'What God can do with a worm,' says former addict-turned-pastor, is a miracle

Latest freelance story for me, this one on a remarkable couple helping the broken and addicted in Hawaii through faith, example, and humility. https://bit.ly/2OoEEN6

A poem: Of 2019, life's hallways, its memories, loss, faith and hope

The hallway is silent,

my heart is not.

It beats with blood, oxygen and memories,

of love, and loss,

dreams of reunion

anchored in

Eternity

Friends and kin,

grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, 

cousins and friends,

all have walked, some

resolute, some unsure,

these same worn, stained tiles

before me.

And opened that door.

Disappeared

From here,

to where?

Well, There.

Now, I approach 

that threshold

slowly, surely,

with resignation

of mortality;

and comfort of faith.

For below the door,

through the keyhole

Light . . .

And, I am not afraid.

---------------

*Don't freak, dear ones. Just a poem, reflections, as 2019, the year of mourning, nears an end.

Ignoring context, inventing meaning: True in both religion, and pop music

As a still fledgling Eastern Orthodox Christian (yes, three years since baptism, and I'm 66 -- but in the context of 2,000 years and counting for the ancient faith's history, I am still just a metaphorical  toddler), I've learned how important "traditions," both oral and those written down in ecumenical councils millennia past, are to seeing beyond the branches and leaves of the Tree to its strong trunk and deep roots.

That realization led me to reinterpret, and in some cases reject, particular assumptions of my Evangelical/Pentecostal upbringing. . . while still treasuring that background for providing me a foundational love for Christ himself. As a child, I learned my faith's supposedly truest expression was born in a 1906 "revival," where people spoke in tongues at a abandoned barn-like building on Azusa Street, which had been repurposed as a church.

Before 1906, with a few barely mentioned exceptions -- Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, and maybe an American frontier preacher or two like the evangelical reformers John and Charles Wesley -- Christianity had apparently gone dormant. You know, the Dark Ages and all that.

Traditions? A misunderstood and certainly satanic idea! The Church Fathers? Men and women saints and martyrs? Not important.

It (i.e., what was needful) was ALL in the Bible, and of course, that was just what you as an individual understood it to be; if your denomination's teachings offended you, make up your own -- and heck, start your own movement! You'd hardly be alone; rather, you'd just add to the thousands of competing offshoots already out there since Rome broke the East, and Luther with Rome.

All of that a long introduction to my realization today that, without context and historical, doctrinal and philosophical foundation, it's an all-too-human thing to make things up as we go along, and passing that along as "truth," validated only by repetition and fancy. 

The catalyst for my conclusion?  Why, "Puff the Magic Dragon," of course.



Since my 1970's high school years, I've KNOWN that Peter, Paul and Mary were (snicker, wink-wink) singing about weed. Heck, everyone knows that, right? Well . . . no, not according to Definition.org. Actually, the 1963 hit's lyrics were mined from a poem by Leonard Lipton, a friend of band member Peter Yarrow -- and it was simply about a child outgrowing his imaginary dragon friend, "Puff."


Click on that Definitions.org smart link above; the revelations (and disappointment, and maybe irritation born of misinterpretation) continue, including ballads and hits that had either more innocent, or far darker intended themes than they acquired in the popular hive mind.

R.E.M.'s "The One I Love?" Never meant to be the romantic ballad at all, lead singer Michael Stipe says. Really, only the title is misleading, he insists, adding that hit or not, the song almost didn't make recording because R.E.M. saw it as "too brutal . . . violent and awful." Lyrical hint: "(the lover sung about is) a simple prop to occupy my time."

Remember the Police's hit, "Every Breath You Take?" Not a love song at all, though it has been played at thousands of weddings s since its release in the 1980s). It really is a dark song about an obsessed stalker, says lead singer Sting.

There are many more examples of songs interpreted as both far more noble than they were intended to be, or alternatively raunchier than envisioned.

In other words, musical reflections of the sola scriptura mindset of the Protestant Reformation?

Or, it just could be me seeing an all-to-human tendency to ignore context in favor of seeing, as St. Paul wrote, "through a glass, darkly." 

Whatever. In faith, as in music, we do seem to (mis)interpret meaning and Truth through our own wishful/errant reflections, though.