Starry Nite

The evening’s activities put me in mind of the event a year earlier. The tone both similar and worlds apart – a celebration of the start of the Christmas season, but this year without the aching heart and scratchy eyes of the day’s grief. As I walked away, the voices, amplified by microphones, echoed off the trees, the strains of the violin soaring above them.

I walked toward my car, alone in the deserted lot at the far end of campus. The tenor, the alto, and the violin together, haunting echoes of the originals, rode the chilly, crisp air: “O night, O Holy night, O night divine!”

And alone, I wept at the beauty of it all, that the Conqueror came in peace¹, on a quiet, holy night, to be pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; to take upon Himself the chastisement that brought us peace, to turn our sorrow into joy and our mourning into dancing. The power of Death was undone by an Infant born of glory². 

¹ Jason Gray. "Easier." Christmas Stories: Repeat the Sounding Joy.
² Andrew Peterson. "Gather 'Round Ye Children, Come." Behold the Lamb of God.

It's the moment you've all been waiting for...

In the 1998-1999 school year at Plymouth-Canton Educational Park, more commonly called "PCEP" or just, "the Park," my days as a high school senior were enlivened with a regular column in the PCEP Perspective student newspaper: "Ahmed's Top 11," written by my friend, Ahmed Baset.

Recently home to visit my parents for Thanksgiving, I came across clippings of my favorite columns, and, with Ahmed's permission, have decided to share them with the world. They are so classically representative of the late-90s high school zeitgeist and the Park's culture that they simply must be shared (plus, they're pretty funny).

So, to begin:

Ahmed's Top 11 Reasons You Should Go Trick-or-Treating

11. You can never get enough Dum-Dums and Smarties
10. It gives you an excuse to dress up as your favorite Spice Girl/Hanson member.
9. You can get a free slurpee at 7-11.
8. It's a chance to restock next year's Halloween candy supply to give out.
7. Two Words: King Size
6. It's the only day of the year you can cross dress and not get beat up for it.
5. The candy gives you something to throw at the people who dressed up as Spice Girls/Hanson members.
4. It'd be cool to bust out your old school Alf Costume.
3. You can try to find a wrong way to eat a Reece's Peanut Butter cup.
2. If you're a Marilyn Manson follower, it's the one night of the year you can get away with dressing like a prep.

And the drum roll please...
1. There's really no feeling like robbing a little kid's bag.

Ahmed's Top 11 Reasons Not to go to Canton's Homecoming

11. Math test on Monday.
10. None of your friends are going so you obviously can't go.
9. "Have to organize the sock drawer."
8. It's not cool to go to homecoming anymore.
7. You're saving your money for the Titanic video.
6. Your favorite blow up doll has a hole in it.
5. Like the guy you like was like such a jerk 'cuz he like liked your best friend who had the guts to like him back and you were like "like Dude no way!" and so like they're going to homecoming and like you're sitting at home painting your nails.
4. You decided it'd be cooler to key everyone's car that's at the dance.
3. Elton John concert is the same freakn' day.
2. No, "moshing, freaking, slam dancing," ...so what's the point?
Drum Roll Please...

1. Big America Online Night. Leonardo DiCaprio will be in a live chat room under keyword "Titanic."

Ahmed's Top 11 things to get your significant other for Valentine's Day

11. Dinner (everybody loves White Castle) and a movie (renting Home Alone 3 counts, right?)
10. Matching Tatoos. Display your love FOREVER.
9. A calendar of yourself for every month of the year.
8. The Ken Starr Report. Makes for good bathroom reading.
7. A chia pet. It really grows and lasts longer than roses.
6. Pez dispenser. Cheap and sexy.
5. Liz Isakson jumping out of a cake in nothing but a shoelace.
4. This guy right here.

3. N'SYNC tickets
2. A pink frisbee (Especially if your significant other happens to be Mikey Haddad)
1. You...lying on their bed...in nothing but whipped cream

And, finally, my personal all-time favorite:

Ahmed's Top 11 Reasons You Know You are Cool

11. You still hang out at what is known as "the tree."
10. You got those new pair of 18 dollar Abercrombie boxers.
9. You were on Gershon Leventhal's PolTalk debate on pornography.
8. You wear a colorful Yankee's hat curved toward the WEST SIDE!
7. You drive a Mercury Cougar.
6. You have a need to make out with your significant other between passing time. GET A ROOM!
5. You can clap and jump at the same time. GO TEAM!
4. You have a long neck key chain hanging out of your pocket.
3. You write a column called the top 11 that pisses a lot of people off.
2. You, Homer, Penny and other security guards hang out at Jeff's house on the weekends...
1. You're white and you wear FUBU.

Don't You Want to Thank Someone

I heard this song for the first time about a week ago at Andrew Peterson's Light for the Lost Boy release concert, and it's been in my mind ever since - not in the "stuck in my head" sense so much as the "stuck in my soul" sense. I've been washing it through my mind's ear over and over again...

I can't find anywhere online where you can hear the whole thing, but seriously, just go buy the album, this is the culmination of ten songs' worth of meditation on the Fall and Redemption - and the beauty of the Kingdom that we see now through a glass dimly.

Don't You Want to Thank Someone

Words and Music by Andrew Peterson / 1/10/2012, The Warren

Romans 8:19

Ephesians 1:13, 14

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” –Gerard Manley Hopkins

Can’t you feel it in your bones

Something isn’t right here

Something that you’ve always known

But you don’t know why

‘Cause every time the sun goes down

We face another night here

Waiting for the world to spin around

Just to survive

But when you see the morning sun

Burning through a silver mist

Don’t you want to thank someone?

Don’t you want to thank someone for this?

Have you ever wondered why

In spite of all that’s wrong here

There’s still so much that goes so right

And beauty abounds?

‘Cause sometimes when you walk outside

The air is full of song here

The thunder rolls and the baby sighs

And the rain comes down

And when you see the spring has come

And it warms you like a mother’s kiss

Don’t you want to thank someone?

Don’t you want to thank someone for this?

I used to be a little boy

As golden as a sunrise

Breaking over Illinois

When the corn was tall

Yeah, but every little boy grows up

And he’s haunted by the heart that died

Longing for the world that was

Before the Fall

Oh, but then forgiveness comes

A grace that I cannot resist

And I just want to thank someone

I just want to thank someone for this

Now I can see the world is charged

It’s glimmering with promises

Written in a script of stars

Dripping from prophets’ lips

But still, my thirst is never slaked

I am hounded by a restlessness

Eaten by this endless ache

But still I will give thanks for this

‘Cause I can see it in the seas of wheat

I can feel it when the horses run

It’s howling in the snowy peaks

It’s blazing in the midnight sun

Just behind a veil of wind

A million angels waiting in the wings

A swirling storm of cherubim

Making ready for the Reckoning

Oh, how long, how long?

Oh, sing on, sing on

And when the world is new again

And the children of the King

Are ancient in their youth again

Maybe it’s a better thing

A better thing

To be more than merely innocent

But to be broken then redeemed by love

Maybe this old world is bent

But it’s waking up

And I’m waking up

‘Cause I can hear the voice of one

He’s crying in the wilderness

“Make ready for the Kingdom Come”

Don’t you want to thank someone for this?

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Come back soon

Come back soon

©2012 Jakedog Music (adm by Music Services) (ASCAP) 

“There Will be Butterflies.”

I came across the line on the airplane. I had decided only days before the conference to read the book, and here I was, on my way, with half of it left to go. Ah, well, I’d thought. If I don’t finish, I don’t finish. No one will be upset with me.

But then I started reading, and words and phrases jumped off the page at me, rattling my notions of how the world works and reminding me that the God I serve is just as micro as He is macro. That the world of molecules and the world of galaxies are magical places, painted by a Great Artist. That the Great Artist loves and cares for and comforts His people.

And I sat on the airplane, devouring the book, almost grateful for the flight delay as it would give me more time on the tilt-a-whirl.

Then I came to the line. I’m not a margin writer. I don’t generally underline. I avoid dog-earing page corners. I like clean pages and post-it notes. But I have journals full of lines from books, the ones that strike me just right that I can’t set aside, that I must keep and find again. So when I came to the line my first instinct was to dig in my backpack for my journal. And then I reached for a pen…and came up empty-handed.

I had grabbed the essentials – wallet, chapstick, Asian coffee-flavored hard candies – from my purse when I put it into the bag being gate-checked. Somehow I had missed a pen.

I was frozen for a moment, torn over the need to mark the passage and my distaste for marring pages. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the man next to me. His burly arms were painted with colorful tattoos, his goatee long and frizzled. He read a graphic novel. It was the graphic novel that made me hope. Tattoos and a grizzly goatee might be on a biker guy, and I’d be less likely to expect him to carry a pen. But the graphic novel made me feel a little kinship with the man – though I can’t say I’ve ever read one. I know people who read graphic novels, and I know that they have creative minds and hearts. He might have a pen.

“Excuse me,” I asked, still slightly intimidated by the gauges in the ears and the hipster glasses on his round face. “Do you have a pen I could borrow?”

The pen was a sea-green Bic with sparkles in the plastic. He was not a cap-chewer. He went back to his graphic novel and I dove back in, to the line, and began writing on the first page of my new journal.

“To His eyes, you never leave the stage. You don’t cease to exist. It is a chapter ending, an act, not the play itself. Look to Him. Walk toward Him. The cocoon is a death, but not a final death. The coffin can be a tragedy, but not for long.

“There will be butterflies.”ⁱ

In an instant I was back in a hospital intensive care unit on December second, knowing that the man in the bed would not recover, would never play piano for me again. I was sitting in my sister’s bedroom on April ninth hearing on the phone that a woman I loved and worked with daily had died the evening before, three weeks after the cancer diagnosis. I was at the memorial service on May fifth, thinking of the man who had been my teacher, and watching his wife and children and grandchildren mourn him.

And I thought of what Lisa said when she woke up on that Easter morning that she died. Her sister came into the room and greeted her with, “He is risen.”

Lisa sat up in the bed and said, “He is risen indeed.” Then she gathered her energy enough to speak again. “It’s Resurrection Day, and my boots are in the closet.”

“There will be butterflies.”

And I thought of losing Keren, and losing Aimee, and all the other coffins that have been tragedies. But not for long.

“There will be butterflies.”

If nothing else this weekend at Hutchmoot reminded me of that hope. I serve the Creator God who chose to enter the anthill, the Second Adam who chose to lay down his life fighting the dragon in order to save His bride.ⁱⁱ Whose people create works that point to Him in various ways, like setting a story in a house called Maison Dieu, which is haunted by a Spirit, which welcomes all travelers to the central Chapel where they are reborn.ⁱⁱⁱ Whose greatest stories plant a signpost at the end that says, “The story goes on that way.”^iv

“Death feels so wrong to us because death ends a story that was meant to go on.”^v

But this life and these deaths are the foundation for a new work, a new creation, built on the old…

“Our hope is not for a happy ending, but for a happy beginning—a new story.”^vi

“There will be butterflies.”

---

ⁱ Wilson, N.D., Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl. Thomas Nelson. p. 113

ⁱⁱ Wilson, N.D., Ideas presented in session on Adventurous Storytelling and in Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl.

ⁱⁱⁱ Goudge, Elizabeth, Pilgrim’s Inn. From Sarah Clarkson’s session on Spiritual Subtext.

^iv Peterson, A.S., Idea presented in session on Tales of the New Creation.

^v Peterson, A.S., Tales of the New Creation.

^vi Trafton, Jennifer. Tales of the New Creation.

Fare Forward, Voyagers

On the Sunday morning of Hutchmoot, my sister and I went to church with the friends we were staying with at Christ Presbyterian Church of Nashville. The minister, Scott Sauls, spoke from Philippians 2 on "The Humility of God." In one of those "God-things" everything he said seemed to fit hand in glove with the content of the conference.

He challenged the congregation to look to Christ's humility as an example and to be imitators of him. He said that humility is the freedom from the need to be thinking of ourselves, that humility liberates us to look toward others. He pointed to Jonathan, the prince of Israel, as an example - Jonathan weakened his own position so that David might become strong. And then he pointed out the irony: the less Jonathan acted like a king, the more kingly he became in character.

We serve a God who likes juxtapositions like that. He requires death for life, losing our lives for finding them. If nothing else this weekend was a reminder of the great juxtaposition that is the Suffering Servant and the Reigning King.

I could tell you the ideas I was presented with this weekend which took my brain out of my head, scrubbed it up and down on a washing board, and stuffed it back in, all freshly laundered and stretched in unfamiliar places. I could tell you about the delightful people I met who were kind, thoughtless of self, and thoughtful of others. I could tell you about the princes and princesses I met who made themselves nothing and thereby became great. 

But I seem to be unable to form into typewritten words what I really want to say about this conference. So, instead, I shall lean upon one of my favorite poets, T.S. Eliot, in his master work of juxtaposition, The Four Quartets.

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.
-"East Coker" V.123-133

I can't quite find a way to explain it, but that passage sums up the feelings from this past weekend - the joy, the agony, the stillness, the running, the hoping, the waiting, the loving, the faith...

We've all gone our separate ways now, and cries of, "Hutchmoot let down!" are filling my news feed on Facebook. I'm certain we shall soon become wrapped up into the worlds we find ourselves in, but I hope that our hugs at the church or at the airport are not fully goodbyes. Instead, I hope that they are not goodbyes at all. But rather moments when, instead of thinking of ourselves, we were free to look toward others, to give them our kingly robes, and to send them out renewed.

"Not fare well, / But fare forward, voyagers." 
-"The Dry Salvages" III.69-70

Staking My Claim

Croatian Flag and Football
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Euro Cup begins in two days. In less than a month, the hopes and dreams of fifteen nations will be dashed, and one will be celebrating.

I read an article today that pointed out that in 2010, Americans got on board with the World Cup with the exciting run of the the USA (including Landon Donovan's fantastic extra-time goal, the furor over which crashed Twitter, Yahoo Sports, and I'm sure quite a few businesses' servers) and that by the time they got knocked out by Ghana in the Round of 16, we were, as a nation, lost to the enthrall of the beautiful game, and continued watching.

However, the article went on to say, this time around, there is no US team to root for. Even for those who are a little more internationally aware, we're missing some of the greats, like Lionel Messi and the Argentinian squad. No, Euro Cup is just for Europe - and if we are to watch with any vested interest, we are forced to choose a team from those whom we may have little or no connection with.

I have no such dilemma, however. I love European football. In fact, I fell in love with the sport in Europe, and all my African-MK brother-in-law's cajoling could not sway me from the continent. I remember watching matches from Euro'96 in bistros, police stations, and corner stores across Central Europe as we traveled through eleven countries in three weeks that June. I will never forget the silence of the streets of Prague the night that Germany beat Czech on penalties in the final. It was a powerful enough moment to root in me a hatred for the German powerhouse that has me rooting for whichever team is currently up against them. I love watching Germany play. I love it even more when they lose.

Four years ago, once my favorites were out of the tournament, I found myself swayed by the magic that was Spain in Euro'08. El Niño swept me along, Iker Casillas made a believer out of me, and La Roja had my full approval when they hoisted the trophy. I joined in their glory again two years later at the World Cup...but that was after England had fallen by the wayside.

For you see, England is my number two. Years of being asked if I was a British exchange student following my year in Hong Kong must have settled into my psyche somehow, for I have a love for the Three Lions. In recent years, I've held them as my "favorite" until they left the tournament.

But for the first time in four years, I get to watch my true favorite play once again. You see, I love Croatia, a little team I fell for fourteen years ago in a bistrot in Normandy, France, surrounded by drunk Dutchmen garbed in orange, and I've never quite gotten over it. I shall look for the red and white checkered uniforms to take the field on Sunday with rising anticipation that maybe, just maybe, this time they have a chance to repeat their run toward the title from the World Cup '98.

I have the benefit, as an American, of not expecting much from my own country's football team. I have the freedom to have three favorites in Europe alone. I have the right to hop from one allegiance to another when a team leaves the tournament, and if it goes poorly for all my teams, I will likely still have the pleasure of rooting for whoever plays Germany.

But I do love Croatia. And I'm glad to see them playing once again.

Grief and Birth

I’ve been trying to figure out if, and if so how, I should add my voice to the many speaking out regarding the proposed name change for Philadelphia Biblical University that was announced this week. On the one hand, everyone is hearing my voice, because I’ve been a part of the team crafting emails, blog posts, and responses to comments “from the University.” On the other hand, no one is hearing my voice because none of that is going out under my name, and it is the official language.

But at the same time, I’ve been realizing that the official language is what is coming out of my mouth when I’m talking to people or coming through my fingertips when I’m typing, and I’ve been trying to figure out if that’s just because it’s familiar language or if it’s because I really think these things.

You see, while the bulk of the population only heard about this potential name change this week, I heard about the possibility of it last fall, and learned the actual name over a month ago. I’m well ahead on my processing from many others, and I didn’t document how I felt when I first heard. (Silly me, I have a rule about that at work – “Always put it in writing as a follow-up for reference, even if you had the conversation.” – but I don’t follow it very well).

I do remember one of my first thought being, “Ugh, that will be a ton of work.” Really, I think that thought overshadowed others for quite some time. But that ton of work, while still looming, has taken on a new meaning since my boss, Lisa, died after a brief illness a couple of weeks ago. She was so excited about this prospect, and she was so concerned when she was in the hospital that we would lose momentum on the progress made. Now that she’s gone, the work isn’t quite the burden that it seemed it would be. Instead, it’s a memorial to her, a stone I’m setting up in her memory to remind me of who she was and of how to move forward, taking in all the things she taught me.

So this week, when the announcement was made, the social media-verse exploded into action. We’ve been watching, responding where appropriate, and trying to take what people are saying with consideration and grace.

But the ones that have hit me hardest are the many folks who are questioning if this is the beginning of the end of all things when it comes to the centrality of scripture as the core of all that PBU does. Sometimes what they say is hurtful because, to me, it implies that they think we’re lying. I’m realizing that people may not really pay any attention to the things I’ve crafted that arrive in their mailbox on a regular basis. (I do know that I really shouldn’t take it personally, of course). Or, if they do pay attention, they seem to think that changing the title of an institution negates everything that has been said, over and over again, for the past three (well, more, but three that I’ve been involved with) years. There are times when I want to just yell, “We are still a biblical university! That will not change! Haven’t you seen us recommit to that as the nature of who we are in every issue of the magazine, every letter we’ve sent, every page on the website? Do you think that pulling the description from our title and instead allowing us to use it as a descriptor (you know, the way it’s built, being an adjective and all) means that everything we’ve said for the past three [or 12] years is a lie?”

In writing with an alumna from the days of PCB when my parents went there (when it was located at 1800 Arch Street), I finally found something new to say that is mine, something that really encapsulates how I feel about what’s going on, the changes that are taking place, and prospects for the future. I’ve adapted it for this space.

I grew up surrounded by 1800 Arch Street-ers and I grew up hearing the stories of those days. As a lover of all things historical, I am glad that that is where "my" university's roots go. And "my" university (I graduated in 2003) was also a very different place than today's institution. Not as different as the 1800 Arch days were, but different. I look back at my experience and I realize that I saw the very beginning of the birth-pangs of the changes that have taken place the past twelve years. I feel as though the past three years that I've been on staff have been the tail end of the birthing and that we are now poised to begin a new life; like a child from a parent, still the same blood, DNA, and genetic code, but an individual in his own right.

So I am praying for this University, no matter what the name ends up being. Because like any child there is absolutely the risk of losing the Way, no matter how much he says his identity is that of his parents, but we need our "parents" - those who've gone before as alumni, faculty, friends - to support us and help us to take new steps in this new world, challenging us to remain strong in our commitments, our core values, and our central focus on Christ and His Word.

That focus and foundation isn't changing, even with a new name. And if it were to start to do so in my lifetime, I would rise up and tell the story of what is happening now, pointing to the figurative stones that are being set up right now as we approach this Board decision and saying, "We are founded on the Word of God. That is our very DNA. On the day when we changed this name we chose 'Cairn' because it gave us a marker to point to and say, 'Look at what God has done. Walk in His Way.'"

And I will teach the next generation about these things, because my biblical university education taught me to do so (when I studied Deuteronomy 6 and 2 Timothy 2 J).

In the past two weeks in my department at PBU we've had a death and a birth. And while we're still grieving the loss of Lisa, our VP for Communications and Marketing, we're also rejoicing in the healthy delivery of Sierra, daughter to my friend Jodi, who worked in our department and now is the Assistant to the President.

I hear the grief in the loss of the "old PCB/PBU", but I also hear in my mind the cries of a prospective newborn "Cairn University."

They're lusty cries, healthy ones, and I can't help but rejoice in the prospects and opportunities new life brings.