I am sending this out (NOT TO BEGIN CONVERSATIONS with people I do not know) but to make Dad's many friends around the world aware : Dad passed away last Wednesday night(December 28th,2022.) I will be closing his online presence and thought some of you would wonder what happened to him. He considered you his online "family" but now he is with his "heavenly family." Thank you and goodbye

ME-ISM VERSUS MUSIC - SOME TONGUE-IN-CHEEK THOUGHTS

In this world of me-ism, a Choir concert is about "we" concluded Dr Rene Clausen, as he directed the Concordia College Choir at their 83rd annual Christmas Concert this Christmas of 2021. I enjoyed that concert so much that I sat through two complete concerts on Christmas Day. 

But, that started me processing the meaning of music as  related to life, while I slept through Christmas night. Is music a solo?  Or, is life a choir? Many live their lives as soloists. Isn't it all just a matter of choice?   Some are soloists. Some sing in some kind of harmony. Dr. Clausen seems to think that life can only be found in relationship, in a group, in community with another and that raises other questions.

If life cannot be lived as a solo, what does it mean to be part of a duet? Is a duet two soloists who wed and just happen to agree on some lyrics they like, so they compromise their solo ability and harmonize together. Can one sing harmoniously and be a soloist? This musical question suddenly becomes a psycho-social issue of dynamite proportions!  Does singing a duet somehow change the dynamic of the relationship and transform it into a psychological and theological issue that is beyond what two soloists can be as two soloists?  Does harmonizing with someone somehow transform you into something you cannot be and remain a soloist?

Get the idea? Is marriage a solo or a duet? Can you marry and remain a soloist? What will likely happen when a soloist and a duet join in matrimony? What musical lessons does matrimony teach us? Or, take the matter of citizenship: that is a vital part of our lives? How do music and citizenship inform each other? Will my understanding of music suddenly transform me into a new and different kind of citizen? Does my musical understanding somehow translate this into a better understanding of my citizenship? That may depend on whether I am a soloist or a duet, or for that matter a choir.

 This choir business seems to be another whole different ballgame. It implies community and perhaps diversity, even in the midst of community. When I am in Community, I open myself to the possibility of being forty-eight, or fifty-one separate states, instead of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, however many, or whatever color, or whatever the ethnicity. It could mean remain thirteen independent colonies of Great Britain, rather than THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

It could suggest that there are certain people, like King George of England. He honestly believed he held the divine right of power and political ownership over those who had no political power--like the peasants of Luther's day. Luther defended the rights of the peasants to protest against the Papacy and the political power of the Pope but he stopped angrily when the peasants took his theology seriously. You just can't take religion too seriously.

They sang his hymns of German nationalism. They read his new German bible translation. But if that were not enough, they then took his 95-theses he published on the door of Wittenberg church, so the could have a scholarly debate that would not really interfere withs real life. Then, an entrepreneurial Printer took those points of scholarly debate and published them with new printing presses invented by Gutenberg. Those Peasants resisted the feudal system until the Peasants Wars broke out in more democratic social measures such as we have in America today with the free church movement and the Radical Reformation of the Anabaptists and the German Pietists. 

Music is a BIG DEAL. Being a soloist offers me the choice of telling the government they have no right to reject me for claiming "they"--whoever they may be--are just trying to steal my individualism, my personal identity, my MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN and lose me in a Facebook forest of conspiracy theories being pushed by a bunch of soloist politicos.

Maybe Dr. Clausen should forget all his music theory and mind his own business. He could start a civil war with his strange notions and trying to tag us with this silly notion of the importance of music and any relationship between music and real life. After all, music theory just can't really make all that much difference to real life. Or to be a little more direct, all this scandalous chit chat that connects community and individual liberties is just so much gobbledygook - a code word for social insanity and leftfield  liberalism.

THE UPWARD ASCENT

 

It is 3:30 in the afternoon on a brilliantly sunny-but-cold SE Minnesota day. I am standing in the window looking into an eggshell blue sky that was to reach a high in the low forties, after a cold start at 27-degrees.

As look high in the sky and off in the distance, I am treated to what I like to think of as the upward ascent of life. Our Condo is located in far south Saint Paul and it gives me constant coming and going of the huge aircraft that fly in and out of Twin Cities Metro Airport. It is the a base for theFlying Goose and a major center for air traffic going both east and west across the northern United States.

As I am watching,I see one of the big birds leaving for parts unknown, nose upward at what  appears about forty-five degrees. As I watch,  there is what appears to me to be a normal levelling of the craft, and every so often I see what appears to me as a course adjustment by the crew, as they keep the nose of their craft readjusting ever upward to the level at which they intend to fly.

 I see this phenomenon as a normal, but continual, pull upward on the controls so the craft reaches its preplanned flight pattern as quickly as possible and they are on their way toward their planned destination. I see this as a metaphor for our plan for living.

We need to know where we are going. We need to be able to trust ourselves to the Pilot of our craft. We need to board our craft with full confidence, get ourselves seated and  our baggage stored properly, and then we need to sit back and enjoy the flight, with its preplanned accommodations as provided by the host or hostess.

Watching the great craft, I remember flights I have taken and I can  feel  the pull of that upward ascent that sometimes pushes one back against the seat. Finally, comes the levelling out and we push forward at flying speed, toward our destination.

Watching the big bird, I pray Lord, help me in my life's journey, to stay always on the upward ascent. Never allow me to level off and be satisfied with less than my highest and best of intentions for serving you. Keep me always on the upward ascent of service to others. May you always have my unlimited devotion and may my love for you always find loving expressions of service to others. And, at the  end of our flight, may I hear your welcome words, well done, my son, enter into the company of the Family of God and our Eternal Father God.

From Warner's World, I am walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com wishing you a pleasant flight.

 

WE WALK BY FAITH

 A few months before my father died in December 1990; I found this affirmation of faith by E. Stanley Jones. I greatly admired Jones after first hearing him preach at our Anderson International Youth Convention in 1944 when barely turned sixteen.

 

It is a powerful statement of personal faith and I have turned to it many times since I shared it to encourage my father now deceased for nearly three decades. It is a statement I try at ninety-four to model. it is a word I hope can still be said of me by all who come after me and long after I exit this stage of action.

 

At eighty-seven, Jones wrote with palsied pen during his decline:

“When you find Christ and his kingdom, you find yourself. I only testify: bound to him and his kingdom I walk the earth free; low at his feet I stand straight before everything and everybody. I have served him these seventy years, but I have never made a sacrifice for him. Sacrifice? The sacrifice would be to tear from my heart this wonderful, increasingly wonderful, thing he brought me when I entered his kingdom. When my left hand begins to shake, as it has begun t shake at eighty-seven, pre-cursor of the final shaking to the dust of my mortal body, I smile and say; ‘But I belong to an unshaken kingdom, and to an unchanging person, so shake on, you will shake me into immortality. And when the final shaking comes, falsely called death, but which I know to be only an anesthetic which God gives when he changes bodies, I know this final shaking will only do what it did to Paul in prison: loosed his fetters and bade him go to an awaiting home where love and joy abound (italics mine).

 

From Walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com, I leave you Shalom

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR

HOW SACRED IS TRUTH? 

Scholars suggest this is not a direct prohibition in general, but dealing with a specific type of lying. Perjury was a crime as far back as Hammurabi, long before Moses and the Mosaic Law and was part of the Israelite Law as well. The ninth commandment does not mean this is the only kind of untruthfulness. Rather, it is the beginning of concrete instruction and takes note of the importance of the Word--of truth. Neither lie one to another, Lev. 19:11.

To lie is to destroy all basis for communication, to make a mockery of human relations, to reduce all dealings to the jungle level. A false witness can destroy the reputation, the happiness, the freedom, the life of another. Perjury is simply lying at its worst. Jesus also quoted the Ninth Commandment in his answer to the rich young ruler's quest for eternal life (LUKE 18:20). John the Revelator saw that all liars were to be cast into the lake of fire forever (Rev. 21:8). 

The "Word" is of enough importance that Jesus based his ministry on the truth that He himself (the Logos of John 1) is The Word, The Word of Truth is not the word about Jesus, the Word of Truth is Jesus Himself. This has huge implications in a day of propaganda, of "managed news," of clever double-talk and fine print, of the "white lie" and the constant  deceit of polite society. There is a real need for reaffirmation and emphasis of the Ninth Commandment (THE WESLEYAN BIBLE COMMENTARY), p234 

If Jesus is The Word, that Word begins with God Himself, so Jesus declared multiple times--the First Commandment being to love God, supremely--in the superlative. One cannot love God supremely without loving his neighbor as himself, as Jesus declared on the mountain, and else where. To fail to love one's neighbor as one's self is to fall short in our love of God, or so John wrote.  

So, I conclude as I began--HOW SACRED IS TRUTH?  

It is a question we must answer for ourselves--every one  of us and it may well determine our eternal destiny. From Warner's World, I am walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

THE STORY OF ALBRECHT DURER'S PRAYING HANDS

   

   Albrecht Durer  was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1471, one of eighteen children, the son of a goldsmith. When Albrecht drew his now famous "Praying Hands" he had no idea that hundreds of years years later, his artistry would be a classic in history and he would be world famous. His story began with two impoverished boys that had to earn their living and study at the same time. It became harder and harder for the two young artists to study and earn enough money for food at the same time.

The two young friends finally found life so difficult, they knew they must find a solution to their problem. They finally determined that one would work and make the living for both. The other would spend all his time in becoming an artist. Once his paintings began to sell, there would be funding for the other to return to his art studies and he too would become an artist.

The older of the two insisted he be the one to earn the living. He already had a restaurant job along with great faith his friend would become a fine artist. The older  one consequently went to work fulltime. He washed dishes. He scrubbed floors. He tackled any task that came his way. He cheerfully worked long hours, happy for his friend who was studying while he anticipated the day he would return to his studies.

The younger man worked equally hard, acquiring more and more artistic skills. Finally, he sold a carving for enough money to pay for their lodging, food, and personal needs for a long time. Now his friend could quit working and again study art, but he quickly discovered the years of hard manual labor had stiffened the muscles in his once limber and sensitive hands. The work enlarged his joints and twisted his fingers. Try as he would, his cracked and gnarled hands could no longer hold the artist's brush properly. His hands were now awkward and clumsy and he lacked the sensitiveness to make the delicate and graceful strokes of a skilled artist. He would never be able to become the painter he had aspired to become all of his life. 

Seeing this, made the younger artist friend extremely sad. Those rough, gnarled, and insensitive hands had made his artistic dreams a reality--for Albrecht Durer to fulfill his dream and become world famous.. Albrecht could always enable the two of them to live comfortably but he wished for some further way to show the gratitude he felt to his friend.

Then one day, Albrecht returned to their room and found his friend praying. He saw those work-worn hands folded in simple, reverent devotion and a wonderful thought entered his mind. He would draw those hands in prayer. He saw the ugliness of the broken finger nails and swollen joints as a wonderful symbol of sacrifice and self-service. He would draw his friend's hands so that people would love and appreciate all hands that have worked and toiled for others.

Thus, Albrecht Durer sketched the now famous "Praying Hands." Albrecht's appreciative artistry has now lived more than four-hundred years during which time Albrecht's skill has inspired people all over the world to find love and beauty in simple, coarse hands like those that made it possible for him to become one of history's greatest religious artists. 

From walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com ... 

be sure you appreciate that hard manual labor done by others who make it possible for you to be whoever or whatever it is that you are.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE GAME OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL

I have always loved the game of football. I was never more than an amateur athlete but I loved sports, the  thrill of competing, and the game itself. I tried track, but found I lacked the drive and the physical endurance to run the Mile and I lacked the speed for the shorter distances. I liked baseball and softball, but my one summer of softball competition on the Gospel Trumpet Company team in the 1945 Anderson Summer League quickly proved to me that I lacked the eye coordination to hit fast pitching.

I played football throughout hi-school. My one moment of glory came during my Junior Year when I won a quarterback position on the Junior Varsity during my Junior Year. It was a thrill for me to ride the team bus to Kalamazoo and play on the turf inside of Western University's Waldo Stadium--a real university stadium and the home of Western's State Hi-School Bronco's. We lost that game but I was at least playing the game. 

Later that year we rode our bus the forty-some miles south to Niles, on the Indiana state line. This game proved hilariously disastrous as Niles stomped us 44-0. My one moment of potential redemption came when I was able to hurl one of those Hail Mary passes as far down the field as I could throw it. It arced high in the sky and pointed downward toward Bob Tortenson and a sure touchdown. He saw it coming his direction, and keeping his eyes skyward, he scurried toward the goal line - only for the ball to drop through his arms and on the ground--one big fizzle as a quarterback. I won a Football Letter during my senior year but I did it playing a substitute blocking Guard on a state championship team. So much for my athletic abilities.

There was never any doubt that I was a rabid football fanatic during my younger adult days as a young pastor. Pastoring a church in an area where the Dallas Cowboys reigned supreme, we all joined the Dandy Don club and became devotees of Don Meredith, then the hottest thing in professional football, and Coach Tom Landry who was both a Coach and a Christian who practiced what he preached. So, it is with some surprise when I view my present disillusionment and disdain with professional football.

WHY DO I LACK ANY INTEREST IN A GAME I HAVE GREATLY LOVED ALL MY LIFE. I think it is this: Professional Football has come to be ALL about competing between network commentators and very little about the competitition and thrill of the game itself. I want to tell the Network Wisemen to SHUT UP  and let me listen to the game. I am not interested in being entertained by their wisdom. I do not want my time as a football fan gobbled up with regurgitated commentary wisdom. I want to watch the game and be allowed to be a football fan instead of another notch in the rating of a Network Commentator.

It will never happen, so good bye footfall. You were once a pleasant past time but you have become an over-ripe banana, mostly mush and no longer edible.