A DEATH IN THE FAMILY

My wife LaRee lost her mother two days ago. Her intense pain is in direct proportion to her intense love. She gives herself completely to love; it has been the hallmark of her life. 

LaRee Pickup

LaRee & I were asked to give the keynote address to the 2010 U.S. National Right to Life Prayer Breakfast in Baltimore. She was very, very nervous. People wanted to hear what this amazing woman had to say (I was an add-on). 

LaRee spoke of love ― her love for family ― to a spell-bound sold-out audience. At one point, LaRee quoted the 19th Century French author Victor Hugo: 

“To love or to have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life. Love is a consummation.”

The teary audience was stunned yet captivated at LaRee's willingness to be vulnerable and lay her heart bare before a packed ballroom. You could have heard a pin drop. People openly wept.

When LaRee finished, the room erupted in prolonged standing ovation. LaRee had struck a full chord in the hearts of the people.  

Now, once again, LaRee is paying the price for that pearl of love she spoke of. Yet even in her anguish, she points people toward Author of love and life. She asked that the hymn Turn Your Eyes Toward Jesus be sung at her mother's funeral. Love does not stop at death: It carries on into eternity.
(See  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0jpHtsSEQo ) or click below.

WHAT SWEETER MUSIC

St. Olaf Chapel Choir singing John Rutter's What Sweeter Music.[1]  Click on image below or this link  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttuj3WhUowA

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[1] St. Olaf Chapel Choir, St. Olaf Collage of the Lutheran Church of Minnesota.

BRITTLE COLD BUT JOYFUL CANADIAN MORNING

The longest night of  2013 is over!  I was awakened by the family's old mantle clock striking 9:00 this morning at the other end of the house.[1] I slept in. The warm mountain of blankets on my bed made it hard to get up. I thought about a line in Kenneth Grahame's classic children's book The Wind in the Willows.

"In the winter time the Rat slept a great deal, retiring early and rising late. During his short day he sometimes scribbled poetry or did other small domestic jobs about the house; and, of course, there were always animals dropping in for a chat, ..."

It was time for this rat to get up!

I threw off my bed-covers, put on my slippers and dressing gown and went to the kitchen. The morning was bright, still and sunny (so common with deep Arctic fronts.) The temperature outside was minus 27 C! Brrr. Inside, the fireplace was cold and dark and the house had a chill. I would not be venturing out with my electric wheelchair to the church at the top of the hill. 

My fellow-Christians who dared the cold this December morning would pray at the church that the Lord would hear our collective prayer:

"For the Church, called as Mary was, to give Christ to the world, we pray to the Lord:"

"For the world's children, born and unborn, signs of God's gift of life, we pray to the Lord:"

"For people in our midst who reach out for your love and our hope, we pray to the Lord:"

"For us, God's people gathered here, called to bring the presence of Christ to each other, we pray to the Lord."

I could not be with them in person, but I was in spirit. I regret not being able to receive Communion this morning, but Christ's presence is still with me. 

MDP




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My wife's grandfather was a jeweler/clock maker of the old school. As a small boy I remember passing his little prairie store and gazing in the window at the Christmas display of watches, clocks, a miniature winter village that adorned his shop window each year. In 1930 he gave grandmother the mantle clock for their wedding.   

THE LONGEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR

It's bitterly cold in Canada: December 21st is the longest night of the year, particularly in this part of the northern hemisphere where I live. 

The fireplace you see behind my picture at the top of the blog has a roaring fire warming my home. My wife is Christmas baking and knitting something for a grandchild. I think I'll settle in with my copy of A Christmas Carol and re-read this classic by Charles Dickens. (It's a custom during the Christmas Season.)

There's a big-screen TV in the living-room; I'm going to put on the following YouTube video of the King's College Choir singing Christmas carols. Listen for yourself by clicking on the image. Enjoy!

Drop temperature, drop! Frost my windows for all I care. I'm cozy inside my little house on this longest night of the year. 

(If you are unable to link below, try here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HItFqKBAQE )

ADVENT PROCLAIMS THAT HUMAN LIFE MATTERS

Mary visits Elizabeth

"Now Mary arose in those days and went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah, and entering the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, "Blessed art you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told her from the Lord." (Luke 1.39-45)

In this tender and revealing passage of holy Scripture we are given, among other things, a divine glimpse into God's view of the child developing in the womb: In this case John the Baptist in utero. It is clear that God is present with him before he is born and that he responded to the spiritual state of joy at six months gestation (see Luke 1.36). He was human: And in a primordial way, was aware of God's presence with him in his mother's womb!

Liberal Christians who want to support abortion may say that  most abortions occur in the 1st and 2nd trimester of pregnancy and John was more than six months gestation when this happened; the time the angel told Mary of Elizabeth's pregnancy until the two met would have been quite some time with primitive modes of travel. [1] I have heard this rationale.


But the Bible also says many startling things about human life developing in the womb. Almighty God is aware and actively involved in forming new human life even at its very genesis -- that point we call conception when the new life has started but is yet unformed (Psalm 139.15-16). It is God who creates life (see Genesis 1:26-27, Genesis 5.2, Psalm 100.3, Isaiah 43.7.) Humanity is the work of God's hand (Isaiah 64.8, Job 31.15). God's loving hand formed us (Jeremiah 31.4) and sanctifies life in the womb (Jeremiah 1.4-5, Psalm 22.10b). God even mentions the unborn child by name! (Isaiah 49.1-2, 5.) 

Biblical Skeptics are apt to respond by saying God was speaking about spiritual titans like Jeremiah, Isaiah and John the Baptist (I actually heard this comment).  Did Peter not say that with God there is no partiality? (Acts 10.34). Did Paul not say that with God there no partiality? (Romans 2.11) Do we not all have one Father? (Malachi 2.10) 

Liberal skeptics often say that unwanted unborn children will be abused. They don't know that. Do they really think that children who were wanted during pregnancy are never abused? Do you know that God himself addressed this issue?

God told Isaiah:

"Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you, see I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; ..." (Isaiah 49.15-16.) 

The inscription of unwanted unborn children (and every other unwanted human being) are made on the palms of the hands of God-made-man by the nails of the cross.

That is how much value we all have to God. That is why He came to earth. Let us leap for joy like the unborn John within Elizabeth's womb when we sense the presence of Christ is near.  

MDP

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[1] Liberal Christianity is a bit of a contradiction in terms, particularly in modern applications. Liberal Christianity is really secularism dressed in religious vestments. Groups like Catholics for Choice are not really Catholic at all. The Catholic Church has opposed abortion since the first century; it is one the mortal sins worthy of excommunication. Catholics for Choice are, by definition, heretical. It is interesting to note that W.E. Vines EXPOSITORY DICTIONARY OF NEW TESTAMENT WORDS (Zondervon, 1981) says this about the origins of the word heresy:

"Heresy - HAIRESIS denotes a choosing, choice (from haireomai, to choose); then that which is chosen, and hence, an opinion, especially a self-willed opinion, which is substituted for submission to the power of truth, and leads to division and the formation of sects, Gal.5:20 (marg., "parties"); such erroneous opinions are frequently  the outcome of personal preference or the prospect of advantage ... ." Yup, that pretty much sums up Catholics for Choice.

BACH'S "OVERWHELMING EXPLORATION OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A HUMAN BEING"

"Bach is still the benchmark, the musical gold standard."

-- Sir Eliot Gardiner in Bach: A Passionate Life.

It may seem that my past few posts have not had much to do with life issues -- at least on the surface. They do, however, deal with the overall richness in living. Perhaps this apparent departure in my usual writing is rooted in the festive Christmas Season that has captured my heart this cold and wintry Canadian December. 

Sir Eliot Gardiner

I came across an excellent video produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). You will find a link to it at the end of this post. It's a ninety minute program entitled Bach: A Passionate Life. It was hosted by Sir Eliot Gardiner (featured in my previous blog post). He has  great knowledge about Bach's music and his life. His comments about Bach's personality are mere speculations based on little more than hunches. 

Johann Sebastian Bach's music has been an important consoling influence in my 30 year journey with degenerative multiple sclerosis. At times, his music gave soothing articulation to my suffering, my pain and my grief in ways words could not. Bach experienced grief in his life and it is evident in his music. 

At one point in the BBC documentary Eliot Gardiner said that a composer "can channel all the frustration and disappointment into music and Sebastian's music has this wonderful and uplifting quality to it. Most of all, Bach's music offers us a balm of comfort in bereavement." This touches upon what I mean a consoling influence and soothing articulation of my anguish. 

More than grieving the loss of physical function and health, at a certain point in my grief journey, I had to come to grips with a horrible reality. This reality was the realization that my previous self was gone as surely as if he had died. A new self could emerge -- if I would allow it -- and if I was willing to explore and develop that new identity and let it grow in Christ. The growth of that new self cut to the center of my humanity and helped to identify who I was/am and define and refine my destiny as a man and as a child of God.  

Bach

Someone else in the program observed in Bach's music an "overwhelming exploration of what it means to be a human being." Bach's depth is breathtaking in breadth, scope and beauty! I am astonished and grateful. 

It was at the apex of my own suffering that Saint John's Passion spoke to me in a profound way about Jesus' suffering, and my own. I did not need to put up my guard because I knew of the composer's profound Christian faith was in his music and that he too had experienced the bitter anguish of loss, although in a different context. It was while listening to music like this and immersing myself in God's word and prayer that I discovered Christ was inviting me in my suffering into His redemptive suffering! 

A person in the video said this about Bach: "He speaks with the voice of someone whose faith is absolutely rock-solid. It goes right to the roots of his being." This is true for Saint John's Passion (1723) as well as Bach's later St. Matthew's Passion (1729).    

Abundant life is the substance of what Christ wants for his followers through faith and a personal daily relationship with Him -- not only in the hereafter but in the present too. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and that they might have it for abundantly."[1] The abundance of which our Lord spoke is a spiritual fulfillment in Him; it finds outward expression in our relationships with others and those things that make us grow spiritually such as healthy modes of expression in the arts.
    
There are many patterns and structures for this richness of life. The first is the Bible and worship of God through our relationships with Jesus Christ. For me, the second comes in the form of music and an intense personal culture (found internally and externally). This can cultivate growth and beauty within individuals and societies. 

(If you are unable to connect to the video, click below

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiQbppQq54E  )

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[1] John 10.10. The prosperity gospel that polluted and  misled many North American churches during the 1980s and 1990s interpreted the abundant life Jesus to which Jesus referred to mean financial wealth. Some went so far as to use financial prosperity to measure the spiritual state of Christians. Happily the spiritual poverty of the prosperity gospel eventually fell into disrepute, although it still can be found in some fringe churches.  

J.S. BACH'S CHRISTMAS ORATORIO

J.S. Bach (1685-1750)

On this Sunday afternoon, I offer for your listening pleasure, J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio. When I was growing up, I remember this music resonating from my parent's stereo during the Christmas Season.

The video recording below is of Sir Eliot Gardiner conducting the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists performing Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Click on the image, relax and enjoy this 2 hour and 22 minute performance.