Crucial Passages

This last Sunday during his sermon, our pastor used the phrase "crucial passage" in referring to the scripture he was quoting. "Standing by the cross of Jesus was Mary..." (John19:25). I'm not sure whether our pastor realized that the word he chose, "crucial," comes from the word "cross" in Latin: "crux." Every passage about the cross is crucial, in essence. And herein lies the crux, the turning point, the essential, supremely critical point of every matter, or all that truly matters.

All that is crucial is cross-like. From this root word also comes "excruciating," for the pain experienced on a cross is excruciating. The cross is the crossroad of the avenues of truth and reality. Here Heaven intersects with Earth; God with Man. The crucial passages are those that bring Man closest to God, yet the result of that encounter may be excruciating. For on the cross such pain far surpasses any comforting.

Crucial passages inherently imply pain. The pain of dying to ourselves. The pain of being at one time or another forsaken because of the ways we are separated from God. We need to heed the crucial passages and let their words impale our hearts. "But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there gushed water and blood." (John 19:34) This is a crucial passage...

But there arises another sense of the word "crux." For the crux of a matter lies within the turning point, the pivotal point, the fulcrum point. Within the subject of mechanical physics taught to our fifth-graders, we teach a unit on Levers and Pulleys. Levers are wonderful tools to make work easier, in fact, in some cases some kinds of work are impossible without levers. A lever can be quite simple, yet every lever has a load arm, a force or effort arm, and a fulcrum. The fulcrum doesn't move, but it is around that central point that levers do their work.

The physics behind levers demonstrates that the closer the load is to the fulcrum, the easier the load is to lift, and the further the effort or force is from the fulcrum, the lighter the load feels. The spiritual ramifications for this image can be staggering. For you see, the crux of the matter, the fulcrum of our shared history and destiny as the human race is the incarnation of Christ and Christ on the Cross. The crux of the History of Humanity stands planted in the ground of Golgotha. The closer that we move towards this Fulcrum of Salvation, the easier it is to lift the load: to have the load of sin and alienation lifted from us. The closer we stand by the cross, even as Mary stood by the cross, the easier it is from Him Who is the Still Point of a turning world to lift our load of sin, guilt and shame, of our rebellion and despair, of our brokenness and alienation. And Who is at the other end? So seemingly at an infinite distance from the fulcrum so that every burden can be borne aloft? It is the Father Whose effort lifts our burdens. It is God Who necessarily had to distance himself so far from the Fulcrum that the Fulcrum cried out in lonely anguish: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

We are at one side of the Fulcrum, but God is on the other side---so like a giant seesaw he lifts us up... Some of the most sublime truths can be discovered on the playground. Who would have believed that a simple image of a child's play equipment might be for us a model to understand God's forsaking the Fulcrum of History in order to bring about our Salvation and the Lifting of our burdens.

And some people scoff the wisdom of ensuring a few minutes of recess for our children.

Crucial passages. May they lead to our ReCreation.

What is Important

It's evening. I've already taken the dog out for a nice walk. It's not our dog, but belongs to our friends, the Huffmans. Along the greenway a light fog hugged the grass as walkway lamps illuminated the hovering water vapor in the cool night air. Yet a certain unseasonal warmth prevented me from feeling chilled. The walk did wonders for me. A walk usually does, or especially a good run down Hill Road into the countryside. I love to gaze across the fields, green with wheat shoots or grass tufts, towards the hills whose silhouettes can be seen faintly through the mists and stripes of fog typical of winter. Fog often encourages a sense of mystery in me. This is important to me. Many things are important: things of import, of meaning and significance. Under the clear, sharp, blue sky of summer, things seem so clear, stark and ... mere, at times. Everyone is out and about and everything appears commonplace, even drab. Such clarity of air and sky lends a sense of transparency that causes you to be too sure of things, because they are so clear. But during the winter when most folks huddle inside by the fire or space heater, or lounge in easy chairs if their homes are heated centrally, I venture out to breathe the chill air and smell the scent of smoke drifting my way from brick chimneys. And to behold the fog concealing details of things not far away and letting the mind imagine things beyond the outlines the fog allows. Enough light gets through so one can perceive shapes, but still wonder at what is truly behind or inside those shapes.

Translucence leads one down paths that transparence doesn't encourage.

So what is important to me, besides mystery? Many things come together for me at school. I go out to watch my children ... my students, but I think of them as my children ... during recess. My eyes will wander to the hills half hidden behind homes and houses. Stands of Douglas fir will congregate here and there that during the winter show only an uneven saw blade outline in the mists that wreath the hills. I will yearn to be there. Perhaps out on my bike, climbing the hills on a winding road. Or maybe out under the branches of the firs, scuffing the duff in search of chantrelle mushrooms. And then my eyes are torn from the longing for adventures in nature by the sound of young voices in glee or distress nearby. I wonder how many of the children that argue and chase, shove and blame one another ever bother to raise their heads to look with wonder at the hills not so far away. Are they moved by the fog as I am? Do they allow feelings of awe stir within, to quiet them or arouse them to care for others, to care for mysteries, to care for nature, or to be thankful for God? I don't know. I do know why some people feel that childhood is wasted on the young.

But nonetheless, these children are important to me. Boys with their unruly ways, unkempt hair, bright eyes and energetic limbs; and girls with auburn curls or wisps of blond, flashing smiles and giggles of delight. I know that all children are by definition immature humans in process of growing. At times it doesn't make their immaturity and self-centeredness less a thing to be outgrown, but at least something that is much more bearable knowing that these levels of growth are...in the grand scheme of things...something temporary.

To outgrow childishness and ingrow childlikeness is the task of youth.

For these things of importance we give Thee thanks, o Lord. Amen.

Ice Storm

It's not exactly a storm, but last night as the rain fell, thin sheets of ice began forming on everything outside. We'd hoped for snow, but the cold was hugging the ground more than it was cooling the sky. Rain falls then freezes, coating every branch with increasingly thicker layers of ice: the tree twigs are smitten with ice mittens.

But then later today it thawed. The branches lost their crackling ice sheaths. The sidewalks their slickness. Only a few degrees transforms water from a solid to a liquid, from treacherous slickness, to something moistly benign.

Ah the wonders of nature.

Blessings to all tonight during this winter season.

Welcome to my Blog (online journal)

Welcome. It's the end of a school day. My students have left, the light is failing outside, and a three day weekend looms ahead. Today we had a great talk and discussion about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks, as well as a talk about the civil rights movement as a whole. It wasn't very long ago that our nation was caught up in the grips of racism and segregation. Such attitudes die reluctantly within a nation. Remnants remain.

I remember the adventure I took to Africa back in 1976. I went with a group of United Methodist youth and adults to three nations in Africa: South Africa, Kenya and Zambia (where we spent about 3 weeks.) South Africa, at that time, was embroiled in racial conflict: Apartheid reigned supreme. It was difficult to imagine a change in that country's future except through the sword and fire... Nelson Mandela was still very much in prison, Soweto was rioting, blacks could not vote, and the whites lorded all things over them... But then within fifteen years everything changed. In 1985 I witnessed and participated in new protests in the streets of Berkeley: protesting investments in the brutal South African regime (or at least that is what the Berkeleyites called it. I was after all in BeZerkley, heart of leftwing activism...). I remember seeing Archbishop Desmond Tutu actually fly in with a helicopter while thousands of students and activists chanted and let the walls of UCBerkeley resound with cries of protest against apartheid. It was stirring. Within a few years, due to protests across the world, South Africa changed. Nelson Mandela was freed. A year later he was elected President of the nation that had kept him in gaol for decades. Amazing. All without fire and the sword... or at least the bloodbath some had foretold. Gone are the segregated restaurants, buses, drinking fountains, post offices, schools... Just like the USA in the fifties and sixties. We can change. We have changed. We can still change, grow wiser, become more humane.

So here's to new growth, and a thank-you to Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela, along with a host of others who helped all of us change nonviolently ( as much as we could ...)

Friday, Jan. 14th, 2005