PunkIsrael

On of Those Christmas Stories

We were to play a Christmas show tonight at our favorite music venue. A big one. Rehearsed to the nines, we were sharing the stage with the biggest local musicians. We had an exciting set list of Christmas favorites, and all of our friends had promised to come.

Then it started to rain, then sleet, then snow, hard. One by one, the other musicians started to call and cancel. Then our friends, and even our wives, started calling to tell us they were staying home. It was the five of us at the bar in the middle of a blizzard.

After some deliberation, we gave up and cancelled the show. We loaded the equipment back into the cars, brushed the snow off the windows, and agreed to caravan back to Bristol, around 30 minutes from Johnson City.

Johnson City was a mess. Traffic was bumper to bumper. Cars slid around in the slush. People angled for position in traffic, trying to make it home to family and fire. We pulled free of Johnson City and began to fight our way down Highway 11, windshield wipers laboring, cars fishtailing from side to side, loaded down with keyboards, guitars, and amps.

Lord, I prayed in the car, I don’t want to be a part of one of those Christmas stories. You know the kind. The disastrous, uncomfortable, inconvenient, moral-at-the-end kind. The kind you find in the inspirational Christmas books at Hallmark.

Driving back to Bristol was a white-knuckled affair. We kept our windows clear as best we could, and managed to stay on the road. It was on the final hill going into Bristol that the trouble started.

Laboring up the hill without the benefit of very much momentum (we topped out at around 20 mph), my two-wheel drive Toyota began to fishtail. The more I compensated one way, the more I slid in the opposite direction, until I was stuck in a snow bank on the side of the road.

A guy about my age in a pickup truck stopped next to me and offered me a tow, which I gratefully accepted. He lashed his canvas strap around my front axle and gunned his engine, and we went up the hill—far too fast. I had no control. My brakes locked up, and I slid from side to side on the bridge, coming within a foot or two of the wall, cursing with one breath and praying with the next.

It was at that exact moment when my left windshield wiper broke off, and the snow covered my windshield, making it utterly opaque. The wiper arm scratched ineffectually at the window, and the snow kept falling hard.

Somehow, by the grace of God, we got up the hill without crashing. As I stood shivering in the snow while the guy untied the strap, the cop who had been following us said, “did you see that idiot try to pass you on the bridge?”

People are crazy in the snow.

At that point, I gave up and decided to park the car and cut my losses. I drove into a Food City parking lot with my head stuck out of the driver side window like Goofy in a Disney cartoon, and called my friends. I went into the grocery store and walked around until my body temperature came back to normal.

My friends came back to get me in their four-wheel drive Subaru. We loaded the instruments into the car and it stepped over the snowy ground easily. They dropped me off at my house, and the power was out. The fire roared, we lit candles, and I sat in front of my fire, drying my feet and thanking God for safety.

I had one song to sing tonight: Everything’s Gonna Be Cool this Christmas. At first I was sorry I didn’t get to sing it, then I realized it was true anyway. The people I love are safe and warm, and the Christ child is on his way to Bethlehem to be born.  Everything is going to be cool, and everything is.

Why Are Dreams Self-Evident?

Ryan Seacrest asks the young singer: "Why do you want to be on American Idol?"

He answers: "I've wanted to be a performer as long as I can remember. Since I was a kid, I've wanted to see my name in lights."

And our breath catches in our throats, and our hearts beat faster. It's his dream. And we're helping him fulfill it.

I find it fascinating that dreams are one of the few things that seem so self-evident in American culture, that no one dares question them. I had a lot of dreams as a kid. One dream was to be a scientist. I didn't really want to do careful, measured experiments. I wanted to mix stuff in test tubes and blow stuff up. I realized later that I had no interest in actual science. I wanted to be creative. I just didn't have the language for it.

If someone saw that truth in me, and then encouraged me to apply for a science scholarship at Cornell anyway, would they be a benefactor or an enabler?

Why are we so sure that when some one has a dream, that it is the right one? How many could-be doctors in underdeveloped countries have wasted their potential as medical directors of insurance companies? How many could-be green entrepreneurs have wasted their potential in Fortune 500's?  How many could-be music teachers in the inner city have thrown themselves into useless bids for stardom? 

I'm not saying it's wrong to work in business. It isn't. And some are called to work in business, in government, in finance, and (yes), even to be popular performing artists. But for goodness sake, let's stop genuflecting before these dreams before we discover the heart behind them.

I remember an album we heard ad nauseum as kids: it was called Antshillvania. In the third track, a young ant, Antony, wants to be famous. He sings: I'm gonna be rich, I'm gonna be famous, I'm gonna be dashing, I'm gonna be free. I'm gonna be wise, I'm gonna be noble, I'm gonna have power, I'm gonna be wonderful, beautiful, marvelous me! All the world will gather to my feet, seeking for my wisdom, hoping for my favor. All the world will wait upon my words. All the world will be in love with me.

We were not meant to admire him.

Why do we admire them now?

Trombones

When a young parishioner showed up to music practice with a trombone last night, it fell to me, as the de facto music guy, to figure out what to do with him. For want of staff paper and a better idea, I taught him to follow root chords and promised to have parts written for him next week. 

Trombones in worship! Apparently not uncommon for the Moravians, but not so common in Presbyterian churches, even progressive ones like ours. 

And as I think about why I bothered to write about this, the metaphor that keeps forcing itself on me is that we all come to the gathering with our odd instruments, bell-open and hopeful, often off-key, and somehow the church finds a place for us. The cynic in me sneers even as I write it, but the image persists. We are an odd orchestra.

T-Shirt Theology

Stolen from White Horse Inn blog:

 

 I would add "with the help of the Spirit" right after "platform." 

My Love/Hate Relationship with Bookstores

Just last night, I strolled around a bookstore for a few minutes, and remembered why I love bookstores and detest them at the same time. Maybe a timeline would explain it best:

6:00 PM: I enter the bookstore, inhale the rich scent of paper and coffee, and survey the landscape. All these books! I start with the magazines. 

6:05 PM: I carefully walk past the men's magazines sporting models with unlikely cleavage, successfully make it to the design section, and pick up a computer design mag. I remember that I really need to learn more about CSS, so I put the mag down and head for the computer section.

6:07 PM: Thumbing through a CSS book, I see the word "language" and remember that I wanted to learn Mandarin. I put the book down and head to the languages section.

6:08 PM: I pass the writing section and feel disgusted with myself that I haven't published more.

6:08 PM: I pass the fitness section, glance at my gut, and remember that I need to take better care of myself.

6:09 PM: I pick up a book on Mandarin and remember why I despaired of learning it when I was in Beijing: it's impossible. I put the book down and head to the front of the store.

6:09 PM: I walk by books with titles like, "Make Your Fortune Now in Social Media" and "Your Destiny Starts Now" and want to shoot myself. The world feels hostile and futile and filled with elusive dreams.

6:10 PM: I walk out the front door. The air is cold and bright, and I try to remember to breathe.

 

Things May be Mended

Last week our electric stove failed; the oven began cooking everything at an even temperature of 475 degrees. We could have had the stove fixed, but it's an ugly 1980s model, and we would rather have a gas stove anyway. So yesterday we had a gas line run to our kitchen. We are ready to cook with gas! But we have no gas stove, and little money to buy one. So we'll limp the electric stove along for a couple of months, using only the cooktop, until we can buy a gas stove. 

What's interesting is that in the process of thinking through the kind of stove I want, I no longer find myself drawn to sleek, stainless steel commercial stoves. What I really want is a vintage 1930's or 1940's stove that's from the same era as our house. They built things to last back them, and even though things break, things may be mended.

I think if I compile a book of poetry, the title will be that. 

Maybe we'll find someone who loves 1980's stoves, and they'll mend that one, too.

This Impossible Stone

"And no one can move this impossible stone..." --a Southern gospel song I heard this afternoon

Jesus rolled a giant stone away, walked out of the tomb, and walked again among the living: the hope of mankind.

I am the impossible stone that Jesus moved.

A Punk Preaches

I had the privilege to preach at Christ Community (PCA) in Johnson City this morning.

Here is the link to the mp3.