I've been sitting here at my cluttered desk for about one minute. I've been here at the office for a little over an hour. There's a list today. It's full of things that I need to get done before Youth Group tonight. And I'm on Blogger.

One sign of some serious short-timers before I launch into my illustrious vacation in Orlando. The weather there will be in the low eighties most of the week, and sunny (or partly so) for the entire trip. Except for the first day; we're getting thunderstorms to wake up to. I'm like a little kid I'm so giddy to see Mickey. Mickey, and the beach. :)

So the high walls you built are coming down
And the last hill saw you break your crown
Is there anyone at all around
To put you on your feet?

Yeah I know the cost of love is steep
But it's a long way down
When deep is crying out to deep
It's a long way down
It's a long dark empty way down

There's an empty shell at the funeral
You were holding something beautiful
You were holding up but soon you will
Let it fall apart

Yeah I know the cost of love is steep
But it's a long way down
When deep is crying out to deep
It's a long way down
It's a long dark empty way down

Don't let the watchman keep them from your door
Don't let him keep you off the floor
When you're washed up broken on the shore
He's no good to you.

Yeah I know the cost of love is steep
But it's a long way down
When deep is crying out to deep
It's a long way down
It's a long dark empty way down

(c) 2007 Chris Clark

Labels: Songs

For easter, we've decided that we want to explore how modern technology reflects the spiritual needs of its users. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, I think it was Monty, but as soon as we all heard it bells started going off. All the sudden we had ideas for Youtube videos and myspace profiles and all this funny stuff that filled our heads. We developed a character, Modern-Day Moses, who we imagined dividing shopping karts in disgust at the local grocery and striking stubborn pipes with his staff. The marketing team, gathered to wait for concrete information from the unruly pastoral team, was slightly disgusted by our mirth and paced furiously around the coffee shop while we laughed and played on the intarwebs.

So today part of that whole ridiculous strategy was the completion of several blogs from Moses' perspective. Modern-Day Moses, a character who I imagine as having a compulsive interest in all things sheep-related, Oceanography, and Exotic Herbology. The first post had Moses starting a bonfire in his backyard and the second had him diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder after he covertly wrote the numbers one through ten in his neighbor Troy's freshly laid cement driveway. Funny stuff.

Anyway, if you want to be Moses' friend on myspace, search for him via email: moses@svaonline.com

~C

This has been a hard time. I think I've mentioned before that I don't often feel emotions until I've seen their symptoms. What I mean is, I don't know I'm sad until I see myself act in some way that makes me realize, "oh. I'm sad." In this case I think I'm lonely. I miss Annie terribly. What makes it worse is that I know I made the right decision, and I'm content with that decision... but darnnit, if it doesn't feel like being run through the cheese grater. At the office yesterday I must have been wearing it on my face, because everyone was sort of tip-toeing around me. I hope I wasn't too disagreeable. :-)

Last night a few inches of snow appeared, leaving me stuck at the top of Lake Alice road this morning. I enjoyed the time to relax and enjoy a few hours without responsibility, even if I am a little stir-crazy now, and wanting to get out of the house. I haven't been sleeping well, so I feel a bit lethargic. But otherwise, I'm less worn out and more deeply settled into the day, and the warmth behind the frosted windows.

Last night I went through my workout routine and noticed some improvement. I woke feeling a little sore, but pleased. And looking out at the snow is very peaceful, and gives me a great excuse for moving slowly. I'm warm, and I'm wearing clean new clothes, and later today I'll venture down the hill and work on videos with Marty. Youth group went well last night, and I think the students are ready for the challenge I've presented to them. All in all, I have much to be thankful for.

I am writing a new song we'll be playing on Sunday morning. I'm always a little bit nervous about that, especially in front of the church: if I don't get some immediate positive feedback, I tend to become disheartened and I often table the song indefinitely. I think some great songs have been lost that way. But I am confident about this one. I don't think it's going to be lost in the abyss of my deflated ego too quickly. I just have to laugh at myself: at times a vagabond starving for love, at others a greek hero decorated with olive branches. Can a man be both? Look no further.

Last night, the bass is pounding in my chest, thousands of hands are raised in the red light, and upturned faces are crowded everywhere around me. I am singing the words to the song I feel in my heart. Everyone is singing. We can't help ourselves. The music takes over. It is a very pure place to be, overwhelmed with sound and the beat and the images of the other concertgoers all around me. I can forget responsibilities and taste the moments fleeting by with singular attention.

I really enjoyed being at the Snowpatrol concert. I got a free ticket and decided to take advantage. So I jumped in the church van (now my mode of transport since red october kicked the oil pan) and headed over to Seattle, and Key Arena. I'd actually never been to a concert at the Key, and it was surprisingly clear, and intimate, at least from where I was sitting.

I want to have a worship experience like that. As I was singing and beating my knee to the bass drum, I lifted my voice to God and thought, "here's my worship, God... this moment, enjoying life, and this sound... thank you so much." It put me in a deeper place than I've been in a long time, even singing the anthems to our God that make the rounds every Sunday. It got me feeling, and that got me to thinking, "why is that?" It was like waking up and realizing you've been in a desert.

Lately I have been going home and lying face down on the floor while listening to chant and plainsong, early polyphonic works and compline services on my ipod. Sometimes I'm moved to tears, or moved to thought. And interestingly enough, Gary Lightbody and the Benedictine Monks have more in common with one another than with Chris Tomlin or Matt Redman. I suspect it's just me. But something moved last night that felt a lot more true than what I'm used to hearting.

Labels: music

His Banner Over Me is Love
by George Langbroek

Labels: Art

The radiant rainbows of color on the concrete tell me--
My car is leaking its life-stuff,
All into the drain by the old gym where I left it.
It waited for me, parked at odd angles to the curb
And let out its oil all over the pavement
Like a dog who knows it has done wrong
And is ashamed.

But Red October,
I forgave you your wounds, and your
Less than impressive physique.
I forgave you your waddling brakes and
Squealing windshield wipers.
How could I, when your three liter six cylinder
Shudders, and gasps, and lets loose it's blood:
How could I do aught but love you?

Your sleek ruby surface,
Your bubbled wall-eyed stare;
These remain, as does my affection, always.

I sit still in the corner, and watch the passing of a saint. Her hands rest, curled in her daughter's palms, her head bent and leaning low as if in quiet prayer. Her eyes are closed.
Beside her a cup of tea sits cooling. The house is quiet, over fifty years gathered and standing watchful--recalling laughter, running feet up and down the stairs, eyes peering from the basement, inside garden gloves and the grown-ups collecting like leaves in the dark corners. All these, memories and mementos holding their breath, holding vigil. And me. I sit still in my corner, to witness and wait, and catch the gleam of her drowsing eyes from time to time.

This picture is of her girls, and this one the boy whose heart gave out at fifteen. This one here she looked at often, remembered the uniformed man striding on the deck in the bloom of his youth, who later laid with her and whispered of dreams and little victories. Now a memory himself--and she is going to meet him. And this last one, was it two weeks ago? She looked so much more like herself then.

But there is no mistaking the years of polish rubbed long into the old soul. And no amount of sickness can remove the glow of her eyes, that glitter and water and remember. The house is spent, the memories have all been made, save one. We witness and wait. I listen to the beating of my own slow heart. I imagine the hand of a strong and gentle man on her shoulder, and feel that hand on my own.

Later that night I stretch myself out alone on the floor, and feel the gravity, and the silence, and the slow tread of mourning feet--if only I could hold still, remain in that moment, let her take root inside of me. May I never forget her dignity, and my own helplessness, and the insistent "watch, and listen" from the voice in my heart. Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust--yes. But it falls to us to remember, we who remain, whose burden and joy it shall always be. The curtain is drawn, the light goes out, the door is closed. And so it goes, and so it goes, and so it goes. Lord give us mercy.

I have been writing for the last few days when I have been away from the computer. My intention was to post these, however. So now I am. Posting these.

2-16-07
I know that transition in a person’s life usually, expectedly brings upheaval, a time of questioning, fear and trembling. I see that in stories about God, when he asks a man or a woman to uproot and move out of the place where they were resting comfortably. Abraham and Sarah, and poor lonely Joseph, and all Jesus’ disciples. There is beauty in that pain, like birth; something new is coming, and it will be extraordinary.
I am being born, and born, and born, and being asked to bear, to bear, to bear. Yet my sense of it all, in the quest for meaning and magnitude of life, feels shamefully childlike. I have little muscles. I am exasperated at how little I can carry, how even the smallest demands placed on top of my duties at work and at home and among my friends seems like one more straw towards a backbreaking. I feel like a marathon runner who looks back at his first mile and wonders that he ever thought he could run that same distance twenty six times.
Yet I am cautious not to forget that God only asks of me what I am able to bear. He doesn’t insist on another mile when he knows I have run my last. Rather, he is letting me test my strength, allowing it to run its course. Afterwards will come the resting, I trust. Still, in the midst of the struggle I cry out for water—anywhere, everywhere, where is water? And manna, though it falls from heaven each morning.
Like Moses, and the Hebrews he led complaining and groaning through the desert for so many long years. How often did they see the miracles spread like ripples through the land in which they passed, changing seas to dry paths, dead wood to flowering branches, and dew into bread? And yet day after day, they threw their hands up in the air and told God, “we’re done, we’re through—take us back to bondage, where at least we ate fish for free and saw our deaths at the end of a lash, rather than in the barren desert!” So little faith, and God’s anger was tempered only by the intervention of his chosen one.
Just as Jesus now intervenes for us, and makes us children before God, rather than woebegone desert dwellers. Thank you Lord, for your mercy.

2-17-07
Open up the heavens, let your glory fall. Open up our hearts, that we may know you. How terrifying for Adam to step out from behind that fig leaf. I am still hiding today. God give me a heart that stands open before you, with doors hanging on broken hinges.
In worship today I felt the spirit urging us onward. Stepping out from behind the leaves, from amid the safety of anonymity, we stand before God and ask him to shine his light into the place where we crouch hidden. I imagine myself as a wild thing waiting, hiding in the woods. Sticks are in my matted hair, dirt on my palms and smeared across my cheeks. I am naked. God is roaming through the fields, on the edge of the darkened forest, and his voice is both irresistible and alarming. He is seeking me. He is seeking all of us. How long will Adam and Eve remain in hiding? How long will I?
Often I come before God in worship with only the vague sense that he is there at all, as remote as a star, or perhaps a bored judge. Sometimes I am before him on my face and I can almost feel the marble of his throne room. And sometimes I stand enveloped in the warmth of a father, welcoming back his youngest son. I can’t always tell that he is listening, but sometimes his presence is unmistakable. I know that in each of these, my truest act of worship is to reveal myself, come out of the woods, from behind the fig leaf, beyond the doors that guard my heart. It’s so easy to say, so hard to take even one tiny step in the direction of disclosure. And if it’s hard before God, how difficult is it before men and women?
Why is love so hard to accept? I’m like a tree that rejects the water it so desperately needs to survive. Thank you Lord for your mercy.

“He ain’t the leavin’ kind. He never walked away; even from those who don’t believe, and want to leave him behind. He ain’t the leavin’ kind.”


2-21-07
This evening the youth sat around small tables eating greasy slices of pizza, watching a clip from the movie “Miracle.” Afterwards I asked them how the movie had affected them. I am always surprised by these answers. Many of the kids know what they are supposed to say; there are some others, though, who really question. I thank God for both. They spur me on to questions of my own.
Are Christians really so predictable? It made me wonder, reading the same answers again and again, how we could get back to Christ, how to return to the side of the wild adventuring warrior poet who takes such daring risks. I imagine myself with my own knapsack in hand and wondering eyes opened to the frontier. But most of the time my picture of God is more like kindly Father, who wants his children to stay inside, safe by the fire.

“God created us in his image,” said George Bernard Shaw, “and we decided to return the favor.”

The young men and women in my youth group know how to play it safe. But I’ve seen them wonder and question, become still and somber; there is a deep sadness, and a muddy mystery inside of them, from whence may crawl either a tiny four-footed faith, or nothing at all. But listen hard enough, and you will hear it in the depths. Something is waiting to evolve. It just needs someone or something to come along and give it permission to grow.
I've also been thinking of this in terms of art. Tony Campolo calls entertainment, or at least the entertainment produced by the mill of consumer culture, a “cesspool.” I like that analogy, because I like to think that there is a likeness in our selves, a corollary picture. We can take steps, walking from it a new creature. In entertainment, that is where art is born: in the transcendent purpose. People are works of art waiting to be given form and shape. And as Monty said, art is never finished. We are never done evolving and growing and changing; ever into the likeness of eternity we set our shoulders against the boulders of our own nature, and onward press.
Maybe the first step for those of us who claim Christ as our master is to push past our own, Christian culture. I know more than one person who is tired of pat answers. Deep cries out to deep. I can only assert that leaders in the faith must be willing to dwell at the side of our Lord, match his strides, go forth with our own adventuring heart into the difficult questions. What does it mean to be truly "uncommon" men and women? This question was asked last night. I'm still working through it.

Labels: Journal

Why is it that church is seen as a small portion of our identity, a closet in the mansions we build of our lives? Why does Christ share space with our coworkers, our hobbies, and our toys?

Me? I'm a musician. I like basketball, and I do a lot of writing. I guess you could call me an artist. I own a Mac, and love indie rock. Oh yeah, I'm also a Christian.

Our culture is surely a consumer culture. It's hard for anyone to escape the constant message that what you own is what defines you. We determine our status in our community based on what we can and do purchase. When I took a few steps out of poverty and signed on as an associate pastor at SVA, the first thing I did was think of all the "stuff" I was going to buy. I could afford to get a vehicle that reflects masculinity more than my Ford Taurus (which I have lovingly dubbed "Red October"), and could get me into the mountains around here. I could fill all the holes in my album collection and live the High Fidelity lifestyle. I'm a kid at heart: I wanted a Nintendo (and I still do, though they're impossible to find). I could afford the right kinds of clothes. I could do this, I could do that: all with the almighty dollar. The horizon was wide, the sky was tall, and I was about to sail into economic independence. One thing was clear: my goal of being a rugged mountain man, a connoisseur of fine music, and a trendy geek was now in my reach, because I could buy the things that would grant me my identity.

But of course there was one more thing I dubbed essential, especially to a pastor whose duties include oversight of both worship and youth (music is the heartbeat of a generation; just ask Brandon Prior, who regaled us all with DC Talk over the loudspeakers last week). I am now the proud owner of a shiny black, brand new, video/picture/music playing iPod.

I can't help but think that I've been fooled. What is it about a little music player and a set of earbuds that makes or breaks a person's "cool factor?" Why is the sweaty guy on the bus with the iPod cooler than the sweaty guy next to him reading the newspaper? Is it that important to be part of the crowd, is there something fundamental in our DNA that insists that we ride the river of commerce, just to gain respect? And why is it that so many churches want to tap into that? Here at SVA we just published an article in the local newspaper, basically a large advertisement for the church printed in the paper's "Valley Life" section. On the front is a picture of new staffers, enclosed in an iPod screen. Just this one association with the latest cutting edge technological trend is enough to position SVA as a place where hip Christians hang out.

One would hope that it would be a church's association with Christ, the giver of abundant life, healer of hurts, and friend to the friendless that would put it on the map.

These are the thoughts that I'm having as I struggle with the temptation to buy into that. I know that at SVA we are more about speaking the language of a culture, and less about adopting its practices for the sake of advertisement. Still, the line is easy to cross. I know we have from time to time.

Thoughts?

Labels: SVA

What's spinning in my iPod these days?


1> Ray LaMontagne "Till the Sun Turns Black"

2> David Gray "Life in Slow Motion"

3> Little Big Town "The Road to Here"

4> Leeland "Sound of Melodies"

5> Yo-Yo Ma "Bach: The Cello Suites"

Labels: music

So picture this: five guys in small yellow cars (in which they barely fit), growling and screeching as they whip around a small indoor track walled with tires--navy blue helmets tight on their heads, knuckles white on the wheel--fighting for first place, and honor. That was the scene today.

Right now we've just returned, and I sit drained in my office. I will do better next time. Next time, Roy won't hold me off for eighteen laps and smile smugly on the podium, clutching a shiny silver trophy. A trophy that should have been mine... that will be mine! He STOLE it from us, the thief!

...My precious...

In the meantime I plan the set for this Sunday. That, and revenge.

VERSE 1
I’ve known love inside the frames
That only we have known
In quiet hours that never make
The show
I’ve got letters in your hand,
All your photographs
They never answer when I ask
To hear you laugh

CHORUS
Just between the two of us
What I miss was in the rust
We never seemed to mind
Diamonds last forever, but
The things that I remember never shined
Diamonds last forever, but
The things that I remember never shined.

VERSE 2
Every time we reach for love
It’s like holding sand
The glitter only lasts until
It’s slipping through your hand

CHORUS

BRIDGE
The tone you took with me sometimes
You could be unbearable
Laying my cheek on your thighs
Just another miracle

CHORUS




Copyright Chris Clark 2006

John 4:23-24

It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself--Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.

When I read this passage I am confronted immediately with the raw, rough road that stretches out before the words, "out of their very being." It conjures to mind the myriad of times that I have sat or stood in a pew, hands at my sides, my thoughts a frenzy of buzzing voices telling me how I should be, how I should think, or (what's worse) how everyone else should do either. Inside of that swarm is the heartbeat of a center. But what is that place, the spirit, out of which I am supposed to worship?

I know this: there is no calm eye in the midst of the storm of emotion and everyday life. My true self isn't sitting still in the garden in a Zen moment. My heart is a wilderness, and my true self is an elusive beast that guards its secrets well. The fear, the doubt, the wrestling-mind: all of these things grow thick about our lives like clinging ivy. But I believe that true worship, as described in John, is meant to penetrate that wilderness, and invite God into it, and us out of it. It means to remove our fig leaves, and allow our Maker to see us as we are: vulnerable. And it is out of that heart that worship becomes life-changing and sustaining.

Standing still in the pew or in a posture of prayer, with hands raised or at our sides, these things are unimportant. Our first and only obligation is this: to invite God inside of that place where we hide our weakness. There, he is proven strong.

Madonna and Child
Dawn Waters Baker

:: Trust me, the more time you spend with this one, the better. ::

Click to Enlarge

Tomorrow I start shaping the spiritual direction of hundreds of people, young and old, through music, art, and conversation. Which means tonight, I'm praying. And as I'm thinking about it, I'm realizing that I've been doing it all along. That is, informing other people's spirituality. I'm just not sure that I've been doing a good job of it. Nobody can speak without saying something about God, because we prove our love, our faith, and our meaning with every choice we make.

Does that lessen my responsibility as a pastor? I think rather that it increases my responsibility as a human being. Now, of course, is when the verse about "every word held accountable" nudges itself through the rank and file of half-memorized bible verses and towards the front of my brain, where it shakes an accusatory finger.

Many Disciples Desert Jesus
Emilia Cleopas

I've noticed some things upon reentering the blogging world, browsing around friends' pages. They're infinitely more slick than they were when I abandoned Live Journal last year. But also they seem a little less meaty for all of the gloss. Bloggers treat their postings like mini-news feeds. Blurbs of events. Like some kind of internet Headline News, maybe, with comments. Here's what's going on with me.

And it's interesting, too, that when given the option to "leave a comment," most readers do just that: comment, which I think is a little strange. We have a chance to ask questions, dig deeper, penetrate the crust a little bit. But instead we leave little ten word news-blurbs of our own, and don't stick around to keep talking.

Is this part of the internet code of ethics? Or is it that we're uncomfortable for other reasons? Maybe there's not enough time? But whatever it is, I hope there's a way of taking time out to say, "what's going on with you?" And maybe we can be prepared to have that same question asked of us.

Either that, or wait for evolution to furnish us with the hive mind.

So what do you think?

Blue Hands
Artist Unknown

*If you look carefully, you can see the continents on the hands; North America is on the bottom of the left hand--see the Gulf of Mexico?

Click to enlarge

After compline the monks file out,
The last one shuts the door
And leaves behind the cracking joints,
The paper sounds

The staring icons on the wall, Mary and Jesus
With the weight of candles hanging in the air
Bless those whose eyes
Are tight shut

Their foreheads bowed,
Pressed against the invisible--
Pushing against brambles,
Something struggling to be born

And afterwards the click of heels
On concrete floors,
And the squeak of leather shoes.

Our Lady of Louisiana
Rick Delanty

Edward Knippers
The Foot Washing

I've been reading a book called "Stages of Faith," by James Fowler. This was a text book, assigned years ago in college, I think in early 04. What was I doing back then? It couldn't have been as important as reading this book. Woe to the symptoms of senioritis that plague the collegiate fold! What else have you stolen from me, Slacker of Christmas-Past?

Anyway, I've been enjoying the book, and I decided to post some thoughts on the first couple of chapters, to help move it into the applicable side of the brain. You might enjoy it also.

"Faith, rather than belief or religion, is the most fundamental category in the human quest for relation to transcendence. Faith, it appears, is generic, a universal feature of human living, recognizably similar everywhere despite the remarkable variety of forms and contents of religious practice and belief."

I have been wrestling with this idea, that faith is a universally recognizable "sphere," a need that must be met within the human form in tangible ways. What does this say to the modern Christian, who has adopted the word "faith" to mean "Christian faith?" What does this suggest to the athiest, who may view such a desire for meaning as an evolutionary mechanism based on survival? And what dialogue does this idea open up between the multiple religious practices and beliefs held around the world? I think it's important to enter into such a conversation, if only to discover our commonality with one another as humans.

But Fowler goes on to suggest that true vitalizing and fulfilling faith is one in which a person trusts as an ultimate giver of meaning. If that is the case, than it's easy to see why the American culture of our time is seemingly rich and poor at the same time: affluent and wealthy in form, but lacking substance; hollow. Or better, I picture a society of emaciated kings and queens.

East of Eden
Bruce Herman

I'd like to hear your reactions. Click the picture to see a larger version.

http://monkeysforhelping.blogspot.com/

I hope random is your bag.

Today the long dark night stole in at 3:30, when I casually remarked to Josh how the days are getting shorter. And I thought about it a bit more, and realized how profoundly I had put it, the feeling of life rushing by and death speeding like a train down the tunnel of my twenties. Emotions are like colors, and I can name this one, now that I have seen the reds leached out of the leaves on my front steps and felt the days get short and cold. Life leaves you breathless and surprised. I feel like I’m a character in a cowboy movie, the badguy who just got shot from behind; he’s advancing on some immanent victory, and then blam! The blooming hole is punched through his chest, his eyes go wide, and his hands find the spreading red.

Well, what’s bleeding is November.

I swear, I’m not morbid, but Ecclesiastes can get a man down. “All is meaningless” is an easy catchphrase to latch onto when you’re broke and feeling foolish and inferior. But don’t worry about me. Clark Kent suffered such misgivings too, according to the WB.

Last evening I drove back from Yakima. I-90 takes you right over Snoqualmie Pass. The miles hurried by, the rough hewn cascades looming large and silent outside my window. It was the sort of misty fall gloaming I love. I felt invisible, a spectator in a gliding red torpedo passing through a country that did not notice me. Thinking about it now I remember C.S. Lewis, who wrote that mankind's desire to fuse with nature is not, as so many natrualists would claim, an empty instinct or even, as other faiths might claim, an end in itself. Rather, it is a symptom. The blooming of desire I felt in the mist and mountains has a root: a longing for a home that I have never seen, and a communion I have never celebrated. But the cascades do not see or recognize me, any more than I can acknowledge heaven.

I feel it so keen these days, when I am surrounded by empty vanity and the pursuit of pleasure that so often grips me and twists, controls, thwarts my ambitions to be a better man. We are all a race of vagabonds and barbarians, and I am their chief and their fool. I think we all can sense it to some degree. We are conversant with the rough tongue of our own hidden nature; we speak it in the secret worlds behind our eyes. It does what it will, ignorant of the smaller voice of my conscience that struggles for breath. The holy part of me goes unnoticed by the cloud-hung cascades of my sin, and God is a lonely traveler who wanders through my wilderness.

Here he lies on the couch--
Striving against gravity and the devil.
Fighting, but beaten by silent minions;
Flying, but beating broken pinions,
Feasting, but bloodless in the joy--
Father, unremembered boy.
What happened to you?
A saint you would have been,
Had your father not given you
My name.

I'm underneath the floorboards
Underneath my shoes
Do they see me shake and
Do they know that I can see them too?

I'm out of body sometimes
An empty parking lot
The pavement lines are drawn
and filled with what I am and what I'm not

And that's the thing
I'm not sure just what thing I am
What comes will go
What stays will throw
Me into space time and again

Tie up my ankles please
Make sure the concrete's set
It's better living underwater
With my feet in your cement

A Word to Ponder

I came across a word, a verb, to “maunder.”

It means “to vent your discontent”

To our friends across the water.

To others it may mean a different thing:

To speak like Kurt Cobain could sing,

Or slowly idle, stroll, or wander.

maunder \MAWN-der\ verb

1 : chiefly Brit : grumble
2 : to wander slowly and idly
*3 : to speak indistinctly or disconnectedly

Serendipity:

Words synonymous – chance, fate, destiny, providence, luck, coincidence, accident

For Janelle

It snowed last night.

A dusting, really, still clinging to high perches in Wedgewood where I walk to work.

It got me thinking.

How strange, this new year christened with record rains,

We had four days cloudless, as your smile is without pretense,

And I noticed the cherry trees budding outside 7A.

We ran ‘round the lake, and played Frisbee in the mud.

It was spring, it was early. We meant it to stay.

And just like that blue came out of the blue,

So came the frost, and so came you.

As if our lives are just weather fronts, and we captive to the winds.

Be it fate or chance, what God’s caprice may bring

In the dying throes of winter or the newborn spring,

I bless it, serendipity.

Today was a day for doing things that needed doing.

I am at this moment sitting at the dining room table; we had a party five nights ago, and it only just now made its way out of storage. The couches are back as well, and the fish tank is in its usual spot. I had a dream last night that all the fish died, and the guilt I felt when I woke up this morning propelled me to their immediate rescue. I am sick today, at least, on the edges of being sick, and tomorrow I think I'll be well enough to go back to work.

So for the rest of today I'm reading this book. It's called the Wizard Knight. The narrow minded would hear me out before passing judgement on its title.

The best review I can give the book is that it's true. Isn't the truth a strange thing? We are so often quoted as saying that we are in search of it. Who among us can say what truth is? I'll tell you: they are those who have dwelled in it deeply, and having known it from immersion, tell those of us on land what lies in wait for us under the waves. So it is with Christ. With God. We can only know Him by being swallowed by Him.

The stories and songs that we love the most are those that move us, we say. "It speaks to me," we offer. Something in the word calls out a reality that we sense, but can't describe. That's what I feel reading this book. The author is a catholic, but don't expect Sir Able (the chief protagonist) to resemble anything you would find painted in a dusty church frame. In fact, the reason the book works so well is because it does not, at all, have hanging around its neck any glittering gilt cross, nor sewn into its jacket any red letter. Take it for what it is.

Gene Wolfe
Book 1: The Knight
Book 2: The Wizard

I plan on rereading it.

In the living room we sat (some lay),
Having done our duty
to God, to Country, to Pumpkin Pie.
Steve needed more light to see his poem by,
And so satisfied we each take turns to read.

My father's turn, Wayne's turn,
sheaves of Walt Whitman perched on his belly:
Father is the last, and we are tired.

I can't say who started it;
My aunt is trying not to laugh as he reads the title for (perhaps) the fifth time.
My lip curls, my mother is frowning at his effort to read the first line--
Overwrought, the syllabels invested with more gravity than dear Walt intended.

Steve smiles,
The dam cracks,
We are smothered under peal after helpless peal
Laughing at Walt Whitman and my father,
Cheeks painted with wine,
Each tear-streaked word a reason to love him.

It's supposed to rain.
They said it on the news today
But I already knew--
Last night you told me "things have changed."
And one of those things is the way that you feel about me.

I couldn't blame you;
It's not your fault the leaves are turning brown.
Someday spring will pick up what fell on the ground.

So here comes the cold,
Here comes the dark;
When the sun comes out again,
It was all worth it in the end:
You left a mark.

Let's not grieve our innocence
We watched it flow out of us
And we knew (but how could we have known?)
Just what we were doing.

We were made monsters for His sake
He was made a martyr for our own
He died alone.

Let's not wish for better times
They expire, and so we too
Like grass and dust the wind can carry us
Despite our bones.

We were made monsters for His sake
He was made a martyr for our own
So we don't have to die alone.

Let's not waste what's been bestowed
We've done enough of that
No more kings and queens, the peasants
Feast at tables made from their own hands.

We were made monsters for His sake
He was made a martyr for our own
Hallelu He died alone.

Your words are holy places
Everything I write myself is
Just ink in uniform that's
filling in the empty spaces
Maybe it was better the way it was.
Maybe it was better the way it was.

I am hooked on this show. I can't get enough of it. In fact, I am right now staying up past my bed time in order to watch it. We've taped it, tonight. It's become our sacred weekly pleasure, a rite that balances out the spaces between Monday and Friday. No one gets left behind; this week it's Ben who we're waiting for. Tomorrow I will get up at 4:30 AM to pull an opening shift at Tully's.

UOY SSIM I

Some things can’t wait until the light of morning before they disappear. For instance, the thoughts accompanying the darkness above my head tonight.

She was stiff in her greeting, offering “one last hug,” as if we were closing the cover on a book we’d been long in writing together. She didn’t return the wink I gave her as we let go. Something final had changed. Always before I was in her spotlight; later as we exchanged glances across the reception hall I realized that from that moment on, in that place and in every place thereafter, I would be a mere prop in the drama she was living in, moving on and through, without me. And I was very glad.

My friends have always kidded me, saying that of course I was jealous, after hearing the news of their engagement. They were right and wrong. A part of me has always held on to the pieces of our memories together like secret souvenirs, but watching her be married, I had no reservation about my past choices, no regrets about what-could-have-beens. I caught myself beaming at her back today as they exchanged rings and I consider that proof enough.

Still, the thought that I could have been the one in the tuxedo struck me as unreal; for an instant I caught a vision of a future I had turned my back on years ago, and the power of that thought moved me into another space.

What choices am I making now will allow the possibilities of my life to become the stuff of reality, and what futures am I laying to rest even before they may be conceived? What choices are we as a nation making that will become the stepping stones to history books my children will bring home and read? To what do we owe our Lord’s long absence from the dust of which he became a part?

A little over a year ago I decided to take control of parts of my life that hitherto had gone ignored, placed on the “someday” shelf with an odd assortment of responsibilities and decisions that could comfortably wait until some future version of myself felt more fit and able to deal with them. There are still items collecting dust on that shelf. A few less, yes, than before. Thank you, Lord. Let’s move on.

I offer these sentences to those to whom they belong. You’ll know who you are.

I hope when people look at me they see

You left a mark. “She was here.”

From one G to another, you’ll always be my brother.

I’m honored to be walking the path with a man.

And also, Yeah, dude.

LOTS of STUFF to WRITE about.

This is actually old news, but I have a website: chrisclarkband.com
And also, with that comes a new email! chris@(make your best guess)

The site is a placeholder for when a cooler site is developed (more on that later), but in the meantime I might as well get some use out of it, if only for a sweet email address. So this is what it feels like to have your first name in your addy. But how will all my hacker friends know 'tis I? Crash and Burn (four points to whoever gets that reference).

I offer a pair of selections from my Tully's shifts over the last week. They each propelled me through their respective, slow, coffee-scented hours. Since the condiment bar was clean I figured this was next on my priority list.

***On the Avenue***

On the Avenue the concrete lets you know
It belongs here--
Doesn't give us any reason to stare or notice, stops
Just short of being alive itself.
In eighth grade art class, my teacher demanded:
"Never let the canvas show through!" but
There's just no room left for something like that;
Filling in the holes in Darryl's tie-dye t-shirt,
Stuck between the teeth of a black man's blue comb,
Present in the window's of Beth's tibetan shop,
Four doors down, "that tai place is better than this one here."
Anyway, we were getting pizza.

***David***

David slept in again, tried to forget he was tired.
Stepped through the door on the floor where his death had transpired.
Life in white envelopes stacked in a pile by the door;
Forty five k, and no hours in the day to make more.

Jealous, ragged, raging,
Boiling beneath this paper thin skin,
The restless creatures that inhabit newspaper clippings and
Bible studies press their bodies together,
Their lifeblood hot and wet and mingled.
The ink drying in their cracks and creases;
The litany of deeds read before the mourners;
We are, we were, we yet will be
Coffins buried in divinity.

Seven times seven
Seems that nobody was built that way
How could I ask you to remain
If baggage claim would take the feeling
I would pack up, I would stay

Photographs are
Become a technicolor halo from my past
We aren't the first you aren't the last
In the ones of you and me, I never see
The shadow that I seem to cast.

For those who are fans of David Brooks, I offer this article. For those not familiar, you should probably read it anyway. I think he's spot on.

New Orleans. The majesty of mother nature has been revealed in tooth and claw, and human beings are reminded yet again of their fragility and weakness. Not only in mortal fiber, but also in moral. A revelation of human nature; the heart of darkness bound up in the wills of fallen men and women, juxtaposed with the mindless destruction of our planet. And in what direction will we swing next, as the clock ticks on?

You, my friend, are messy and chaotic, a finder of meaning, a seer of all things silver lined, and a lemonade maker. You love Firefly and fantasy. Dragons, or Unicorns, would you rather? Always gracious, always a bright-sider, always ready to dance. Shakespeare in your pocket, and your left hand is holding a Cape Cod. Slowest at Gin-Rummy, but only because there are so many other wonderful things to pay attention to (including dangling participles). Imaginative, friendly, earnest, dear. Remember, Bards are wonderful support characters, but they often steal the show. You are a dreamer and an idealist, unsinkable. Youth tempered with just enough old-fashioned wisdom. Your smile is infectious. I'm glad I know you.

God thank you for Harmony, without which all we would have is just the melody, and what fun would that be? You are a minor third and a major fifth, youngest Wallender.

Happy 21.

I have a hard time with stuff like this. Really, who wouldn't? Isn't it funny that when you hear about Christians in the news, it's inevitably about some skewed church members who make the rest of us look like cave-dwelling mouth breathers? No wonder Christians are so often portrayed as ignorant and mindless.

A scientific breakthrough was announced today regarding the successful mating of cloned wildcats, an advance in cloning technology that could potentially be used to bolster the numbers of currently endangered species on the brink of extinction.

Read About It.

Is this trustworthy rule over the earth? Is this an example of scientific progress coinciding with God's desire for us, as appointed caretakers of the earth, to subdue His creation? I think it's a step in the right direction. Despite what anyone may think about (possible) global warming, devestation of wilderness is happening all across our globe.

Genesis 1: ²⁸God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Somehow I don't think God was picturing Saddam when He used the word "rule."

Before we get underway here, a follow up to a previous post.

Pat Robertson.

So of course, he apologizes. But not without saying, "I was taken out of context." Well, let's give the man the benefit of the doubt. Still sounds a little fishy to me. And that begs another question. What does a fish sound like, anyway? Probably something like this:

Here

It's too late, buddy. Your tongue has been steering you into America's doghouse for a long time now. I'm not sure there's much you can do.

Anyway. Leaving Dr. Robertson behind... (That sounds like a great indie song title)

Some comments on my journal lately have steered into the topic of goverment and faith, and how we mix the two. Or if they should even be mixed. Now let's talk about Christian journalism. If news journalism is meant to give an unbiased opinion to the public, then where does the Christian journalist fit in? I suppose what I don't see as being congruent is this: to what greater denominator do we cater, if by writing material devoid of our beliefs we alienate the truth we are really trying to convey? What place do Christians have in journalism?

Dear Pat Robertson,

Please cease and desist.

Check this out: here

I am embarassed.

From Sufjan Stevens, singer/songwriter:

"I think that when people react reflexively to material that is religious, they're reacting to the culture of religion. And I think an enlightened person is capable, on some level, of making the distinction between the institution of the culture and the culture itself. The institution of Christianity, the way that it's set up, it's institutionalized and comodified, and anytime that happens, anytime it's incorporated, it leads to disaster. I'm on the same page as everyone. I have the same knee-jerk reaction to that kind of culture. Maybe I'm a little more empathetic to it because we have similar fundamental beliefs. But culturally and aesthetically, some of it is really embarrassing."

Well said, Suf.

Clarity.

It's hard to understand the correct application of the word "Truth" in our postmodern society. Turn on the TV and you'll get several perspectives on just what exactly is going on out there in the world. Our pipelines are the media outlets we have each chosen to cluster around; left-leaning CNN (the Clinton News Network, some of my staunch republican friends call it), or the "balanced" (read: conservative) FOX news network, for example. Yes, of course; journalists are human beings too, just as subject to the same frailty and faults that each of us has hard-coded into us since Day One (however you might like to define it). For this very reason it's hard to put your finger on exactly what is "true."

Political Science is largely a historical and theoretical pursuit. Unfortunately, neither does us any good at coming closer to that elusive 't' word. We go to school to learn about how modern problems might be dealt with given hostorical solutions that may or may not fit snuggly into today's current situation. Our paradigms are influenced by our culture and our science. Our ideas are driven by bias and prejudice, our opponents villains and wrongdoers instead of individuals. Our commentators deliver their eye-witness accounts from within the maelstrom.

This is exactly why we must insert our faith into the political drama as Christians. The truth in Christ is the only thing that can offer clarity, but it is less the clarity of day to day decisions, and more the clarity of purpose. Yet we wrinkle our noses at the concept that "religion" should have any place in the public and political sphere. We have deflated faith to fit into our private closets and conversations. Worse yet, we fail to be in conversation with the world around us. Not for lack of trying, but for lack of tools; we have no language, as Christians, that can speak toe to toe with the vernacular of science and rationale.

That's why we, as believers in Christ, must use another language to speak into the darkness of our age. It means an active faith that is more concerned with love than with correctness; too often have we indulged in the right vs. wrong mud slinging that characterizes bipartizanship and distrust. After following that road for the last two hundred years, Christians have become superstitious and insipid to the world at large.

Thoughts?