view’s mental shelf. He brings them home by closing every episode with a “letter to exiles”, a hand written monologue. In these letters encourages us with the reminder that we carry these truths into our lives as the redeemed children of God, not through our own power but through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So I recommend For the Life of the World: Letters to Exiles to you and commend Evan Koons and his team for producing such a work. May we be stirred by it and, out of that stirring, create similar works of beauty and truth. It is available as a DVD/ BlueRay set, a digital download, and an online rental. 

Reflections on my Parent's 25th Wedding Anniversary

 

Watching archival footage through the eye of a home camera, they were young and handsome. Witty and joyful. Pleased and expectant. Their commitment was pure and radiant were their faces. I have hardly seen a happier and handsomer couple.

“In sickness and in health” says the liturgy and sickness did indeed mark the majority of his days, hampering his academics, his social life, his ministry to the church. But ours is a home of hard-won happiness and their sacrifices were sacrifices of peace.

And so we stand now on the flip side of 25 years, years composed of days and marked by careful steps, regarded conduct, and content with quite contemplation. Their quiver, this side of the battle, is not marked by successes to boast in, yet it is full none the less.

We, their four, still live in a home built by “exhaustions nominating peace.” We are marked by the fall that grinds way at them too. But greater is the joy, a joy that ripples off the mountain valleys like laughter. For we are an offspring of sacrifice and the Spirit. This is His doing, and it is marvellous to behold.

Happy 25th Anniversary Mum and Dad.