Broken Songs

I've had Caedmon's Call's album "In the Company of Angels" for a while. I'm pretty sure I bought it when it first came out in 2001. It immediately got scratched a bit in the way my favorite CDs always do.

It is still listen-able though, so I have since downloaded it onto my computer and I still listen to it often. I was just listening to it actually, when I started writing this post. I stopped it only because I had listened to the entire CD, all the way to halfway through the last song, where it always gets too garbled to listen to.

This is the first bit of the song that gets cut off:

All creation moves in a cosmic Danse

Before the Lord her king

and the rhythms, the reason, the rhyme

of the danse pulses within everything.

And the universe wheels and whirls like

a dervish in perfect seven-step time.

The Lord made the Danse,

he taught her the steps,

and he causes the songs to shine.

We must danse, danse, danse,

danse in God's honor.

We must yield all of our steps unto the King.

We must danse, danse, danse,

danse in God's honor.

Let his praises ring throughout the earth.

The rest of the song talks about how in Eden Adam and Eve messed up the steps of the danse (spelling is intentional, by the way) and then how Jesus taught and teaches us the rhythm again. It's a lovely song.

But it is broken.

I find it fitting that this particular song skips and crackles and sounds scrambled. You can't danse to a broken song. It reminds me of my own flaws. My own discordant sounds and my clumsy dansing.

It reminds me of Lent.

I'm Not a Scientist

Really, I just pretend that I understand some fields of science. I'm not too interested in chemistry or biology and I didn't take the prerequisites for physics. I didn't really want to measure the height of a building based on its shadow anyway.



But I do want to know about our universe. And I want to explore the mysteries of the created order. I want to understand what time is. So I pretend I'm some brilliant physicist and read articles that I can only barely grasp. And it makes me think theologically.



Last week it was "What is Time? One Physicist Hunts for the Ultimate Theory" on wired.com.

What do you think about this idea of a multiverse? Do you think there can be a static universe that has no "arrow of time"?

If this theory were proved true, would we understand God differently?

Jesus in Moore Square

Along with a crazy quilt of other people from Trinity, I spend the third Saturday of every month in Moore Square sharing breakfast to some of the homeless and poor of Raleigh.

Last Saturday wasn't as cold as it has been. That was a relief. In December, we all ached and trembled with cold and wet.

But this time was slightly warmer. We had sausage and egg biscuits, coffee, hot chocolate, and bananas. Like normal, our 80 biscuits were gone within a half an hour.

We don't really go to the park to feed people. You should know that right off. The food isn't the ends, it's the means. When the tattered, burdened, hollow-eyed people fill their bellies up, they soften up. (I would too. It's hard to make friends when your stomach is growling.) Suddenly, they have questions.

Who are you? Why are you here? Are you from a church?

We shake hands. And then they start to open up and tell us their stories.

I'm from Hawaii.

I'm from Winston-Salem.

I was in construction.

I'm good at computers.

I've been to college.

I'm not angry.

I'm a Christian.

I have a family but I don't want them to know I'm homeless.

These people are real. They are souls. Don't assume you know who they are. Don't judge them. Don't call them derogatory names. Don't avoid their eyes.

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.

They are each Jesus.

Eyeballs and Signposts

I've been thinking lately about how we discern God's "way" for us. Anybody else out there ever have this question?

Did you ever need to pick a college and you weren't sure?

Did you ever have to decide about a job?

How about a boyfriend/girlfriend? Any tough decisions there?

Sometimes God just seems kind of silent. Or is that just me? I've felt God's call enough to know it happens. But sometimes...there just doesn't seem to be an indication.

I was thinking about that today when I read this article from NPR this morning. Basically, the article discusses a study's findings about how it is really hard for our eyes and brains to pick out things that we don't see often. Whether it is finding a weapon in a suitcase at the airport, or a tumor in someone's body at the radiologist's, our brains don't seem to frequently recognize the things we don't see very often.

It got me to thinking- are there burning bushes and talking donkeys and divine messengers that we just don't recognize? The author of the study, Jeremy Wolfe says, "If you don't find it often, you often don't find it."

Hmm.

Could it be that because we're closed off to God's direction most of the time, we suddenly can't see it when we decide we want it?