The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 4, Music.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is partly about some of the events and people of her life, but more than that it is also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

During her decades as a travel agent and small business owner, the entire earth changed its orbit and started spinning in reverse. The amazing technologies of the 1900’s didn’t merely innovate travel, commerce, and leisure; these technologies established innovation itself as the new paradigm. Here we see another odd paradox for the giants of her generation: the innovations that made them powerful became more powerful than their inventors and swallowed them whole, like what might happen if a goldfish could birth a shark. The men and women who first mastered their creations could not have fathomed the implications their inventions would have on their grandchildren.

This is even more ironic when we consider those novel little companies whose very business drives them out of business. Consider the success of the great newspaper moguls of the early century whose empires were eventually driven out of business by the Internet for which they paved the way. They didn’t just offer information to the masses; they offered need of information. The Internet was born for the very purpose of supporting the speed and volume of information the newspapers instigated. Ironically, as we all know, our headline-lust has been helping drive paper-based news out of its own business. They’ve lost at their own game.

This is just one example of innovation-domination. On a long enough timeline, their success is the same thing as their demise. Miss Jane’s travel agency benefited from this type of success. She could not have foreseen that every travel destination she booked was helping make her business a bit more obsolete; she shrank the globe one customer at a time. Thus her occupation helped advance the world of travel while the job itself remained motionless. I like to imagine that her little office must have been a major pivot point for many great inventions and ideas, because, after all, Miss Jane was rich with many great connections and stories. Her travel agency was like the pivot foot of a basketball player – because the foot stays planted, the rest of the body is allowed to make giant turns around it. Miss Jane delighted in being the hub of all important movements while she stayed planted. That’s not to say she was a sloth – far from it, you will never meet anyone more active than she was. Rather, despite these baffling changes all around her, it never occurred to her to try outrunning her ancestors. For years, week in and week out, her life kept a happy rhythm, which she humbly counted as the measured pace of every servant of Jesus.

Let us pause here to wonder and pray about our individual roles in these historical shifts – these titanic changes. Let us not take for granted that all these changes are a benefit. Indeed, they are not all beneficial. For many of you reading this, your success with these innovations might well be the same as your demise. It is sobering how drastically the world has changed from the time of Miss Jane’s birth till her death: the technology, the political earthquakes, the reincarnation of old ideas; the shift from the Church occupying the center of all social activity, yet forfeiting it to a network of computer screens where everyone is “connected” without being in the same room. The 1900’s advanced so rapidly that it is as if the very story of human history saw its finish line and tried to outrun its own people to the end. In fast times like these, Miss Jane often went against the grain, believing it important to heed the old Wisdom of slow feet. (Please, dear reader, I want to help you see these things in their complexity to really help you understand the complexity of this dear lady.) Consider that, through all these changes, Miss Jane could speak intelligently about every current event. She stayed active in politics both locally and nationally, and she kept a thriving small-business in a college town with good relationship to young clientele. Yet she hardly ever saw a movie in her entire life. She refused to believe a computer was good for anything except flying rockets to the moon (and that may not be worth much either). And, most poignant of all, she would not stoop to call anything “music” which didn’t receive its blood and bones from fathers like Beethoven, Bach, or Handel. Everything in the world was evolving to handle the speed and change encouraged by her travel agency; yet her own roots were deep, and slow, and ancient. Hers was the tree’s life when all the world had gone to weeds. 

Nothing better represents this contrast than Music. She loved her music, and it was old. More than old: it was Immortal. Her music belonged to that ancient class of wild, mysterious objects that can’t be changed by the generations – like mountains, or oceans, or stars. If her music was unchangeable, it’s because she believed it held as much mass and meaning as a mountain or an ocean or a star. It is not there to behold you; you are there to behold it. And it will scoff at your passing long after you’re dead and can no longer behold anything. Hers was so unlike the music of my generation, which usually has only enough mass to last about a decade. After that our music usually becomes a joke, something for the next decade of teenagers to mock. There was a time in my youth when other people’s music was my favorite joke (much like the way a new crop of weeds dominates another). It is the type of joke that invented the term “generation gap.” Since the 1950’s, each new generation of teens has weaponized their music to suppress and kill the previous generation’s music, making it impossible for a people to unite under a common tune. Innovation, it turns out, makes an equally cruel lord to music as it does to business. 

When this regrettable music divide happened in the Church, it fell with the violence of a divorce. We called it “Worship Wars,” and you know what I’m talking about. I’d like here to confess – as a representative of my generation, the generation borne of the wealthiest Church in world history and the Christian music boom of the 1980’s and ‘90’s – that even in my deepest sympathies toward hymnals and organs and all the classics, I wished earnestly to destroy it, or worse, to forget it. I didn’t care if the earth was wiped of its memory, as long as my side of music won the game. I think back now on some of the first “contemporary songs” that began to supplant the old songs, and we don’t sing them anymore. They’re a shameless self-joke, the yearbook picture of a pubescent boy doing his best to look tough. More than that, they’re a mistake; just consider how each “contemporary song” from just a few years ago is now called “old” and gets groans and protests whenever the tune is re-played. Just imagine that: a 4 year old song supplanting a 400 year old song, then destroying itself by the same mechanism it used to win the silly game it invented. How embarrassing. The Church’s Worship Wars were a fool’s quest. It is like ripping out your vegetable garden to plant rye grass, then complaining of a sore appetite. It is like demanding your grandfather’s inheritance before he’s dead. It is like selling your birthright for a bowl of stew. And we’ve literally applauded it.

But Miss Jane protested it. 

Yet she didn’t walk away from her church, even when she felt they walked away from her music.

At last, here it is. We’ve reached the tender nerve. Even now, it is a hard thing to expose without defensiveness from some, and attacks from others. Nonetheless, there she sits at her organ, stubborn as a gargoyle but soft as a willow, playing the songs she wished we loved. It is the thing I’ve come to admire most about her: equal faithfulness to the “old” music and to the “young” church. She never missed an opportunity to give us an earful about how we should play the hymns (“And please, without that dreadful guitar! You could make better music with a freight train!”), but the point is she was there to say it. She did not leave, though a flood of temptation tried to sweep her away. Miss Jane did not leave.

Dear reader, do take a moment here with me, and let’s humble ourselves together. Let’s sit one last time at the feet of an elder with whom we ardently disagreed, yet who never left our side. Let’s pass under her argument once more to test whether it holds any truth. And if it does, let’s believe it.

It seems to me that music is the audible soul of a culture. Miss Jane ached to impart a culture rich with heritage and lineage to young brats like me. She felt as close to her music as to her last name, because they’re both current and ancient. Her music gave her the same kind of stability as a good family name. How fitting then that she sang the songs in her last year that she had learned in her first. If you’re like me, you’ve switched music styles a dozen times since childhood, not unlike changing your name to make yourself more “unique;” not unlike getting a nose job because the eyes of other people are more important to you than your own dear face. Indeed, when your music is as ancient and sacred as a mountain, it will compose you. And, I now believe, that what she really wanted to ensure as she sat at her organ and pleaded the hymns was something less tangible but more essential than I ever stopped to receive: undying delight in knowing exactly who you are in Christ.

Thus, even when she couldn’t affect the music culture of her church, Miss Jane passed on to me (and I pray now, dear reader, to you) the immortal spirit of faithfulness to the Church – the Bride of Christ – that her music embodied. 

Faithfulness, after all, makes a music all its own, and it is the only fitting overture for the Wedding Day of the Lamb. 

The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 3, The Travel Agency.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is partly about some of the events and people of her life, but more than that it is also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours. 

For decades after college, Miss Jane lived a good life, the life she had been raised for. The bulk of these years were spent as a business partner in a successful travel agency. She bought 50 percent of the company with Dr. Adam Miller, an American World War II veteran who spoke Japanese and helped interpret for the signing of the armistice that ended the War. 

I’ll give a word about Dr. Miller’s character: Miss Jane could not have worked so long with just any old chump; her standards would have required her business partner to be a gentleman. She just wouldn’t have put up with it any other way. He was proper, and, naturally, she respected that about him. He had a few mannerly quirks that she even made fun of a few times, but she still admired him. For example, if ever the two of them had to drive somewhere together by themselves, he would always make her drive while he sat in the back seat, just to avoid any question of his integrity to his wife or anyone else. Dr. Miller was an accomplished historical theologian in his own right and had even written a book on Church history. Miss Jane always acted surprised whenever I would remind her that I didn’t use his book in any of my college classes. She would say things like, “No one could possibly know what they’re really talking about on Biblical history unless they knew what Dr. Adam Miller said on such-and-such a subject.” This was her admiration for her business partner.

She loved the travel agency – the charm and the research it required, the regular customers, remembering names, finding bargains, sharing mutual travel stories, and booking a celebrity from time to time. (By the way, Miss Jane used an advanced paradigm to determine celebrity. Our culture evaluates celebrity by how many people know about a certain person; Miss Jane evaluated it by how much a person deserved to be known. Ours is based on marketability; hers was by remarkability. You may laugh because she had never heard of Katy Perry, but she’d laugh at you because you don’t know your own mayor. Thus, she was always talking about unknown people as though you were the one with your head in the sand. And she was right.) The travel agency gave her that deep, abiding satisfaction that fewer and fewer of my generation experience: she loved her job.

It was in working with that business partner, in that town, with that type of business, that Miss Jane built a small fortune and traveled the globe. Almost every continent. Multiple countries within each continent. She toured this planet with zeal, as if to familiarize herself with her Christian inheritance. Just think of that for a moment; I hope it stuns you. God granted world travel to this dirt-poor, Depression-born, only-child-of-her-mother little girl from Alabama. By the time I had met her, she had seen things I haven’t yet read about. She would mention these travels every chance she got. Her stories were frank, yet she could never quite conceal her delight in bringing them up. It is, perhaps, like how I imagine the children of some mega-celebrity would try to blend in in public, “Oh yeah, I was at the game when Michael Jordan won his sixth championship. He happens to be my dad, so...ya know.” She would often hunt for people’s travel stories in conversation – searching for the shared landmarks, the cultural oddities, the local dishes that only people who had been to that corner market could have tasted and all the places fellow travelers also held sacred.

As one of her church’s pastors while she was in her 80’s, I saw this scene unfold several times, and I was always quite in awe of it: her aging frame would frequently land her in the hospital, and I’d get to sit with her in an ER hallway as she’d tell foreign doctors about her travels in their home countries. We all knew she was showing off, and we loved it, nobody minded. Many nurses and doctors listened intently as if to learn. Some simply patronized her with a bubble-gum-type of interest whose sweetness wore out just as soon as it began. Others were clearly distracted with the million other things nurses have on their minds. Then there were some nurses and doctors, aside from distraction, who were clearly dismissive and apathetic to her relentless charm. And as I reflect on it all, I’m amazed – it’s shocking when you think about it – that all your best adventures will soon be treated like checkmarks on some nurse’s clipboard.  Not all nurses, but some nurses. He’ll let you ramble about the old days while he’s more in tune with the numerical biology of your vital signs than with you. She’ll treat your proudest moments with the same malaise that she checks your urine bag. You. It is coming, and it is close. Your face will shrivel and your joints will fail, but worst of all, your stories will be uncherished; your words will be simply tolerated by some young person rushing in to the same old destiny.

You might never let yourself think of this reality, but you know you know it. And when it overtakes you, when your stories give way to silence, when there is no more audience, only one question will matter: Who? Who saw your tales unfold, and who will hear them now? Who accompanied every journey? If the only people who would be interested because they lived out your times with you are dead, and all the young people who owe you an ear don’t care, then to whom will you turn? It is the question everyone always cares about at the End. But this haunting question has a great solace if we add just a single, triumphant word: For. For Whom? And such a bold question can be satisfied by only one gracious answer, the only One who has seen every human face perish from the face of the earth from Abel to you: the One Immortal, Invisible, only Wise God. The One for whose sake every day unfolded will be your best companion when your last day enfolds you. Miss Jane, even amid her ornery boasting and shameless name-dropping, really did live every day from, and to, and in, and for Jesus Christ. When death seized her like an owl’s claw and the Last Question demanded its final response, Miss Jane could reply with gentle repose, “Thee, my Lord. None but Thee.”

Perhaps, in view of these weighty things, we are ready for the ever-timely and ever-tender word of the Psalmist, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” (Ps 116:15)

The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 2, Anderson College.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is partly about some of the events and people of her life, but more than that it is also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

We live now in a world that no longer believes in sacred places, either by exclusion (e.g. there’s no such thing as a sacred place), or by inclusion (e.g. every place is equally sacred therefore no one place has any special meaning). The first finds its roots in atheism, the second in pantheism, but both have the same conclusion: no place is necessarily sacred. I’ll not here draw out the logical ends of these lines of thought, but I must point it out so you’ll understand that Miss Jane didn’t suffer from such modern nonsense. She knew some places sacred and some places common, and you would do well not to confuse the two. (Even as I write this, I can hear her adjusting even this idea, “Places are not sacred, my dear boy, God is sacred, and it is up to Him whether He makes a place special or not special.” Yes ma’am.) Anderson, Indiana was sacred to Miss Jane. All her childhood she looked forward to living there, then most of her adulthood she did. Then after moving away from there as an older woman, she always regarded it with tender reverence. Rome could take notes from Anderson on how to endear a people to itself as Miss Jane adored that city. Without question, Anderson was the setting of her Golden Years. Those of you who haven’t yet seen the Church of God, I’m afraid I just can’t explain why Miss Jane felt so strongly for Anderson; only this – it was sacred. Those of you reading this who have seen the Church of God are probably either smiling or rolling your eyes. I’m smiling.

As a teen girl, Miss Jane’s mom would pay a cheap weekend fare to let her ride the train from Decatur, Alabama to Anderson, Indiana just to spend a couple days at a time, perhaps to admire her bright future. Miss Jane would do her homework on the ride up and sleep or window-watch all the way back. These kinds of trips made travel as lovely a thing as her beloved city. On every trip she carried an invisible suitcase full of her mother’s Trust, her papa’s Dignity, and the Privilege of a young lady who gets rewarded for her best behavior. She did not waste any of these trips on common teenage dangers; there was too precious little time for stupid games. Rather, she sought acquaintance with Church leaders, and she availed herself of the grand musical instruments of Park Avenue Church of God. There was no finer setting than Anderson to fall in love with the music and theology of her Church, which every young girl should do, but so few do, or even are allowed to.

It easily follows then that Miss Jane earned her undergraduate degree at Anderson College (now Anderson University). In my observation, most freshmen either act like they own the place or recede to the shadows; she never verbalized this but I can clearly imagine that she arrived acting like she owned the place. She never seemed to need a shadow. Anderson was, in the sweetest sense, home. She talked about her college days the way friends quote great movies to each other. It gets a better laugh the more often you quote it, and the better the movie, the more mileage to its quotes. Only, Miss Jane’s reverie of college will far outlive any mention of Anchorman, even now. It was just that good. She went in the 1950’s and majored in Commercial Art and Advertising, and for a few years after graduation she worked for the marketing department of a grocery chain (in a time when hardly anyone talked about “marketing departments,” I might add).

Old Main at Anderson College

But the main thing I glean from her college years is not that it was the best of times, rather that she rightly assessed it as a springboard for the best of times. How many of our modern stories depict adolescence and college-years as an invincible age, where no sin is accounted for and life can’t get any better? Then the same storytellers, without intending contradiction, turn around and spin dreary tales of the gray lives of mortgage-paying adults who rise above responsibility and “find themselves” by returning to younger, more carefree times. Miss Jane did not get this backwards: the fun of college was mere foretaste to the pleasure of meaningful adulthood. Grape juice, then wine. In college, she was a southern debutante coming into society, wisely making a good first impression rather than chattering her good name away over free champagne and hors d’oeuvres. She may have acted like she owned the place – she was admittedly guilty of some mildly silly antics – but she was never unseemly.

I saw only one picture of her during her college years. She was probably 20, sitting in a small classroom of peers, and the black and white photo reminded me that cameras were still rare, so everyone knew they had to get it right. Miss Jane was amid a soft bundle of girls in the middle of the class. She wore a neck scarf and classic 1950’s cat-eye glasses. Her hair was bobbed just below her ears, and I’m certain her skirt reached her shoes though it wasn’t visible in the picture. I seem to remember she was clutching a purse pulled into two magnetic knees. And she did not quite smile. She was pretty: her expression was exactly like a doe: controlled with due caution, focused, innocent, pleased, yet prepared to bound away. There was something natural yet wild about the angle of her neck. Her eyes, you could tell even at that age, were determined to see yours just as much as they were seen. And she had also trained her eyes, even then, to show you that they kept a secret for the secret’s sake. And as a doe, you dared neither approach nor look away, because it was clear, whether she meant for you to know it or not, that every encounter with her is a gift. I do not know many college girls these days that can pull off a look like that, despite flooding Facebook with their best attempts. 

The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 1, Girlhood.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is not simply about the events and people of her life, but also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

She was born August 2, 1930 in Decatur, Alabama as Martha Jane Bradford, and she battled the name “Martha” her whole life the same way people battle the stomach flu. If she were reading this now, she’d probably give me a dirty look for even mentioning it. Her mother’s name was Tassie, a God-fearing seamstress who loved her daughter enough to give spankings, hugs, and Bible lessons at all the right times. I can’t remember her dad’s name, and out of respect to Miss Jane I won’t bother to research it. She always said with quiet loneliness that he left her and Tassie the same week she was born because he had wished she was a boy. I’m sure there was more to the story than Miss Jane shared, or probably that she even knew. It is interesting, though, that often the only thing that’s told about any story is the only thing that matters. He was never part of her life. About the only other thing I knew of him is that after Miss Jane was grown, he was hit by a car and killed while crossing a street in Decatur, and Tassie was the only one who bothered to visit him in the hospital to grieve his passing. If Almighty God ever sees fit to use a jury at Judgment Day, then I imagine that scoundrels like Miss Jane’s father will beg for the merciful saints they wounded to be on the panel.

Miss Jane believed the 1930’s was probably the last decade anyone could’ve been born with any real sense. The older I get, the more I think she was right. She was an only-child, and as happens with many only-children she was spoiled. However, her mom didn’t spoil her with toys and things: she was spoiled by good manners. Only-children who are spoiled with clothes and stuff grow up acting smug about their possessions, and they often become un-sharing snobs. Miss Jane never suffered this smugness because she grew up poor. Her toys were second-hand and her clothes were precious; but every correction to say “please” and “thank you,” to keep elbows off the table, or never to run or climb in a skirt, these were little Jane’s daily allowance. Tassie gave them so generously that her daughter grew to pity anyone impoverished of them. Miss Jane grew to wear propriety like a tiara, and was never more at home than among the well-behaved. That’s not to say she was never smug, but rather that if she was smug she had good reason for it: she felt her upbringing was better than other kids’, the same way a rich kid’s corvette is better than a skateboard. Thus she was living proof that money and wealth can never measure class.

Miss Jane came from a different era. Now when I say “different era,” you probably think I mean The Depression-Era-South, as opposed to our Modern Era (whatever that means). That’s true to a small degree, but it only tells you what century her body aged, and that she witnessed multiple-global-seismic-booms in technology, and that she was familiar with social and historical turmoil. But when I say she was from a different era, I really mean she was an “old soul” in the classic sense. To our techno-saturated, commercially-driven, no-time-to-learn-your-name culture, Miss Jane’s old fashioned sensibilities might as well have been from another millennium as just another generation. She was from beyond her own century. Her biases may have come from the 1930’s, but her heart and soul came from the time of kings and queens, of courtiers and castles, when Merlin had more influence than McDonald's. There was more of Camelot than of Cullman about Miss Jane. Rarely have I met a woman so stubbornly grounded in practicality and decorum like a duchess, while balanced by all the girlish wonder and enchantment of a fairy. All her best stories gave a wink toward mystery, toward a beloved time long forgotten. All her dealings followed their proper order with grandeur and charm. Dragons were real, and she wasn’t afraid to point out the absurdity of any man who didn’t have the chest to go and fight them. And no matter what anyone else thought they heard, the organ was the pinnacle of all instruments, because nothing else was as fitting for the majestic halls of royalty. She was regal, and she felt it every day. How odd were those of us who couldn’t feel it too.

And this is what I find most amazing about her: as a little girl, she inferred she was a princess without her daddy or Disney ever telling her so. When so many fatherless girls come to believe they are garbage, Miss Jane came to believe the Scriptures: that she was part of a Royal Priesthood, and that the Church is the Bride of the King. Best of all, she knew that she was the Church; thus, she knew she was Jesus’ Bride. From girlhood her faith was more of Romance than Religion. If you didn’t know this about her, then you probably misunderstood her deep affection for and attachment to the Church. My generation has odiously presumed, “I’m special, therefore the Church is special;” but Miss Jane got it right: “The Church is special, therefore I’m special.” She had an implicit sense of betrothal to her King. Maybe that’s why she could never marry: no mere man could live up to her battle-worthy Prince of Peace.

Miss Jane wasn’t completely fatherless, because she did have a father in the Faith: the Reverend Dr. Dale Oldham. Dale was her “Papa” and he walked her down the aisle to Christ. Miss Jane never mentioned him without the honor due a father. She was proud, beyond proud, to call him “Papa,” though I was never clear whether he gave little Jane the name "Papa" as a present, or if she chose it for him and informed him that’s who he was. Whichever way it came about, “Jane’s Papa” is who he was, and out of respect to Fate I’ll conclude they chose each other and the name “Papa” was spontaneously mutual. She always had an angle when she talked to you about him, namely, to make you jealous he wasn’t your Papa. For my part, it kind of worked. 

Reverend Oldham was the kind of man every other man should want to be, an honest champion. I’m not saying this because Miss Jane drew any realistic pictures of him; in fact, it’s very likely she ran wild with altruism, exaggerating all his good traits with equal blindness to his bad, like a politician backed into a corner. That’s not why I call him a champion. Rather, I want to be like Miss Jane’s Papa because he was the kind of man who didn’t protect himself from the loneliness of a little girl who had been left by her actual father. His hands were strong and tender enough to patch the scrapes of a little girl who didn’t belong to any man in particular, the same way a wounded bird belongs to no one in particular but you admire the man patient enough to mend its wing. Just the fact that Miss Jane kept bragging on him after so many decades is all I need to know to know the man was a shepherd, and a real daddy, and a true friend. In fact, these are the same words I use about God; thus, no better words could describe any man than shepherd, real daddy, true friend; thus, if any man thinks there is any higher achievement than to be a shepherd, or a real daddy, or a true friend, then he has exposed that he is an idolater. Such a wicked man should repent, and as penance he should teach a lonely little girl to be Jesus’ princess the way Dale Oldham taught Miss Jane. But even then, the next-best-man will have to live in Dale’s shadow, for it is a bold man indeed to convince anyone of their royalty the way Miss Jane held to hers. 

Deuteronomy 5&6

this is my attempt at a straightforward way to rhyme the 10 Commandments and the Sh'ma so my students can memorize them easily. my friend johnny cash helped me get started with his version. most of the other songs or videos i found were trite or complicated (a couple of them even seemed more like brainwashing than teaching!).

let me know if you've got some good (semi)original music to put to it. 

Listening is Freedom.

1 You shall have no gods before Me, that’s My first command

2 Do not make any graven image or idols by your hands

3 Do not take My Name in vain or speak of Me carelessly

4 Remember to keep the Sabbath Holy and to worship Me

5 Honor your father and your mother

6 You shall not kill

7 Do not commit adultery

8 Do not ever steal

9 Do not ever lie to others, but always speak the Truth

10 Do not covet your neighbor's stuff or want what doesn’t belong to you 

  

So Hear me now, O Israel, I will teach you how to stand:

Always Fear the Lord your God! Fall in Love with His commands!

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is forever One.

Love Him with all your heart, soul, and strength, with the breath inside your lungs.

These commands you’ve heard today must be written on your hearts.

Impress them on your children! Sing them in your cars!

Remember them when sit at home or you’re walking on the street,

When you lie down and when you get up and when you brush your teeth.

Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your heads.

Write them on your doorframes and on the ceiling above your beds.

And let your Fear and Love of God be equal and never cease,

May He Bless, Keep, Shine on and Face you, granting His Goodness and His Peace.

Numbers 13 & 14

Hear me, dear students of the UnderGround:

The Lord is One, but He is not proud;

Because of His Love, now hear the sound

Of the saddest story that's ever been found.

So open your heart and wet your eyes,

This tragic tale should make grown men cry.

It’s the saddest story since the Serpent’s first lies:

It’s the tale of God’s Sovereign choice, denied.

We know that Father Abraham ended up with many sons,

But only by Faith – he saw only one.

Only Isaac was born as a down payment from

The Lord God who promised many more to come.

Nevertheless Abraham believed

That though God’s invisible, His Will can be seen;

Though the world’s a dark place, God’s Blessing redeems

All the homeless nameless orphans who approach Him in need.

Then Abraham’s grandsons to Egypt arrived;

And God Blessed the family to be multiplied,

And though Abraham didn’t see it with his own eyes

He knew God’s Word would never compromise.

But as we all know, the Egyptians were cruel,

Turning Abraham’s offspring into slaves used as tools

To build the abominable Empire of Fools

Who lust for God’s Riches, who hoard all His Jewels.

So in 10 straight shots God flexed Mercy and Justice –

10 plagues that turned Egyptian gold to rust,

And with every fierce blow God earned the Trust

Of the Israelite slaves whose lives were worth dust.

As Abraham had Trusted, God stooped to redeem

His descendants who with their own eyes could see

The invisible Power that their grandpa believed

As they walked on dry ground through the heart of the sea.

And whenever they hungered, and in response to their thirst,

God sent bread from the sky, and caused rocks to burst

With geysers of water, so that they could be the first

People on earth to be redeemed from the Curse.

And Old Humble Moses was God’s man of Choice

To lead with his staff and to raise his own voice,

“God’s making us Holy! It’s time to rejoice!

Let’s devote to Him our possessions, our daughters, our boys!

So Hear me, O children of Abraham’s Blessing:

The Lord wants your Fear and your Love, so don’t test Him!

Take heed to obey each command and every lesson,

Or you’ll wind up with His curse instead of His Blessing.”

And now, my dear students, comes the saddest of parts,

The piece of the story that shattered God’s heart;

So believe what i tell you, and never depart

From all the Wisdom in this story that the Scriptures impart.

As the Israelite people neared the Promised Ground,

Moses leaned on his staff, and looked around

For a Warrior from each tribe to explore what could be found,

And to scout out the land for which they were bound.

12 men of faith and courage, as far as they could see,

From Reuben, Dan, and Simeon, Gad, Asher, Naphtali,

Benjamin and Zebulun, Issachar and Manasseh,

But clearly the two bravest came from Ephraim and Judah.

Then Wise Old Moses looked each scout in the eye,

“Take courage, sons, we’ve nearly arrived!

For you have been chosen to go over and spy

God’s Promise-come-true, for Now is His time.

Now survey the land and bring back the report –

Is the soil rich or poor? Its People tall or short?

Are they warriors within castles, or do they lounge in resorts?

No matter either way – WE’VE got the Power of the Lord!

Start in the valleys, and explore the hills,

Climb a few trees, enjoy a few spills.

Bring back some fruit, but don’t plunder your fill

Until you return with some good news to tell!

So go now in confidence, do not fear the darkness!

YHWH is with us, and no power can harness

His unstoppable Mercy, His fury in Justice,

And we are His Chosen, His Beloved, His Promise!”

The next forty days the spies wandered and roamed

The beautiful land to which God called them home,

And amid the beauty they were chilled to the bone:

It was a land so fertile that giants had grown!

After forty days’ search they returned with a prize,

Some fruit and some figs and some grapes the size

Of your fist – a cluster so big the people rubbed their eyes:

The gigantic grapes were carried by two guys!

The 12 chosen men stood in front of the crowd,

The people grew anxious as they gathered around

To hear their report that they hoped would sound

Like a walk in the park, like an old lost-and-found.

Ten men spoke up, “We surveyed the whole place –

It’s not big, it’s HUGE! An unbelievable space!

It does flow with milk and honey so sweet to the taste

You’ll want to smack yo’ mama right in her face!

But just look at this fruit – these grapes on the pole;

The land is so big it will swallow us all!

These grapes represent just a part of the whole –

‘Cause there’s giants in the land, and they’re in control.

The legend of the Nephilim is real,

The descendants of Anak look like Shaq in high heels!

Nothing could stand in their way if they feel

Like smashing us grasshoppers beneath their wheels.

And they’re not alone: they’ve got neighbors so wicked

They make Darth Vader seem like he cares for kittens.

We’d be much better off just turning ‘round and kickin’

Our butts back to Egypt to be slaves in their kitchens.”

Then Caleb stood up as bold as a lion,

The scout from Judah who was part of the spying,

“Take heart! Don’t fear! We’ve got YHWH on our side and

If we hesitate now we’ll all surely die!”

And the other faithful scout who was Caleb’s best friend,

The man Moses called Joshua from the tribe of Ephraim,

Shouted fiercely against his company’s rebellion,

“Don’t listen to these fools! Silence! Ignore them!

The land we explored is exceedingly good!

It’s by the Lord’s power that in Egypt we stood!

If the Lord is with us, then He’ll shed the blood!

All we must do is to Trust that He’s good!

After all the great things that YHWH has done,

Do not rebel now, don’t cower and run!

God is with us, so their protection is gone;

We’ll swallow them up like old bubble gum!”

But it was too late, the damage was done,

The people were scared, the cowards had won.

And just like the fate of many brave men i’ve known,

They chose to kill Joshua & Caleb with stones.

That night the descendants of Abraham cried,

And grumbled against Moses and Aaron and sighed,

“What good will it be in the desert to die,

Or in a new land to lose our daughters and wives?

The 10 men are right – we shouldn’t have come,

YHWH doesn’t care, He’s blind, deaf, and dumb.

Now let’s choose a leader, whom to Egypt will run,

‘Cause we’d rather be slaves than have God’s Freedom.”

Now Moses was the humblest man on the earth:

He threw down his staff and his knees hit the dirt.

He knew good and well that God’s heart would be hurt

That His Chosen people would choose to revert.

Now before i go on with my story of woe,

There’s one thing from you that i’d like to know:

Up to now, when God to you His Goodness showed,

Did you accept it in faith, or just let it go?

When God heard the Israelites grumble and curse,

He gritted His teeth, His rage started to burst,

In a Pillar of Cloud His glory descended to earth,

To meet there with Moses as he wept in the dirt.

The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people

Despise My Goodness, My Name, My Tabernacle?

In spite of every wonder, sign, and miracle

They still rebel and consider Me an imbecile!

All they ever do is complain, stomp, and pout –

Yet I’ve given them everything, left no room for doubt!

They’re done now – I’m going to wipe them all out!

I’ll re-start with you, Moses – a new nation Will come about!”

And with the masses still complaining and distressed,

Moses proved that he knew YHWH best:

When the moment came for Moses to pass the test,

He asked God not to curse, but rather to Bless.

Moses raised his empty hands to the Lord,

“Please don’t let the Egyptians have the last word!

They couldn’t kill the Hebrews by might of their sword

Because Your Power had Called every last slave forward!

Your Name is already revered in the Land,

Don’t give the enemy a reason to doubt your strong Hand;

They’ve heard that You’ve spoken face-to-face with a man

And they know You alone can make slaves to stand!

The nations will say, ‘See how YHWH failed!’

And they’ll laugh and mock You and they’ll pompously wail.

And then upon more enemies Your Name must avail

And there’ll never be an end to where the blood trails.

Now YHWH, my Lord, flex the true strength of Your Name,

‘My Name Is I AM, I’M ALWAYS THE SAME.

ABOUNDING IN LOVE AND FORGIVING EACH SHAME,

BRINGING THE GUILTY TO JUSTICE AND AVENGING THE LAME.’

The Cloud at the Tent in which dwelt the Lord,

Was big as tree and thick as a board.

God spoke like thunder about the faithless hoard,

For Wise Old Moses had struck the right chord:

God said, “I’ve forgiven them just as you asked.

But just as I Live not one of them will pass

Into the rich land of sweet fruit and green grass,

Because they doubted that My Goodness would last.

All of the people who saw My Great Signs

Are the same faithless cowards who deny Me as Kind.

For each of the plagues, they’ve tested Me 10 times,

Rejecting both Me and their land; so in the desert they’ll die!

Tell them I’ll do to them exactly what they said,

They won’t see My Promise since they’d rather be dead.

For the next 40 years they’ll wander aimlessly instead

Of entering the Land to which they were led.

Anyone right now ages 20 and more

Will die in the desert, by the spies’ bad report.

And all of your children whom you thought I’d ignore

Will prevail in the Land after you are no more.

And those wicked old scouts who led you astray

I’ll strike down right now, they’ll die by a plague.

Only Caleb and Joshua will be saved

Because they didn’t divide What-I-Do from What-I-Say.

Now turn around and leave this place,

The Promised Land is no longer safe.

The enemies you were supposed to defeat & replace 

Are now mortal threats to your entire race.

The Lord Has Spoken.” 

Wise Old Moses picked himself up off the ground,

Wiping spit, tears, and mud from his beard without a sound.

His heart full of sorrow, beaten down by the crowd,

Returned to camp to find the 10 faithless scouts struck down.

His knees shook hard as he leaned on his staff,

“You foolish people,” he choked out with a gasp,

And shouting above their sobs he began to say back

All God had told him about what they’d brought to pass.

They heard the bad news of their cowardice and crime,

How God spared their lives, but in the desert they’d die.

With bitterness and despair they started to whine,

“We were wrong then, Moses! We’ll obey God this time!

We’ve sinned, but we get it, we know now we can take

The Land that God Promised – we’re ready to make

This right!” And Moses just stared, and he started to shake,

“Even now you refuse to obey? You fools, it’s too late!”

Nevertheless, in their presumptuous haste

The Hebrews marched over and by force tried to take

The Land that God only gives by Grace.

And their enemies were waiting to turn them to waste.

They didn’t bother to consult either Moses or the Lord,

They left the Ark of the Covenant, only armed with swords.

And as surely as they didn’t heed any of God’s Holy Words,

Their enemies beat them down, crushing them all like worms.

Now for those of you still listening to the rhythm of my words,

I promised you the saddest story that you have ever heard.

Not because it’s the worst tragedy to ever have occurred,

But because it becomes your story when you reject the Lord.

This story is the Gospel, they are one and the same:

You too have been freed from slavery, and called by the Name.

You’ve been Made, Chosen, Loved upon to bring about the Change

That Abraham believed would come, though didn’t see in the Day.

And now One greater than Moses is raising up His voice:

“Hear Me now, you slaves of sin, it’s time to make a choice!

Follow Me into all My Promises, or return to the Land of Noise.

There is no in-between with Me, I’m the only Reason To Rejoice.”

So choose Today to bend yourself under the King Divine,

Or one day realize too late that you were never on His side.

He’s been very patiently waiting for you to cross the Line,

So if you want to follow Christ, come join me on this side. 

Celebrating Clay

These were my notes for Clayton Sivley's eulogy on Friday, January 6, 2012. may Christ's Grace be upon you, Clay.

"I met Clayton and became his Youth Pastor on March 13, 2009 in my living room. I remember the date because it was a “Friday the 13^th” and i had invited my youth group over to watch some scary movies. Sean Hurd brought Clayton as his guest, and Clayton, who seemed to enjoy every minute without even flinching, stuck with our youth group from then on.


i joked with him and others at his hospital bed that i knew he was a keeper because we didn’t scare him off the first night.

Immediately he became a steady part of our Church family. Tuesday night Bible studies at my house, Wednesday night Youth Group at 6^th Avenue Church of God, Saturday Sports at Delano Park, Sunday worship whenever me or his mom could wake him up in time. The early shyness that every young man hides behind quickly dissolved, and within just a couple months we got to know what made him laugh, what made him bored, what made him excited, or interested, or irritated, or talkative, or relaxed, or stressed, or clever – in short, we got to know Clay, his personality and his character.

Please don’t miss what i just said about that: “We got to know Clay.” To get to know someone and let them know you – to know the Person, not just who they pretend to be or who they wish they were, but who they are as God made them – that takes real Love. It’s simultaneously God’s greatest Gift, and humanity’s greatest Risk. It’s a Gift because we’re getting what we actually need: each other; each other’s compassion and forgiveness, our stories and laughter, our strength, company, honesty; our spirits need these things like our bodies need water, food, or sleep. But getting to know someone is also a Risk for the same reason – because  we need each other’s compassion and forgiveness, our stories and laughter, our strength, company, honesty, and if those basic needs are denied we wither like a body without food, water, or sleep.

But God, in His Wisdom, designed both the Gifts and the Risks of Love to go hand-in-hand, so that we cannot be taught to Love without practicing Courage. Courage is the unseen coil around which Love tightly wraps. Courage usually starts Love, and sees it to the end. Stop right now and think about how the people who Love you most would fight the most fiercely for you, would “follow you to the ends of the earth,” would tell you the Truth to your face, would die for you – all things that take great Courage. Why? For the same reason that you’ve never seen a tree blossom without the unseen sap stirring the leaves; without the sap, there are no leaves, and without a little Bravery to strike the match there is no Love. You’ve never been, and never will be, truly Loved by a coward. 

Consider now God’s Loving command to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

And from the time we got to know Clay, he was with us to many of the places we went. I mentioned already a few of the weekly activities we did when he was in my youth group. But i don’t want to give you the impression that Clay was “involved” in Church. In Truth, he was an important member of my Church Family. And Families get to do things together – from the common to the thrilling. 

Here are a few of the thrilling things i enjoyed doing with Clayton:

+When we went cliff-diving at the Bluffs near Somerville. He took the plunge with the best of us, and earned his man-card shortly after his 16^th birthday.

+When i turned my office into a “hide-out” for an UnderGround Church, to teach the students about Christians who worship where Christianity is illegal. Of course, i made Clay the guard at the door, because, let’s be honest, if you were trying to invade the meeting you’d be crazy to attack a guy his size.

+Those Saturdays when we played football in Delano Park. When picking teams the other boys would pick him because, again, you’d be crazy to try and tackle a guy his size.

+Another thrill was anytime – however briefly or rarely it was – that i saw him behind the wheel of a car, even if he wasn’t driving.

+It was thrilling when we went White Water Rafting in TN, especially for Clay because he and Jake were the only 2 that got thrown out of the raft the entire trip. Clay bit a chunk out of the front of his lip on that spill, and, once again, earned his man-card.

+It was thrilling for other boys in the group when, at a concert in AYC 2010, Clayton tried to start a Mosh Pit. And i was thrilled that nobody lost any teeth.

+Miss Jane (and the rest of our Church Family) were thrilled on Easter Sunday, 2010 when Clayton showed up in a classy, stylish, blue suit wearing a … wait for it … a necktie, beaming like he’d just won the lottery. Unfortunately, that was the same Sunday that pastor ken decided that we’d worship outside in our Church’s front parking lot. As the sun climbed, Clayton felt every fiber of that thick blue suit and was glad to be rid of it once worship had ended.

+International Youth Convention (IYC) 2010 to Orlando was itself a thrilling trip, and Clayton had his share of adventures: an 11 hour van ride discussing everything from zombies to Harry Potter to his love for writing; and a Magic Show at which Clay himself got to stand on stage as the magician’s assistant as the magician bent rebar against Clay’s neck (i still have the rebar if you’d like to see it, by the way); and writing “Free Hugs” on his shirt with a marker so he and my other students could share the Love with everyone else at the convention. And we can’t mention that trip to FL without telling the ultimate thrill he got (with about 5 other guys in the group) when he failed to properly apply sun-block the entire day, despite my dear wife’s warnings. Remember that? Mr. & Mrs. Sivley, do you remember the sun-burned misery he suffered when we got him home?

+But of all thrills that Orlando brought, no other thrilled me more – and i mean none – than when Clayton Sivley joined me and just a few other students at the Young Leaders’ Meeting because he believed Christ was Calling him to some kind of ministry. i was so proud of him, among all the other students, because i knew what great Risks he had taken to get to this point; the Trust he had placed in Christ, and the willingness to obey despite the cost.

L to R: jacob, clay, jake, jose, daniel

You see, when Clayton had come to our Church Family that fateful March 13, 2009, he was leaving a life of isolation, and rejection, and loneliness. I’ve learned over the years that before we met, he felt that he had lost his place among his peers, felt for a time that he didn’t fit in, and so he had chosen the safe road (that so many of us choose) where he wouldn’t have to show himself, or fail, or Risk in relationships. And with just a little Love and Courage from Sean Hurd, then Daniel Moore, then Ben Callahan, then Zach Langford, then Patty Lyons, then Jacob Chapman and Taylor Rennick, and Jose Morales, and Jeremy & Jake Hardin, and Stephanie & Charles Simmons, and Matt Wilson, and pastors ken and Jeff, and Mary Alexander, and all the Church Families at 6^th Avenue and 9^th Street, and all the teachers of Decatur High School, and all the Students he shared class with, and all the people – to know who you are just remember him, just one thing you loved about him – with all the people who supported him, Clayton grew in the Faith, Hope, and Love of Jesus Christ.

And then shortly after Clay’s Senior year started – on August 13, 2010 (a Friday the 13, as a matter of fact), Clayton was taken to the ER, and there the doctor first suspected he had leukemia. I remember being there, the shock of it all, the denial that it could even be possible, and i saw the anxiety in his eyes. And with all the Love and Courage that God my Father has taught me, i looked at Clayton in the face and said, “Clay, do not be afraid. Whatever you do, don’t fear.”

As you know, he spent a good part of the next year & several months in Birmingham Children’s Hospital. The news went from bad to worse as “leukemia” turned into Histiocytic Sarcoma, which turned into blood transfusions, and medicine, and chemo treatments, and missed schoolwork, and 2 birthdays in the hospital, and more distance from family and friends, and the fight, the ever-present fight to keep his feet moving.

And over those months of needles and pain and nausea and fatigue, i saw something utterly beautiful and profound: i saw the older teaching the younger, the simple learning from the wise; i saw Donna, Clay’s mom, stand beside him with all the Courage and Love of Jesus Christ Himself. She put both her shoulders under his burden, sharing plenty of blisters. At times she pulled him and pushed him, encouraged him and corrected him, laughed and cried with him, spoke and listened with him; at all times she believed in him. In short, she truly got to know her son, and shared with him all of her Love and Courage.

I discovered over those difficult months why Clayton was able to bloom like he did when he joined my Church Family. You see, a flower in bloom must begin with a seed, must grow in good soil, and get the right kind of nurture. Clay’s family planted that seed, tended and nurtured the soil. The first night i got to visit him in Birmingham, i saw the care from his Aunt Veronnica from Mississippi who came shortly after hearing the news. I saw the support – the Courage and Love – from his Uncle Keith who stayed with him all night, and helped him laugh off the endless needle pricks. Over the months i got to know his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Sivley, their deep faith, compassion, and resilience, his Aunt Teresa and her tenderness, his sister Santana and her Appreciation of meaningful things, sister Gabi and her energetic Joy for Life, and brother Trenton, his Strength and tenacity. The family’s faith in Clay was the reason Clay had Faith in Christ. And the Joy we have in Christ is that one day you’ll all get to share the reward of that Faith forever, together.

Clay and Donna benefitted of course from an astounding support system of Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and other patients at Birmingham Children’s who, with the family and friends, continued not only to care for and heal him, but also to cheer him on and encourage him: “You can do it, Clay. You’ve got this. You have what it takes to see this through.”

And then just a few weeks ago, when we thought Clay had seen the last of it, that’s when he was dealt the biggest blow. The cancer took his lungs. He was placed on the ventilator, the doctors continued to seek and ask and puzzle over, the Church Families continued to seek and ask and puzzle over in our own way, and there was little more to do than to sit and wait.

And on the last day of his life – when even he seemed to know he didn’t have much longer in this world – that’s when Clay showed us all the Courage and Love that he was really made of.

I stand before you now to proudly report that he faced his final moments on this earth with dry eyes, with his sense of humor, and with the people he Loved on his mind ahead of himself.

And as he lay in that bed, i was more proud of him than i could have ever been by the sum of his past accomplishments. He was dignified, a warrior of God, and a true friend. He showed astonishing Courage, because when it mattered most, he Loved us all best, giving hugs, kind words, and laughter to us all (he blew bubbles in his water and it made us all laugh).

As CS Lewis said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”

If you want lasting evidence of this Courage and Love, because in the days ahead you and i will also need our share, just get to know his family and friends who witnessed some of his last words, because he told us bravely, “This seems like a farewell, not a celebration.”

You’re right, Clayton, we should be celebrating, thanks for the reminder. See you soon, buddy."