An important lesson if you want to "go the distance"

We said we'd walk together baby come what may
That come the twilight should we lose our way
If as we're walkin a hand should slip free
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me

We swore we'd travel darlin' side by side
We'd help each other stay in stride
But each lover's steps fall so differently
But I'll wait for you
And if I should fall behind
Wait for me

Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true
But you and I know what this world can do
So let's make our steps clear that the other may see
And I'll wait for you
If I should fall behind
Wait for me

Now there's a beautiful river in the valley ahead
There 'neath the oak's bough soon we will be wed
Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me
Darlin' I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

— Bruce Springsteen, "If I Should Fall Behind"

Hello in There

John Prine writes some moving, insightful lyrics.  They should inform our imaginations and our compassion.  

We had an apartment in the city,
Me and Loretta liked living there.
Well, it'd been years since the kids had grown,
A life of their own left us alone.
John and Linda live in Omaha,
And Joe is somewhere on the road.
We lost Davy in the Korean war,
And I still don't know what for, don't matter anymore.

Ya' know that old trees just grow stronger,
And old rivers grow wilder ev'ry day.
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, "Hello in there, hello."

Me and Loretta, we don't talk much more,
She sits and stares through the back door screen.
And all the news just repeats itself
Like some forgotten dream that we've both seen.
Someday I'll go and call up Rudy,
We worked together at the factory.
But what could I say if asks "What's new?"
"Nothing, what's with you? Nothing much to do."  Chorus

So if you're walking down the street sometime
And spot some hollow ancient eyes,
Please don't just pass 'em by and stare
As if you didn't care, say, "Hello in there, hello."

Watch a video performance.

Learning the Tune

A good point by brother Doug Wilson:  

     "A man should only be trusted with the word abomination (a fine scriptural word) if he has just as high a view of the potency of words like forgiveness and gospel.  But I would also want to turn it around.  Our pretty boy theologians should not be trusted with words like forgiveness and gospel unless they can use words like sodomitewithout blushing or apologizing."  Read the whole post.

Tedium or blessed repetition?

This week's labors will bring to many of us tasks that are routine, repetitious, and therefore potentially boring and burdensome.  God does a lot of work like that, too.  Maybe we need his perspective.  G.K. Chesterton wrote:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. (Orthodoxy, Chapter 4)

Suffering with Christ

Programs, systems, and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons.  Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text.  But the invitation to know God—really know him—is always an invitation to suffer.  Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with him.  “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:34-35).

…If I'm to be held steady in the midst of my suffering, I want to be held not by a doctrine or a cause but by the most powerful Person in the universe.

Amazing love, how can it be?  That God should plunge the knife in his heart for me—all the while, me, dry and indifferent, cool and detached.  That he, the God of life, should conquer death by embracing it.  That he should destroy the power of sin by letting it destroy him.    

— Joni Eareckson Tada, When God Weeps

"Faith in Flux"

Here is the article from the Pew Charitable Trust website on the results of their study "Faith in Flux" that I mentioned in the sermon this morning, if you are interested.