Make Us a People

A few days back I was sitting at dinner, making a terrible hash out of explaining why I wanted to do my work within what I knew sounded to my dinner partner like the desperately narrow confines of Biblical revelation. Trying to understand me, he gently suggested that I was probably one of those people who liked ideas to be fairly tidy, that being, I think, the most charitable psychological profile he could imagine for someone who would describe themselves as an Evangelical Christian. I doubt that anyone who knows me well thinks of "tidiness" as either one of my virtues or vices, but I wasn't doing a very good job that evening of being transparent.

Still, the suggestion stuck with me, and made me ponder who I am, who I think I am called to be, and who I believe we are all called to be as Christians; what my prayer is for myself and the people that I walk with. This is the song that grew. I put in links to the Biblical passages I am referencing, for those who might not already recognize them. Neat and tidy isn't really part of it. We are following a God whose Spirit sent the one he called his Beloved Son out to fast and pray in the wilderness for forty days, and then brought him to the place where he died on a cross.  This isn't a safe or an easy God to follow, but the adventure quotient is pretty high.  I'm not in the place this song describes, but this is where I want to be, and what I think that God wants to do in me and in us.

And finally, because there is a little piece of me that likes accuracy, let me take a moment to point out that while in the time that the New Testament was written, the scuzz place, the place where the dregs of society could be found was outside the city--today, for many of us, it is in the hearts of the city.  I went with the picture in the New Testament, but let me acknowledge that I am aware that the prayer to go "outside the gates of the city" could send us straight into the cities from our nice and tidy suburbs.

Make us a People

Father, make us a people
Who will walk on the water
Looking to Jesus
Climbing out of the boat.

O Lord, make us a people
Who are baptized in fire,
 And just a little drunk on the
Word of Your love

Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.

Father, make us a people
Who will sing when we’re captured
Whose songs of praise break down
All the prison walls.

O Lord, make us a people
Who are born of your Spirit,
Blown by the Wind
of Your grace and Your love

Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day.
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.

Father, make us a people
Hungry to be righteous
Longing to make peace
And to see the face of God

O Lord, make us a people
Whose lives are our love for You
Who give You our lives
Both to spend and to send.

Help us go outside the gates of the city
Following Jesus, bearing disgrace as He did on that day
Carrying our crosses, walking in the footsteps of God.

Father, make us a people
Make us Your people, Lord

The Mountain of the LORD

The story of Abraham's almost-sacrifice of Isaac (or in some Muslim versions, Ishmael) on the mountain God chose has been a persistently difficult story for members of all three of the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam).  Would God ask for human sacrifice? Did Abraham hear wrong?  Is this a story about child abuse, and if so is it Abraham or God who is the child abuser.  And yet, despite the problems, it remains a story that has become quite central to the way all three religions tell our stories of how God relates to us. For Jews it has become a picture of Jewish martyrdom, a proof-text for God's mercy, and a clear indication that God forbids human sacrifice. (Reference)   For Christians, it is a picture and foretelling of Jesus' death on the cross (Reference)(Read more), and an example of faith (Hebrews 11:17-19; .  Muslims celebrate Abraham's submission to God on this day with Eid al-Adha.  

For myself, I find that at certain key turning points in my life, it has become necessary for me to offer back to God with open hands the thing that I have been hoping and dreaming and believing was God's promise.  That I have generally received back the thing that I offered does not take away from the fact that it was important to offer it, and that at the time of offering, there are no certainties, except that God will be faithful.  At these times in my life, the story about Abraham and Isaac on the Mountain of God has become very significant for me.  This song was written at one of those times, but before and after there were other crises where the story has had meaning.  I offer it here in the hopes that it will prove to be meaningful for others as well.

The Mountain of God

On the Mountain of the LORD

It will be provided--

All that You want me to give.

On the Mountain of the LORD

It will be provided--

The strength and the courage to live.

I'll go walking up that mountain

With my hopes and my dreams in my hand

I'll go walking up that mountain

Knowing You will allow me to stand.

Isaac was Abraham's deep delight

A hope that was too good to lose

And God spoke to Abraham in the night

Saying, "Come to the mountain I choose.

Will you lay down your son there?

Will you hand the child over to Me?

Will you give up His life there

As a sign that you're trusting in Me?"

Abraham left for the mountains that day

Leading his son by the hand

I think tears filled his eyes as he tried to pray

As he watched his dreams crumble to sand

He took wood and he took fire 

And he carefully guarded the knife

And he wondered how he'd do it--

Would You ask him to take his son's life?

Abraham knew that he had to do it

Whatever You asked him to do.

And somehow he knew You would see him through it

And still make your promises true

He bound Isaac to the altar

He was willing to go all the way

And then You sent an angel

You provided the ram there that day.

Now through faith, we're the children of Abraham

And sometimes we'll walk in his shoes.

I believe there are times we will hear Your voice calling

To come to the mountain you choose

To lay down there what we cherish

Without knowing just what we'll get back

We must trust that You are faithful

And that You will supply every lack.

On the Mountain of the LORD 

It will be provided--

All that You want me to give

On the Mountain of the LORD

It will be provided--

The strength and the courage to live

I'll go walking up that mountain

With my hopes and my dreams in my hand

I'll go walking up that mountain

Knowing You will allow me to stand.

Vessels for the King

Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: "The Lord knows those who are His" and "Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity." But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor.  Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.  --1 Timothy 2:19-21


     Come with me on a tour of the King's storehouse to see the vessels of honor, prepared for use at His mighty banquets.  There was a time when I thought that everything at the King's table would be gold and silver.  Those are there, indeed.  But look, there is fine porcelain, and glittering glass, and even highly polished wood. The thing that makes them different from the plates and bowls that sit on my table is not the starting materials. Sand and clay and lumps of wood--common and unlovely in themselves.  And even the silver began as an ore that was mostly lead, and the golden flecks could scarcely be seen in the high grade ore that made the prosepctor's heart leap for joy.
     All of these vessels of honor glitter and shine and reflect the glory of the King whom they serve and the Maker who saw their worth when they were no better than dirt, and who used time and skill and heat and hammer and blade to call them into being.  Some saw the fire again and again and again.  Some knew the fire only after gentle strokes of the Master's hands.  Some were made strong by the fire, and others seemed to melt away.  With each one, the Maker knew just what to do.  If they could talk, what would they have said?  Not only, "I'll never live through this," but "Why does He deal differently with that one?"  He strokes the clay, and breaks the gold and silver ore with his hammer.  Sand is thrown instantly into the fire, and then is shaped not by banging, but by the breath of God.  And wood knows only gentle, gentle heat--followed by the knife, and long, long seasons of being rubbed with grit.
     And we, the vessels who are people, do seem to have some choice in the matter.  Will we allow the shaping?  We barely understand what stuff it is that the Lord has put into our hearts.  Is our life gold ore, or glass sand, or porcelain clay?  Silver ore is shiny, but most of it is thrown away before the silver shines pure and clean upon the table.  Will we let God do all that He longs to do in our lives?  Not fighting the fire, whether it stiffens us or melts us down--enduring the gentle rubbing and the hardest blows--not worrying whether we are called to be a salt dish or a fruit bowl or a water pitcher?  They do not look the same, they are not shaped by the same methods--yet all are vessels of honor, and all are needed to serve the King's great banquet.
     And in this mighty storehouse, I am drawn to look closer at a burlwood bowl.  Though it does not have the gleam of gold or silver, it is a thing of beauty.  the wood of its sides swirls in magnificent patterns of light and dark, patterns beautiful and unpredictable.  If it could talk, what story would it tell?  It started as a diseased lump on the side of a tree, unable to produce more than a few pathetic leaves, a crooked mess.  And yet, the heart of the Craftsman rejoiced to see it.  He had many uses for straight wood--but from this crooked lump he could make a bowl of awesome beauty for the King's high table.  The very crookedness that made the burl a shameful lump on the tree, when transformed by the Craftsman's love and skill is a song of glory to the Creator.
     Lord, I ask for grace to trust You in all Your dealings with me.  Take whatever it is that You have placed within my life, and shape me as You will.  I ask too, Lord, for eyes of faith to see in the raw material of others the glory You long to bring forth.  And I ask this in Jesus' name.  Amen.

(c) 2005 Rebecca Howell

Pictures, used with permission and deep gratitude:
Pink Seeded Goblet by Rhonda Kap.  On display at www.rhondakap.com.
Burlwood Hollow Form with Paua Shell Inlay by Al Janonis.  On display at www.whitestonefurs.com.

Of paper and pens

My sister, Mathilda Wheeler, runs a blog called The Wonder Writer.  And recently she shared a poem about writing that a young cousin of ours wrote as she was using writing to grieve the death of her mother.  Her poem is better than mine (go look), but it still made me want to share this poem that I wrote quite a while ago.

Of Paper and Pens

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus

the author and finisher of our faith.  Hebrews 12:2

Sometimes I'm the paper.

Sometimes I'm the pen.

The Lord of glory writes His grace

into the lives of men

and women who will trust Him

and choose to run the race.

He writes His truth upon our hearts

with glory and with grace--

sometimes the grace of hardship,

always the grace of love--

His children learn to run the race

and look to him above.

I long to be the paper

on which He writes the lines,

but also long to be the pen

through which His mercy shines.

God writes with living fire.

He makes us each a lamp

to let the living story shine

in the dark outside the camp.

No God but God

The first line of this song is the first part of the Muslim Confession of faith, the shahada, though obviously I move in a very different direction after that.  Nonetheless, it is probably because of my work with the names of God in Islam that this formulation sprang to mind.

It's a ditty or perhaps a chorus of a song I have yet to write. Still, I share it here because it is a quintessential example of what I mean when I talk about Windmill Songs.  It is precisely because these words get balled up into a song and that keeps running over and over in my mind and heart that it does something in my life.  It becomes not just my confession of Christianity, but of my acknowledgement and proclamation that I will not let other lesser things -- my fears, my appetites, my sluggishness -- become my gods.  Maybe that will become verses, maybe not.

There is No God but God

There is no god but God

There is no god but God

No God but the Father, no God but the Son

No God but the Spirit, forever three in one

There is no god, no god but God.

Sheer Koheleth, the Song of Ecclesiastes

I got into a conversation last night that drifted into a discussion of the book of Ecclesiastes.  The hour was late and we weren't able to finish our talk.

When I was in seminary, and had finished my mandatory Hebrew classes, I decided to take an Old Testament course that would focus on using Hebrew to study a book of the Old Testament.  I was a little dismayed when I realized by only choice at that time was a study of Ecclesiastes, which at the time I considered a really depressing book.  I am always a little startled when people tell me how much they like the book of Ecclesiastes, and I am also a little suspicious that most of what they have actually read in the book is the part that made it into the folksong:  "For everything...there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven."

But I have also learned over time that if I am willing to take the time to deeply study almost any part of the Bible, it will become meaningful to me.  As I studied Ecclesiastes, I came to feel that it forms a kind of counterpart to the book of Job.  In Job, the problem is the suffering of innocent people, and the ultimate answer is when Job experiences God, and is satisfied by that.  In Ecclesiastes, the problem is the search for answers of the intellectual, and just as Job does not give a simple answer, the author of Ecclesiastes also does not find easy answers to his questions. He complains, among other things, that God has set eternity into the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11),and he calls this a burden (3:10).  Ultimately, he concludes with

Now all has been heard;
     here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
     for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
     including every hidden thing,
     whether it is good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

As I studied Ecclesiastes , I found that in addition to summarizing my work in a mandatory academic paper, I wanted to try my hand at expressing its essence in this song, which I called Sheer Koheleth.  Koheleth is the name of Ecclesiastes in Hebrew.  It means "The Gatherer" or "The Assemblyman" or "The Preacher" or "Teacher" or "Scribe".  In other words, we're not entirely sure exactly what it means.  It's what the author of Ecclesiastes called himself.  Traditionally, that person has been understood to be Solomon.  Sheer is, of course, an English word that means pretty much "just", but Sheer or Shir is the Hebrew word for Song.

One of the most famous phrases of Ecclesiastes "vanity of vanities" in the King James Bible, or "Meaningless! Everything is meaningless" in the NIV, is a metaphor that in its literal meaning is about the steam that rises off a pot.  I toyed at one point with translating it as "It's all a lot of hot air," but I wound up with the chorus of this song.  This then, is Sheer Koheleth or the Song of Ecclesiastes, and it is my attempt to loosely translate what I understand to be the central message of this book.  Most of the lines are colloquial translations of something in the book.


Sheer Koheleth


What does life mean? It has to mean something.
I set my heart to discover life's "why"
This was my task to look for the meaning
I tried, and I tried. but my answer was this:

I have focused on fog
I've mastered the mist
All my achievements are smoke in my fist
They slip through my fingers
I've been chasing the wind
And it adds up to nothing,
Again and again.

I tried doing good. I tried owning treasure.
No matter how much, it was never enough.
I drank to the dregs life's passions and pleasure,
But wisdom and folly ended like this:

As I look around I see pain and oppression
Sometimes life's fair, but often it's not
More things are bent than one man can straighten
All my best plans were diminished to this.

As you go through life you might as well cherish
Each day that comes, every season God gives.
Knowing in time that all things will perish.
Still joy is God's gift, though it comes back to this:

So this was my task, to look for the meanings,
God planted eternity deep in my soul.
Though under the sun all is empty and aimless
I'm left with awe and the fear of the Lord.

And God isn't fog
God isn't the mist
The one thing that's certain
The one thing that's fixed
Before the beginning
And after the end
My answers lie hidden
In the palm of His hand.

Traveling Princess

This song doesn't have particularly popular images for this day and age, nor is it formed with a great deal of craft. It's something of a hodge-podge of images from Scripture that are valuable to me right now.  I share it here because this is very much a "windmill song"--one that useful in my life for making the images and phrases go deeper into my own heart.  It's a battle cry against darkness, and a promise to keep moving.   It's my own cry for this moment in time--but perhaps some day it may find relevance for others.  I added links to some of the relevant scriptures, mostly as an exercise for myself.

Traveling Princess

I am a child of the King
I am a child of the King
I am a blood-bought daughter of the Living God
I am a child of the King

Well, in the Valley of Trouble
There's a Door of Hope
And my Savior will help me find that way
He is my shield and shelter on that narrow path
He watches over me both night and day.

Well, there’s a road to the Kingdom
and it runs through my heart

I’m walking on that pilgrim way

Though there may be some crying on that desert road

There will be streams in the desert

And joy in the morning

Blooming

Quite a few years ago, a man who knew quite a bit about both God and me told me, "Because you are not a rose or a daisy, you think you are not a flower." Recently, struggling once again with the issues of being someone who doesn't fit the patterns I see around me, I was reminded of the comment. I suspect I am not the only person who struggles with this problem.

Blooming


I may not be a rose or a daisy
Or like any other flower that I've known
I am still a flower in God's garden
An offering to be laid before His throne.


I will bloom where I'm planted
I will bloom in God's time
My petals are unfolding
Displaying God's reason and rhyme.


The pathway that is laid straight before me
May not be the pathway for you
But my Shepherd knows just where He wants me
He knows what it will take to bring me through


I will bloom where I'm planted
I will bloom in God's time
My petals are unfolding
Displaying God's reason and rhyme.


I may not be a rose or a daisy
Or like any other flower that I've known
I am still a flower in God's garden
An offering to be laid before His throne.

Life's Strife

Here's a poem that I wrote a long time ago, but which still makes sense to me as a prayer for today.

Life's Strife

O Lord,
Forgive me for striving,
For acting as if I had to earn the love
That you poured out so freely,
Dying on the cross for me.

But also
Forgive me for not striving,
For giving up and giving in,
For yielding up the righteousness
You died to give.

Help me
To rest in your love,
To strive with all that I am
To let your freely given love
Take full control.

Amen

Corners

This poem has gone through a number of versions, but this is its current form.  Still a prayer that means something to me.

Corners

Father, I give you the corners of my life.

The empty corners
Of time that lie scattered through my days.
Once I thought they could be harvested,
Gathered into a gift that would somehow
be big and therefore worthy.
Now I know these moments will remain scattered,
and insignificant.
And I give them to you as a fragrant offering.
Rose petals scattered through my day
For you to walk upon.

The jagged corners
The rough uneven edges of my awkwardness and sin
That scrape and scar the ones my life is meant to bless.
It’s OK if I don’t fit the mold
That you alone know what strangely shaped niche
My life was created for.
But please cut off, sand down the pieces of my life
That catch and tear and wound the ones I love.

The dark corners
Filled with things I try to forget
The hidden places
Do dragons lurk there
Or just some smelly dirty socks
And a piece of forgotten fruit now molded?
Come with your light
Let’s explore and clean
With you beside me, I can vanquish even dragons
And face the mundane and embarrassing scuzz
I’ve strewn throughout my life.

The scary corners
The places where my pathway takes a sudden turn
And I don’t know what dangers lie ahead.
I place my hand in yours
And choose to trust once more
That though I cannot see ahead
No part of my future,
No way I will walk
Is unseen, unknown or unblessed by you.

Father, I give you the corners of my life.

A Song about the Concept of Prayer

I believe that God is infinite, and so I am not really troubled by the idea that God has bandwidth issues.  At the same time, I am sometimes keenly aware of the absurdity of the idea that the God who made the universe actually cares what people have to say. It is not that I do not believe that this is true.  In fact, long before I became a Christian, I found that I was unable to be an atheist because I feel so strongly that when I pray, I am heard.  Someone is listening.  Many years ago, the person who wrote Psalm 8 felt the same way. 

When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made,
and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place,
4 Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?
Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay attention to them,
5 and make them a little less than the heavenly beings?  --Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV)

So it is not that I do not believe that God is listening, that God hears our prayers and cares about us.  It is part of the amazing joyful message of Christianity--God is aware, God cares, God actually wants to talk to us, and be known by us, and in Jesus God paid a stunning cost to make that possible.

Prayer

When I sit and pray to you
Sometimes I feel foolish
Why should I think a king like you
Would listen to me?
The one who set the stars in place
The ground of all our being
Must have one or two
More important things to do
Than listen to a single human’s plea.
But you told us to pray at all times
So here I am praying
For the bread that will feed
Both my soul and my body today
Would you open my heart to the depths of your love
May my life reflect fully your kingdom above
Father God, teach me how to pray.

When I try to hear your voice
Well, there are times I wonder
Is what I’m hearing only me
Or am I hearing you?
I listen for your still, small voice
I hope to hear your thunder
But I’m not a priest or king
Or any special thing
So why would God be whispering to me?
But you said that your sheep hear your voice
So I want to listen
To the word that you spoke for all time
And your word for today.
Would you open my heart to the depths of your word
May your Spirit transform, so I do what I’ve heard
Father God, teach me how to pray.

And a newer version of the video

Some Days

Sometimes Christians talk as if becoming a Christian would solve all of a person's problems forever and ever. It doesn't work that way. This is a song I wrote after hearing a lecture about Frederick Buechner's understanding of grace, but it is a response that came out of my own experience of trying to walk this walk of faith.

Some Days

Some days I feel You; some days I know
Your Holy Spirit moves in me and helps me grow
Some days I have to walk by faith,
And trust in Your unchanging grace.

Some days the pathway disappears
I'm overwhelmed by disappointments and by fears.
Still, winter helps the trees to grow--
Some days there's sun, some days there's snow.

Some days I'm standing in Your flow
Your love pours out and touches everyone I know
Some days it's hard to care at all
My love seems paltry, weak and small.

When I can't see, when I can't feel
There's still a part of me that knows that You are real.
My feelings change from day to day
Some days are bright, some days are gray.

Some days I feel You; some days it's clear
That You use each and every pain and every tear.
Some days I have to walk by faith
And trust in Your unchanging grace.

Do Not Despise the Day of Small Beginnings

Do Not Despise the Day of Small Beginnings
Or why I am not writing a novel

I am not ready
(and may never be)
to run a farm or tend a garden plot.
But I can plant marigolds in coffee cups
and beans in paper towels
And watch six blades of grass sprout joyously from an eggshell head.
It will not stop a famine
Or put dinner on the table
But it may make the children smile--
I'll write as I am able.

A Love Song

Along the lines of continuing to introduce myself, and my approach to songs and music, let me share this one next.

A Love Song

Let me sing for you a love song
About the man who owns my heart
I gave my love to him at seventeen
And he's loved me from the start.
I'm not talking about my husband,
A man I love more every day,
But of the man who died upon a cross
To take my sins away.

And he is King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
The perfect picture of the Father above
He heals the broken heart
He sets the captive free
He holds the world together by the word of his love
Hope of the hopeless
Friend of the poor
Almighty God is he,
Oh, Almighty God is he.

Let me sing for you a love song
About a love that never dies
A love that makes me want to shout for joy
And puts a sparkle in my eyes,
I'm not talking about my husband,
Although his love is deep and true,
But of the God who once became a man,
And loves both me and you.

And he is King of kings,
And Lord of lords
The perfect picture of the Father above
He heals the broken heart,
He sets the captive free,
He holds the world together by the word of his love
Hope of the hopeless
Friend of the poor
Almighty God is he,
Oh, Almighty God is he.

I am here...

To dance, to dare
to belong, to believe, to bare
my soul before my
loving Lord.

To love, to leap
for joy, and to employ
each scrap of wit and wonder,
heart and hand,
in service of my King.

A Poem about Writing Poems

Poems

Let me take the heaps of straw
That sometimes are my thoughts
And spin them into threads of gold
To gleam within the tapestry
Of someone else's life.

Let me take the wordless spark
That's hidden in my heart
And fling it in a ball of words
To light a mighty fire
In someone else's life.

Let me tend silk-worms of hope
That crawl about my mind
'Till they spin word-webs round themselves
And ripen into butterflies
In someone else's life

And poems being what they are
I'll keep what I have given.
There shall be butterflies, and flame,
And shining gold within the halls
Of my own heart and life.