Pilgrim Notes

My wife wanted to go back through the book “To Be Told” with a group of friends. The book invites readers to tell their own stories. This week I was thinking about our home ij New Jersey and our home in Tennessee.

We moved to Tennessee when I was 10 years old. This was home for my mother and father, but my sister and I had never lived here. We would visit for Christmas or other times, but Tennessee was a world away from our little town in Oradell, NJ.

Oradell was a peaceful, friendly town. This was before subdivision: just neighborhood after neighborhood. As Halloween, we were turned loose to wander all the surrounding neighborhoods in search of sweet gold. On the fourth of the July, we walked to the end of Demarest Avenue and watched the local parade go by. Then we followed the parade to the fairgrounds for a day-long celebration.

In 1973, my dad announced that we were moving to Tennessee. Michelle and I jumped up and down with excitement. We were moving South. When we pulled out of the driveway and started heading South, I had no idea that we were leaving a world behind.

This was a world of close neighbors and friends at church and school. This was a world where we walked to school, went to the candy store on our way home, found adventures around every corner. 

In Tennessee, my dad wanted enough land to have a horse and plant a garden. While we loved this new house with big rooms and big fields, we didn’t realize how lonely our new world would be. Very few neighbors. Too far to walk anywhere. Fields all around us.

For the first few months, I would hear the wind blowing through the fields. It was sad and mournful. Over time, I came to realize that sad, mournful feeling of losing the close-knit world of our early childhood. I can still hear the howling wind of those days and nights.

Our new home provided different kinds of adventures. There was a creek running behind the property and we would fish and swim in the creek. When I walked down their alone, I felt as though I had stepped Into a fairyland, a magical forest.

As I reflect back on this small transition, I am reminded of how life is filled with death and life. When we left Oradell, we left a life behind. A little death. As we acclimated to Tennessee, we discovered a new life. Both lives are treasured in my memory and in one sense both lives are long gone.

I have continued to pass through seasons of losing one life and gaining another. Some of those other lives could have turned out differently I dramatic ways. And yet, they ended. 

The yawning ache of that wind in the field, reflects that life that could have been but was not. We still live in Tennessee but so many more losses. Parents gone. Family house soon to be gone. The first house Kelly and I owned gone. Now we seek to live into this moment, realizing life will continue to change, and one day we will say one last goodbye before a whole new world begins.

“Go, inspect the city of Jerusalem. Walk around and count the many towers. Take note of the fortified walls, and tour all the citadels, that you may describe them to future generations. For that is what God is like. He is our God forever and ever, and he will guide us until we die.” (Psalm 48:12–14, NLT)

The Psalmist is reflecting on the greatness of God even as he focuses our attention on the walls of Jerusalem. Set on Mt. Zion, the walls protect the inhabitants from invaders. He invites the reader to walk around, count the towers, the palace, the glory of this place, and the security of this place.

He uses these images of the walls of Jerusalem as a metaphor for God. The Lord surrounds His people, protects His people, and embraces His people. The walls will one day crumble and fall. An invader will overthrow the city. But the Lord’s embrace will continue to hold His people.

We read, “He is our God forever and ever.” The word “forever” connotes age after age. We can look back in history to former ages and see His hand of grace. We can look forward to ages to come. Some scholars suggest that this word forever (ʿôlām) can also connote the horizon boundary. Look as far as you can see, and He is still beyond every boundary on the horizon. God’s love cannot be contained by time or space.

While this psalm was written by ancient Hebrews, many cultures have found comfort in this promise of God’s unfailing love. As St. Paul writes, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38–39, NLT)

I said to the Lord, “You are my Master! Every good thing I have comes from you.”  (Psalm 16:2, NLT)

We are surrounded by gifts. Breath. Light. Embrace. Music. Laughter. Even pain and suffering. I realize my suffering cannot compare with what some have endured. But for me, those times when I struggled in the dark or when I was close to death became times when I eventually experienced a greater depth of God’s love. 

The Psalmist rejoices in God as His provider and even trusts his body in the grave to God’s faithful love. Years ago, I felt God’s absence in a tangible way. I felt like I was falling into a hole of darkness. These words of the Psalmist became a prayer on my lips and a hope that I was not forsaken.

“No wonder my heart is glad, and I rejoice. My body rests in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one* to rot in the grave. You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever” (Psalm 16:9–11, NLT)

In On Christian Theology, Rowan Williams writes, “Language about God is kept honest in the degree to which it turns on itself in the name of God, and so surrenders itself to God: it is in this way that it becomes possible to see how it is still God that is being spoken of, that which makes the human world a moral unity. Speaking of God is speaking to God and opening our speech to God’s; and it is speaking of those who have spoken to God and who have thus begun to form the human community, the unrestricted fellowship of holiness, that is the only kind of universal meaning possible without the tyranny of a ‘total perspective’.”[1]

We must have a certain humility of speech that always turns our words back to God’s Word. We must be open to hearing the word of others in the community of faith who also speak their word back to God. This humility of speech might be understood as repentance. We keep turning back to Christ. We recognize the limitations of our speech and simultaneously offer this speech back to God in worship and prayer.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar sees our experience of God in a similar light. We offer our experiences of the divine back to God in the community of faith. Balthasar puts it this way, “all subjective evidence must remain exhaustively open to this freedom of the objective evidence of revelation.”[2] This also sounds like a form of repentance. This not repenting from sin but turning from our understanding, our experience, our speech, and looking to God.

This looks similar to the back and forth of ancient Israel and God in the Psalms. Again Balthasar writes of the Psalms, “This is a dialogue of mutual blessing: man sends God’s blessing back to him.”^[3]

This turning and returning to God can be understood as repentance. Rowan Williams writes, “The repentance of theological discourse can be shown in the readiness of any particular version of it to put in question not only this or that specific conclusion within its own workings, but the adequacy or appropriateness of its whole idiom. This is again, perhaps, to look to the plurality of style and genre in Scripture as a model of the collaborative enterprise that speaking of God can be.”[4]

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[1] Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, Ltd., 2001) p. 8.

[2] Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics I: Seeing the Form, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco; New York: Ignatius Press; Crossroads Publications, 2009), 409. He continues, “To be a recipient of revelation means more and more the act of renunciation which gives God the space in which to become incarnate and to offer himself as he will. Only in this way is the sphere of the ‘spiritual senses’ given its proper place, and only thus does the integration of the archetypal Biblical experience and the ‘ordinary’ experience of faith become possible”

^[3] Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Glory of the Lord, a Theological Aesthetics VI: Theology: The Old Covenant, trans. Brian McNeil and Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco; New York: Ignatius Press; Crossroads Publications, 1991), 207.

[4] Williams, p. 9.

Folks all around me have been talking about the opening ceremony at the Olympics in France and, oddly enough, “The Last Supper.” At first, many people suggested that the opening ceremony mocked Leonardo Davinci’s “The Last Supper.”

Then, a host of voices said that this was not a mockery of DaVinci’s painting, but it depicted “The Feast of the Gods” by Johann Rottenhammer and Jan Brueghel.

I started thinking about images of the Last Supper, and I am drawn to Jacopo Tinteretto’s “Last Supper.” His art is part of a post-Renaissance movement known as Mannerism. Many of the paintings contain a black background. These artists were drawing upon techniques from their Renaissance forbears but also exaggerated specific elements.

When I look at Tinteretto’s “Last Supper,” I feel transported to a 16th-century pub. The room is loud and alive with crowds of people eating and drinking. There’s a table off to the side that goes almost unnoticed. It’s Jesus and his disciples sharing a last meal together. Now, I realize this deviates from the Biblical story. No painting of a Biblical story depicts the actual event. They invite us to reflect on themes inherent in the stories or themes that bring the culture in dialogue with the Gospel story.

Tintoretto opens the spiritual world above the disciples, and we see what appears to be angels and possibly even demons. The spiritual world presses right up against the natural world. In this dark world, a light is shining out from Christ and even from His disciples. This makes me think about how God in His goodness does not abandon a world in darkness but descends into the midst of human sin and brokenness to redeem it.

It reminds me of a scene from Graham Greene’s novel, “The Power and the Glory.” The priest is thrown into a darkened jail cell of criminals, drunks, and even a couple of fornicators. When I read this passage, I am usually moved to tears because I cannot help but see the goodness of God, who descends into our brokenness. In His unfathomable love, He has even sent His disciples into places of darkness with the light of His love.

This movement is sometimes called condescension. It is rooted in God’s freely chosen humiliation in Christ (Philippians 2). The divinity descends into humanity. Christ empties Himself, taking the form of a servant, and He continues to humble Himself by dying as a criminal on the cross. He is mocked and cursed, and simultaneously offering forgiveness to His persecutors.

I see another kind of condescension on the Internet. People look down from on high, mocking people from one group or another. Some Christians have cursed a pagan world for a perceived offense at the Olympics. Others have mocked the Christians who failed to see the mythological references.

Both of these responses could easily be seen as condescension without humility. We have all made mistakes and could easily be mocked, so I am always puzzled when we choose to mock others while being blind to our own faults. Paul puts it this way, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I cry out for mercy.

I am the criminal on the floor of the jail in Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory.” When the priest is cast beside me, I confess my sin and cry out for mercy. I am the criminal hanging beside Jesus and crying out, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42-43).

I need grace to look up at those who speak down to me as a fool, as a failure, as a loser. I want to speak the word of grace to them, hoping against hope that they might sense the good God who comes to lead them and me and us all into freedom.

• 

Thanksgiving Day 2022

On this day of thanks giving, I am giving thanks for the last year and its challenges.

In August 2021, I was hospitalized with COVID. I was in and out of the hospital over several months. During that time, I lost my ability to walk and my kidney function. After help from my wife and physical therapists, I started walking again. The kidney is different. I remain on dialysis. 

In August 2022, our house burned to the ground. I woke up a little early at five o’clock, and started getting ready for dialysis that morning. While I was showering, I smelled something odd: possibly an electrical item that was overheated or burning. I got out of the shower and searched the house for the source of this smell. I woke my wife to help me look. In a few brief minutes, our house was full of smoke, and we knew something was wrong. 

We ran out the front door. Kelly called the fire department. We walked around to the side of the house to see if I could pull my car out for dialysis. The garage was in flames. Within fifteen minutes, the house burned down. Our memories from over thirty-three years of marriage were reduced to dust. 

Two major life events separated by a year. Two devastating events that meant loss and pain, and struggle. And yet, I am convinced that God remained present and faithful in the midst of both these challenges. I have felt called to live into the difficulty of both these challenges with trust in the God who turns deserts into gardens. 

I don’t believe God caused either event. I do believe that God has not abandoned us in the midst of both of these events. He is and remains present. 

In dialysis and in the aftereffects of a fire. Dialysis involves four-hour treatments three days a week. These treatments can be exhausting, and some days I come home and sleep the rest of the day. I have to limit certain foods and the amount of liquids I consume in a day. I’d like these difficulties to go away. And yet, as I live into the difficulty, in the limitation, God is and remains present.

The fire offers a completely different set of difficulties. There are the challenges of working with the insurance company, replacing essentials for day-to-day living, and making plans to rebuild. But there are other issues. There are memories of things lost. 

Just the other day, it occurred to me that all the letters and cards I had saved throughout my life are gone. Some days Kelly or I will remember something from our life together and suddenly burst into to tears. Gone. Every fragment of our shared story is gone. While this is a reminder that all things will return to dust, it can be a recurring pain while we are still in the midst of the story. As we turn and remember the good things from our life, we also behold: God is and remains present. 

The God who called us into life was present in the midst of the traumas and remains present as we walk past the trauma. He is present even as we remember. He created us with the capacity to remember and to make the past present through our engaged memories. This miracle of memory allows us to rehearse the joys of days gone by. It also allows us to feel to the pain of deep loss. For instance, I almost never talk about my dad when speaking publicly because I feel the anguish of his death all over again. 

We are bound to people and places in ways we cannot fully understand or untangle. As I turn toward these precious and painful memories, God is and remains present. He sustains me and calls me forward into today. For today is the day of salvation. 

Today I will lift thanks up to the God who is and remains present. 

Today I look around see the beautiful wife the Lord has given me. She has strengthened me, walked with me literally through the fire, and laughed and cried with me all along the way. Today I rejoice in a family that loves to see one another, loves to laugh hard and often, and loves well all through the hard times. I am giving thanks for friends far and near who enrich my life, teach me, comfort me, provoke me, and help me to rest in the God who is and remains present. 

Today I lift up praise and thanks for the millions of strangers who have enriched my life in ways I will never fully know. From the shoes I wear to the car I drive, I enjoy things made by other people. They live lives filled with joys and sorrows, and through their efforts, I have been blessed. I am grateful. 

Today I remember those often forgotten in this world: the refugee, the enslaved, the imprisoned, the sick, the dying. God is and remains present. May I never turn from those shadows but remember them in His good and great love. Mercy Lord. 

As I walk through days of struggle or days of calm, God is and remains present. My thanksgiving goes up to a loving God who sustains us each moment and is present in each moment. His love envelopes us in the past, future, and present. Our joys are safe in Him. Our pain and loss is safe in Him. In the end, I believe He will make right the real and tangible losses of our world.

Thank you Lord you are worthy of all our praise. 

In the first moments of the gray morning, I see tiny pink blossoms just beginning to burst into bloom. The world is on edge. 

The trees in my backyard stand silhouetted against the dim light sky. I look up, seeing darkness and hints of beauty. The sky rings out with morning songs of birds near and far. The world is on edge. 

Some family stands around the bedside of a long-loved father slipping away from this life. Another family learns of a transplant for the suffering son. The world is on edge. 

Fear and joy all collide in the turning of this day, in the turning of each day. 

Though ever-present fears loom large in the air and the heart, the wonder of breath continues. 

I lift my voice with the birds who have chosen to welcome the day with songs of exaltation. I stand at the edge of a world with untold glories. 

My friend Charles Strohmer recently published a review of James Skillen’s book God’s Sabbath with Creation: Vocations Fulfilled, the Glory Revealed. Here is an excerpt from his thorough review,

“This is a book of exceptional importance. Rarely have I come across a work with weightier significance about what it means to live for the glory of God today, in the here and now. Of course this is a theme familiar to Christians. Yet familiarity can breed inattention. That would be a mistake with God’s Sabbath with Creation. For it is Skillen’s pioneering way of getting us to think about what it means to live today for the glory of God that marks this as a standout book. His subject is the great biblical drama from the creation to the future we anticipate in the age to come, and, importantly, human responsibility within that drama. For Skillen places how we live today not in some existential moment but within God-commissioned human responsibilities, which run throughout history from the creation to the age to come. Even seasoned public voices on this subject should find the book stimulating and memorable.”

To read his entire review visit his blog at Waging Wisdom.