Hearing Voices

I don't have a job right now, and sometimes I feel a little unmotivated.  Today, for instance, I'm at a friend's house pottering around.  My wife is out of town, and I woke up late, after ten.  I rolled around on the sofa pull-out mattress, grunting.  At last I got up, sipped a little coffee. I opened a book by Anne Lamott and read a few pages. I wandered around the apartment, like a bear emerging from its hibernation cave.  Finally I popped in a sci-fi movie and watched about thirty minutes of it.

Maybe you're thinking: "Boy, this guy really needs to get a job. He's really wasting his time."  And let me tell you something more. God had indicated he wanted me to spend today praying for a friend of mine.  I've managed a couple short prayers so far, just an indistinct batch of sentences. It was about all I could manage.

Image: ilovebsustudents.blogspot.com

Then I decided to do the dishes.  I collected them from where they were scattered around the house in crusty glory. I scrubbed them, feeling the warm water flow energetically over my hands.  The pots banged as I wiped them out with a soapy washcloth and rinsed them in the sink.  I tidied up books and clothing and papers around the house. Then I did stop and pray for my friend: for about five or eight minutes.  And I read some more of the Anne Lamott book.

Today while I potter around there are a lot of "voices" speaking to me.  Here's what one of them is quietly saying: "You're a loser, you're a washed up guy, you're just pretending to be a writer. You're mind is grimy and your body is getting fat and lazy. You're stuck in the mud. You have all this time to do useful things but you just waste it. You're the equivalent of a leech on society."  I'm just telling you what those voices have to say.  But I don't pay much attention to those voices, most of the time, because I found a new Voice a few years ago.  It was like dialing a radio tuner, but suddenly one day the channel started to come in.  The Voice on that channel said, "You are special to me. You are one-of-a-kind. I gave my life for you and I did it gladly.  I have such great plans for you, in this life and the next. You're the apple of my eye and I'm so proud of you. I'm proud that you took the time to come visit your friend. I'm happy you got to read this great book by Anne. I'm pleased that you did the dishes and tidied up the house. And I'm terribly proud that you are concerned about a friend of yours and want to spend the day praying for him.  I'm pleased as punch, Daniel. Hang in there!" The Voice didn't seem to pay attention to a single one of my failures.

I'm telling you, it's a pretty good radio station.  That's why I feel a sense of peace as I loaf around this apartment. I know I'll get a job one of these days, but I've also learned recently that having a job is not what makes us human or even what gives true value to our life.  I am thankful for this day, for the quietness of this room, for the clean dishes, for the few minutes I managed to pray. I think you can notice people who listen to the Old radio station too often. They look beat down, jumpy, on edge. That's cause the old radio station is never planning to say they are good enough.  It's unreasonably critical.  And if this New radio station is unreasonably supportive, I'm not going to complain. I probably wouldn't even be writing this entry if I couldn't hear that comforting, counseling Voice. I hope you can tune into this channel on your radio, too.

POEM: Day Seven

Evening cool settled on the warm world
Flowers' fragrance rising in the fog
Cicadas playing their first night's song.

The Artist sat back from his canvas, well-satisfied
Angels craned their necks for a better look and then
Covered their glowing eyes with wings and shouted praise
Tuning ten-million voices to the wheeling stars.

God blessed the seventh day with rest and holiness,
Silence and seeking, a day to lay on the chest of God and breathe.
Creation was all done and just begun.

If You Call the Sabbath a Delight

When I was a young boy, Sunday was a bother.  There were certain things I wasn't allowed to do, and the day as a whole seemed a little stuffy.

Now it is often my favorite day of the week.  Sunday for me is the equivalent of sleeping in, watching cartoons and eating pancakes.  Here are a few things that have turned Sunday (technically not the Sabbath anyway--Saturday was) into a joy.

1. Personally, I like to follow the old Jewish method and start my Sabbath on Saturday evening, and end it on Sunday evening. By the end of Saturday I'm pretty exhausted, ready for a break from work.  By the evening of Sunday, I'm refreshed, starting to think about the week ahead, ready to accomplish a few things before Monday morning. 

2. A good tradition, unlike a bad one, can be exciting.  Jewish people often remember very fondly the process of the Mother lighting the Sabbath candles as the family came together to start the Shabbat.  For me, on Saturday evening sometimes I like to say a prayer of thanks for the week past, and eat some Sabbath ice cream. The ice cream is very important.  On Sunday evening, before I begin working again, I will sometimes listen or sing a hymn or two, then pray for the week to come, committing it to God.

3. I TRY not to have any hard and fast rules about what can and can't be done on a Sabbath. After all, the day was made for us, we were not made for the day.  Activities that are fun, rejuvenating are great. I try to avoid duties that I do the rest of the week.  Anything that feels like "you must do this" and there is an inward groan--you are free from that today!  Answering the long backpile of emails, cleaning the house, studying for that test, baking all those dishes for supper, finding receipts to do your taxes--GOD has given you a "get out of jail free" card from them for this one day a week.  And resist your flesh that whips at you and says "if you had been more responsible earlier in the week, you could take a day off, but now you have to work to catch up."  No. God's "get out of jail free" card trumps that. But notice the distinction. It's not saying you CAN'T clean the house and do your taxes. It's saying YOU ARE FREE NOT TO. If you are doing them out of a sense of misery and duty--God at least is not going to be clicking his tongue at you for not working on them today.

4. I like kicking back on a sofa, napping, reading some encouraging books on Sunday afternoon.  Watching football games all afternoon might be relaxing for a while, but spending some time with God, although a discipline, is far more refreshing.  Do you feel the balance?  Kicking back, letting your hair down, having fun playing Sorry with your family or reading a book in solitude--and resting you heart with a secret smile on God. 

POEM: Why Do the Angels Keep Singing?

Nha Trang Beach, Vietnam, January 2004
















God, I hear the Hallelujah chorus



and the angels crying glory.









But with my eyes I only see a crippled boy,



peddling a tricycle with his hands to sell his peanuts



to tourists.









Why do the angels keep singing



as though they can't see the sadness



in this world?









But now I remember that You came here



to our broken earth, and touched



the cripples, and wept at death, and died and rose.









Angels, keep singing for my Jesus.

POEM: Love at Christmas

I guess we must love our students.
We came around the world to meet them.
At this season we miss the friends and family left behind
We are tired of people staring at us everywhere.
Our contract says a year or two, but we
Try not to think about the length of time
Try just to think about each day, each student.

I guess God loves us.
He came down to the world to meet us.
At this season He probably missed His home in heaven
And was tired of people staring at him everywhere.
His contract said 33 years, and then execution.
He didn't worry about the future, just took each day
As it came, sweating and crying, loving each person
That He had made.


-Written at Christmas 2007, in China

POEM: On the Eve of Christmas

Here on the Eve of Christmas,
Here we kneel and look up at the stars.
They look back at us, the same eyes
That gazed down on Bethlehem
A few nights ago when You
Were born.
Great God,
Star-maker, sea-maker
Wind-maker, us-maker,
Unconstrained by the galaxies
You squeezed through her birth canal
And cried your first breaths in our sooty world.
And here, kneeling on the Eve of Christmas,
We thank you for coming to us in our distress.
 
-Written in 2006, in China

The Legend of the Prisoners' Violin

The cells were cold. That's why the prisoners were curled in balls on the bare wooden cots. Even the ones who weren't afraid curled up. The guards were miserable as well, even with layers of thick woolen clothing. If a prisoner began groaning through his teeth, though, a guard would beat on the bars of the cell and shout, "Shut up!" If the groaning continued, guards would enter and beat the prisoner senseless and once again there would be quiet.

For several weeks now the prison had a deathly stillness and quiet to it. Only the occasional echoing footsteps of the guards relieved the utter silence, and that sound was not one to comfort those who lay, waiting for they knew not what. One morning, in March, with the chill still deep in the aching backs and bones of the trembling prisoners, a sound began. It was a distant tuning of violin strings.

In any other place in the busy world, it might have been ignored, but here the sound was cherished as though it were gold, or as though it were the only plate of food left in the whole world. Their ears strained eagerly at the sound, and gaunt eyes grew wide some moments later when the violin strings sang into life. A bow stroked them, their tight wires suddenly humming and wailing. Guards' footsteps began marching restlessly up and down the corridors, searching for the source of the music. The string music blossomed into life then, beautiful delicate cantatas, long glorious lines from old masters, sometimes sliding into cheeky folk dances or long melancholy tunes. All day long the violin music filled the echoing cells as tears poured down from the eyes of the huddled prisoners.

Guards searched every floor from basement to attic, and roamed outside the dank prison, searching for the violin player, but were frustrated. At eight p.m. that evening, after having eaten their bowls of tastless gruel, the prisoners lay still again as the violin quieted its tone. It played old wistful tunes and then sank into infinitely peaceful reveries, calming even the guards' nerves, frazzled as they were. The prisoners sank into sleep, one by one, and dreamed happy dreams of hope that night, some for the first time in years. In the morning they awoke to quiet, and many sat up in bed, staring, waiting, almost not breathing.

As the sun slowly turned their tiny cell windows into brighter boxes above them, a distant tuning of violin strings began again. Smiles leaped onto stretched faces bony with sorrow. Eyes brightened. Many stood to their feet and began pacing their cells with new-found energy. All day that day, and the next, and the next, the music continued, every day different, though sometimes replaying old tunes again like old friends come to visit. And in fact it was as though a best friend had come into their cell, and held their hands, talked with them, looked them in the eye, even danced with them.

The guards never found where the music emanated from. They tried once forcing the prisoners to wear ear-plugs, but it proved impossible to enforce. The guards themselves for the most part became somewhat kinder and more good-natured under the music's influence. The only sad note to the whole miraculous affair was that after some months certain prisoners began to take the music for granted, which means they stopped listening and appreciating. But most clung every day to the bright glory they heard, kissing its lips in their heart as though it were an angel from God. And perhaps it was.