The Beatles

If you are anything like me, you go through phases in which you listen to certain bands or songs more than others. It is like we connect with certain music at some points in our lives that we just don’t at others. And I think that is natural; we do it with art of all kinds. There are, however, a few select bands that keep me coming back all the time. These are the bands with which there is always a connection, always a spark. And there are quite few that fall into this category.

But there is only one band that shines above even these bands, attaining the coveted status of “my favorite”—The Beatles.

When I was 10 years old I was listening to Boyz II Men’s II record one day in my room (it had just come out—that is how old I am!) and I overheard my mother singing along with their a cappella version of “Yesterday.” I thought she had been listening to my CDs without telling me. I was furious! I immediately confronted her about it. She called me an idiot and told me that this was originally a Beatles song—not a boy band song. I then politely informed her that Boyz II Men surely did it better—even if they had not written it. I went out a few days later and bought Help! in a feeble attempt at proving the superiority of Boyz II Men. Wow, was I wrong.

And so it began. It has probably been the best purchase of my entire life thus far—no kidding. It was in that record that I learned to love something for more than a few weeks at a time (I switched obsessions a lot as a kid). It was then that I found the first thing about which I was ever really passionate: music. I have probably listened to that CD hundreds of times—maybe more than any other record. In so many ways, it changed my life.

I have been listening to Revolver and Rubber Soul a lot lately. I love those records! I heard someone the other day say that in those records all the good songwriting began. I could not agree more. There really aren’t any bad Beatles records, but I think those two are my favorites. I don’t know, I love The White Album, Help! and St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band a whole lot, too.

I have observed over the years that my counsel is rarely appropriate in other people’s lives—although I am known to be freely giving of it! So I try to advise as little as is humanly possible these days. But this is one piece of advice about which I feel completely confident:

I recommend you just pick up a Beatles record. Doesn’t really matter which one. They are all great.

They really were the best band ever.

The Va Tragedy and Churches of Christ

This is my second post about the Virginia Tech Tragedy. It has really impacted me—as it has so many of you. Or has it? Three weeks have now passed. And do we even remember it? The facebook profile pictures are all back to normal, the headlines are being consumed by other things, and a number of students have left Va Tech completely. We are entering that eternal stage of the “move on” process. But have we responded to this stage as much as to the “initial shock” stage? Now that the newness of this tragedy has worn off, perhaps it might be more appropriate than ever to do something.

But sometimes it is not necessarily our place to do anything. Could this be one of those times? I fear that we—and I most assuredly include myself here—have a “messiah complex.” We want to be the ones who make the difference. We want to be the heroes. And if we were completely honest with ourselves, I think that we would see that we want ministry—ministry of recognition—more than we want to minister. I hope you do not think that it is for this that I have been arguing in these posts. But it would be gloriously inconsistent for me to say that I have not fallen victim to my own “messiah complexes” in the past.

I was talking to Seth Terrell (campus minister at Va Tech) the other day about all of this, and he made some really powerful observations. He is seeing that many Christian groups are coming onto the campus at Va Tech and are trying to “rescue” everyone—as if they were the saviors of this situation (a virtual Christian superhero movement). They want to be the solution to this problem, this horrible and inexplicable problem. And I am not sure that is what God is calling the church to be. (But that is not to say that they aren’t doing good things. It would be really unfair to deny that they are.) Seth calls it “Phariseeism.” Messiah complexes galore.

That reminds me of a conversation I had the other day with my friend Katherine. We were talking about me giving advice to a friend who is going through a really difficult time right now, and she told me that maybe what this person needed was not my advice— maybe what this person needed was not “ministry.” Maybe it was just me. It took me aback; but the more I consider it, the more it makes sense.

She said that suffering people do not necessarily want magic words of comfort. Sometimes they do not want to be “advised.” Sometimes all they want is to be validated in their suffering. They need to have their mourning respected and appreciated. We have to allow time to hurt. Hurt is a vital part of life, and it does a tremendous disservice to belittle it.

I mean, look at the Psalms! These guys would never have wanted a clichéd speech, or some too-good-to-be-true man with perfect hair and a cheap suit (in other words, 9 out of 10 preachers I know!) telling them not to worry—it will all be alright. No, they needed to scream at God. They needed to hurt. They needed to experience life as it was coming at them.

So maybe all we can do is simply be. We can engage in what we in the GST call a “ministry of presence.” Sometimes all we can do is suffer with people.

So the question of this post obviously becomes, What does that look like here, with this situation? That is what needs to be discussed. But let’s face it…these are not the kinds of questions being asked in so many churches (especially, but not limited to, Churches of Christ). Of that I am sure.

That is such a shame.

I recently read the latest edition of the Spiritual Sword, and within it I found over 48 pages of argumentation against Richland Hills Church of Christ in the Metroplex. The volume was almost entirely devoted to bashing them for implementing an instrumental service on Saturday nights.**

I am so profoundly disappointed in us sometimes. I am disappointed in us because I can guarantee you that within the entire corpus of literature produced by Churches of Christ this year, there will not be 48 pages devoted to ideas and discussion of possible ministry opportunities for the Va Tech victims and their families. There will not be as many words of encouragement sent to those families as there are words spent arguing about the instrument.

It just seems like we have separated issues like this tragedy from our religious worldview. It is like we think that this tragedy has nothing to do with our faith. Let me ask you something, Which would Jesus like us to talk about more—worship wars that we know we aren’t going to win, or ways we can help hurting and broken people by ministering to them in a time of extreme need?

The choice is so obvious it is embarrassing.

**Let me be completely clear here: I am not arguing for or against instrumental music in this post. I just don’t think that writing more and more about it is going to do any good whatsoever for either side.

Secrets and Selfishness

I live in a little bitty house right off the campus of Abilene Christian University. It is really only 2 rooms with a bathroom shooting off one and a kitchen shooting off the other. For a single guy like me, it is perfect. I love my house. The only real problem is that I do not have a washer and dryer, so I am forced to either go to the laundromat (which can run upwards of $10 every time I do laundry) or bum off friends.

Needless to say, I bum off friends a lot.

So here is how is normally happens. 9 times out of 10 I will go to Heather MacLeod and Elizabeth Canarsky’s house. They are really cool to let me use their stuff. I even keep my detergent and bleach over at their house. And while I am there I get to catch up on the latest drama and share a little of my own. I have come to really enjoy those times a great deal. They have been good friends to me.

One time when I came over to their house Heather was reading Post Secret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives. She immediately got me hooked. If you haven’t heard of it, you really should check it out. It is a compilation book in which an editor (Frank Warren) placed photocopies of actual postcards sent in to him by people bearing secrets they have kept from everyone in their lives. It is truly remarkable what people have said in these postcards.

Some are funny—like the one person who fantasizes about eating the skittle that has been on the floor at work for a few weeks. Some are happy—like that girl who wrote in saying that when she is with “him” she feels like she can do anything. Some are sad—like the guy who says that he never got over “her.” And some are just scary—like the doctor who admits to fantasizing about cutting him/herself.

If nothing else, this book has really helped me to see that there is a whole world of people out there that are dealing with a multiplicity of things. There are goofy, funny, sad, and depressed people with whom we come into contact everyday. There is no telling what someone close to you is going through.

There is life, good and bad, outside of my own. Why do I have trouble seeing that?

I guess that seems so trivial and shouldn’t need to be said. But I need it. I really do. I need to be reminded that I am not the center of the universe. I need to see that other people are living their lives, and are struggling just as much (if not more) as I am. Isn’t that what Jesus intended all along?

Anne Lamott, in her wonderful book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (102), puts is quite well:

To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass—seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one.

Perhaps that would do me/us a lot of good to remember. In fact, I know it would.