Library Notes: February 18th, 2022
We must understand that because God is glorious, life is one big glory war.
-Paul David Tripp, Do You Believe?
This week I have been grateful to count among my reading, the written responses of love and support I’ve received from so many of you in this wild time. The above quote I am grateful as well to have received from a book recommendation from a biblical scholar and one I feel blessed to consider a friend.
One of the great western deficits at this moment in time is for male role models. As I scan my library my eyes fall over the names of men: Bonhoeffer, Franklin, Cervantes, Duran, and many others. How different the life of Plato might have been had it not been for Socrates? Then the life of Aristotle, if not for the life lived with Plato? And then the life of Alexander, had he not been tutored, by Aristotle?
If life is truly one big glory war, wouldn’t it be silly to have every individual fighting as a regular and general in his own army? One man, his own medic, rifleman, airman, marine, radioman, artillery, supply officer, and more… The glory war must be fought with every abled body mobilized.
As I continue to reflect on the male role models I have had in my life thus far, two beach bum surfers come to mind. Mark Foreman and Britt Merrick.
Mark would share this story several times during our time in Carlsbad about a surf session he was out on when a young man paddled along side him in the line up. He asked Mark what he did for work, and Mark replied that he was a pastor. The man replied that he wasn’t religious but that he was spiritual, and, gesturing around at the gorgeous California playa, was his church. “Of course”, Mark would say, “and you’re the pope of your own church!” Mark would then remark to us in that kind yet brilliant rhetoric, “I wondering how that is going to work out?”.
As I reflect on my mothers battle with cancer and this moment in my life today, I recalled the years I spent listening to Britt in Carpinteria. It was Britt’s reality exposed to us all in those years as his daughter Daisy battled cancer, that began a perpetual work in my heart. I remember vividly as Britt’s wife and Daisy came into my work one day on State Street. I looked into Daisy’s eyes and began to tear up, even tearing up now thinking about that moment. I remember saying softly to her, we are all praying for you. She had the grace and elegance of the infinite to receive those words, saying nothing yet returning joy only one on the winning side of the glory war can offer.
Wars are not meant to be fought alone.
On the topic of war, one does not go to war in silence. As much voracious reading and research I’ve done this week from theology to biology (Amyloidosis, Protein Inhibitors, Hormetic Stressors, and the list goes on…), music has been of equal consumption. I think it’s telling that the Psalms don’t just canonize words but instruments and direction. Choral arrangements with directions like Selah, that are right at home with our Latin Cesura and Fermata.
In the Vulgate, Jesus proclaims: Domus mea Domus orationis vocabitur. The Spanish rendered oración. Oration to all English speakers though some English bibles choose the word prayer. But from my English experiences, prayer has been a quiet smoldering rather than a song. So we consider this:
It was written to be spoken.
Perhaps even sung.
And you think your singing is bad? I had surgery in my mouth in my adolescence as a third set of teeth attempted to come in, and while saving my “adult teeth” sacrificed my soft pallet, a requisite to tune ones voice. Without it, tuning is near impossible. So I picked up the drums and strings and play these songs. My prayers, my orations, are now spoken word, but they have a sound track. There’s something to shake the walls and move the roof.
We are all called into the wilderness. If we are to be inspired to live like Jesus we must at least speak, if not sing. Beginning with “It is written…” seems to be a beautiful mystery. The words were not written to simply be read. It needs to leave our lips.
Prayer must be oration.
A reminder for myself in this time.