Good Morning Sam (1)

 

Good morning Sam

 

It was great to hear from you, thanks for keeping in touch after all these years, what has it been now, 35?

 

Yes, I agree, there is a lot of chaos and uncertainly around us. As to what we should do, how we should respond; it seems to me that unless there is a transcendent ideal that is above and beyond what we may think and feel as individuals that we have no benchmark by which to measure our actions, words, and thinking, nor do we have a goal to which can aspire.

 

If I am the measure of what is right and good for me and you are the measure for yourself, how can we say that a third person, with his own measure, is wrong if he promotes genocide? We may protest that the policy is harmful to humans, but sadly we know that there is a hideous counterargument that it is necessary.

 

Then there is the logical argument that if there is nothing transcendent, that we are reduced to nihilism and if nihilism is true, then at the end of the day does anything really matter? That is, when we are dead we are dead and eventually everything around us will die and that will be it – the universe will be like a pub just before 2:00 A.M. with a last call for drinks; then we’ll turn off the lights, shut the doors, but instead of going home we’ll just vanish.

 

I have long admired your sense of beauty, equity, and order. Your appreciation for nature, your love for flowers and plants, the way you treat your cats, your logical mind – and I should also add your patience for me and my practical jokes when we worked together! But where did you get this?

 

I have friends on the “right” and on the “left,” and while they may vehemently disagree about many things, they all appear to love the beauty of a sunrise or a sunset – where does this come from? Has anyone ever seen Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon and said, “This is nothing”? “No big deal”? “Not worth seeing”? Where does this sense of beauty and awe come from?

 

Well Sam, just some thoughts.

 

Bob

Shepherd and Lamb

 

Shepherd and Lamb

 

To be a shepherd we must know the Shepherd

To know the Shepherd we must be His lambs

To be His lambs we walk in Psalm 23 and John 10

As we live in John 10 and Psalm 23 we become His shepherds

As we become His shepherds we become His lambs

As we live as His lambs we live on the altar

As we live on the altar we are sacrificed

As we are sacrificed we know the koinonia of His sufferings

As we know the koinonia of His sufferings we become…

Both His lambs and His shepherds.

 

In Psalm 23 we see the Shepherd

In John 10 we see both the Shepherd and the Lamb

In Him we become both, ever and always.

Key Charts and the Bible and Its Music

  

I love music, I have always loved music. When I was a small boy I had a little portable record player and small vinyl records, some records were yellow and others red. I would play my records in my bedroom or our living room; but I also remember going down to our finished basement, putting the player on the floor, putting a record on, lying down next to the player…and listening to the music, and listening….and listening…and falling asleep. The music took me to many places in my imagination, and it was peaceful, O so peaceful. The music and songs were for children, and I was a child, but as I child I learned to travel and travel I did…and travel I do…with music the travel guide and the transportation and the projectionist.

 

When I was in elementary school I took clarinet lessons, but nothing really came of it, possibly because we moved when my parents split-up and my concentration was scattered; focusing on anything was hard when we moved away from all that I knew in my little world.

 

When I was in my mid-twenties and living in Orlando, I worked the nightshift in a grocery store alongside Phil Simonds. Phil was a graduate of Brandeis University where he majored in music. He was a pianist and gave piano lessons during the day. Since I loved the piano and had messed around with pianos in churches and in friends’ houses over the years, not really knowing what I was doing, playing (if you can call it that) by a combination of ear and written music, I asked Phil if he would teach me some piano basics, which he cheerfully agreed to do.

 

I don’t remember much of my visit to Phil’s home other than sitting at his grand piano, him pulling out a key chart and putting it up on the keyboard, and then explaining to me how to use it. He also gave me a red Thompson’s book for learning piano and worked with me on proper hand and finger positioning.

 

As it turned out I learned to play the piano (using the word “play” loosely) by playing cords with my left hand. I kept the key chart that Phil gave me; even once I learned the keys and scales it was good to have it in the piano bench “just in case” I forgot something. I also had charts which laid out the scales for me to practice. Knowing the scales reminded me where I was on the piano, and it let me know what cords went with what scales – you might say that it reminded me of what my lefthand could and couldn’t do with the notes my righthand was playing.  

 

The reason I’ve been thinking about key charts and musical scales and cords (I also had a key chart for my clarinet, which I picked back up as an adult), is that they became a part of me, much like the Bible. Every musician I’ve ever known (and I am not a musician) has been into music 24/7 – it is something they have no desire to turn off. Some musicians can be obsessive to the exclusion of everything else, including people…but then I’ve known businesspeople like that too, and sports junkies. When I am around musicians just getting to know each other, I love hearing and watching them and especially listening to them play with each other. I’ve learned what to expect and I enjoy the ride.

 

The Bible, in some ways like music, is in my soul. Every morning when I pick my Bible up and open it, I look forward to what I will see, to how the Holy Spirit will speak to me. I have been reading and pondering the Bible for fifty-six years and God’s Word is more alive to me than ever, its depths and heights more moving and beautiful with each passing day. If I begin reading a Biblical book that I haven’t read in quite a while I’ll think, “O, I’ve missed this.” And if I am reading a passage I read every week or month, I’ll think, “O, how sweet this is again.” Or, “I never saw this before!”

 

I so love how the Bible speaks as One Voice, and presents One Image, and draws me into koinonia with the Trinity. I love its harmony and melody and infinite arrangements. I love its many genres – from giddy laughter and joy to somber repentance and reflection, to gentle caressing love ballots. Unlike key charts, which once we learn we need not refer to again, the Bible calls us to live in it daily, hourly, with every breath. To not read the Bible daily, to not meditate in it, to not learn to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to us through its passages (musical scores) and to not cross pollinate with others is frankly foolish for the professing Christian. Yet we tend to satisfy ourselves with others telling us what is in the Bible, which means – no matter how we might protest this statement – that we are satisfied with others living the Christian life for us, we will live it vicariously – no matter how much we deny it.

 

This is akin to someone who listens to music played by others declaring that he is a musician. While we are not all called to be musicians, all followers of Jesus Christ are called to learn the music of the Bible, to live in it, to share it, to cross pollinate, to see Jesus Christ throughout the Book, and to grow deeper in the Scriptures with each passing year, month, and week. When we gather together we ought to be sharing some new cords we’ve learned, some new arrangements, some new musical (Biblical) insights – for if music is constantly alive for the musician, how much more ought the Bible to be alive for the Christian?