Thursday, September 28, 2017

Rich Mullins and Steve Taylor

(Click on this image for a larger view.)

I just became aware of one of the great moments in music history. On May 1st, 1986, two music legends became entangled in the delicate business of admiration for one another and self-promotion. In 1986, Rich Mullins was an upstart singer-songwriter with a solo career. Amy Grant had recorded one of his songs (Sing Your Praise to the Lord) in 1981 but his own career as an artist had not yet taken off. So, in 1986, Rich Mullins decided to write a letter to Steve Taylor. At the time, Steve Taylor was a rising star in the Christian Music industry. His album, Meltdown was released in 1984 and the title track, "Meltdown (at Madame Tussauds)" was played on MTV. By 1986, Taylor had received a Grammy nomination and had released the album, On the Fritz.

Mullins looked to Taylor as someone whose approval meant much and so he decided to catch his attention. The letter he wrote tells us something about Mullins’ personality, humor, and desire to succeed in the music business. Here is what he wrote:

5/1/86
Steve Taylor –

            There is some clumsiness in giving someone a tape of yourself. It’s like saying to them “listen to me because I want you to like me” and so then you get stuck with the chore of responding under conscription. Sorry. But, here’s my tape anyway.

            I will do you this favor that I will tell you that I have appreciated your stuff before you ask. Ok – so it may be presumpuous (sic) of me to think that you have any concern about how I feel or what I think about your music – but as an artist I know that it is good to hear an encouraging word from just about anybody. So just think of it like that because that’s how it is. And if it lets you off the hook any, I gave another tape to a security guard and I hope he likes it too.

            Thank you for being someone whose approval means much. It is good that you are in this world.

RRhMullins

I wish I knew what Steve Taylor did with the tape he received from Rich Mullins. Perhaps I will be able to sleuth out some more details and post them in a future blog. Yet, simply as this letter stands, it represents a great moment in music history.


Saturday, September 23, 2017

Enemies and Psalms


As I read Psalm 3 a few days ago I was struck by two things: the dangers familiar to the writer of the psalm and the dangers of my life. The psalmist lived in a time of constant war in which any one of his many enemies might be lying in wait or planning his demise. He had physical enemies that carried swords, knives, spears, and other weapons of destruction. The writer laments that he has so many enemies and that many are saying, “God will never rescue him!” Then he is reminded that the Lord is “a shield around [him]; [his] glory, the one who holds [his] head high” and he is comforted. He knows that if he cries out to the Lord, he will answer. He will provide him with safety. Suddenly, he is not afraid of even ten thousand enemies. He knows that his Lord will slap his enemies in the face and “shatter the teeth of the wicked.” He knows that ultimate victory comes from the Lord. He trusts that the Lord will bless those who trust in him.

The enemies in my life are different. I fear cancer. I fear financial ruin. I fear a catastrophe in my career. I fear loss of my marriage partner. I fear that I might mess up relationships with my kids. These are the enemies of my world. How will God respond to my enemies? I can trust him to take care of my enemies just as King David did. The Lord is a shield around me as well. He is my glory and the lifter of my head. As I cry out to him, he will rescue. I need not fear even ten thousand of these enemies. I may not understand what it means for the Lord to “slap cancer in the face” or “shatter the teeth of financial ruin,” but I can trust that the Lord has it under control. I need not fear. The Lord is in control.

Psalm 3 (New Living Translation)
O Lord, I have so many enemies;
    so many are against me.
So many are saying,
    “God will never rescue him!” Interlude

But you, O Lord, are a shield around me;
    you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
I cried out to the Lord,
    and he answered me from his holy mountain. Interlude

I lay down and slept,
    yet I woke up in safety,
    for the Lord was watching over me.
I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies
    who surround me on every side.

Arise, O Lord!
    Rescue me, my God!
Slap all my enemies in the face!
    Shatter the teeth of the wicked!
Victory comes from you, O Lord.
    May you bless your people. Interlude

Friday, September 15, 2017

The Final Move


The Final Move
(Written by Chris Rice, Christopher M. Rice • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc)
(Listen here)

Saw an old guy today
Staring long at a chess game
Looked like it was half-played
Then his tear splashed between
The bishop and the king...oh
He turned his face to mine
I saw the Question in his eyes
I shrugged him half a smile and walked away
It made me sad, and it made me think
And now it makes me sing what I believe

It was love that set this fragile planet rolling
Tilting at our perfect twenty-three
Molecules and men infused with holy
Finding our way around the galaxy
And Paradise has up and flown away for now
But hope still breathes and truth is always true
And just when we think it's almost over
Love has the final move
Love has the final move

Heard a young girl sing a song
To her daughter in her pale arms
Walkin' through a rainstorm
“Because you're here my little girl
It's gonna be a better world"...oh
She turned her face to mine
I saw the Answer in her eyes
I shrugged her half a smile and walked away
It made me smile, and it made me think
And now it makes me sing what I believe

It was love that set our fragile planet rolling
Tilting at our perfect twenty-three
Molecules and men infused with holy
Finding our way around the galaxy
And Paradise has up and flown away for now
But hope still breathes and truth is always true
And just when we think it's almost over
Love has the final move
Love has the final move

(Something right went very wrong
But love has been here all along)


Tuesday, September 12, 2017

For What Was I Created or ...


“For what was I created?” or, “For such a time as this?”

Our majority culture as well as contemporary church culture will often encourage us to explore the gifts and abilities that make us who we are and challenge us to do those things for which we are uniquely created. That is, we are told to find out who we are and the thing for which we were created. We are told that true fulfillment in life is only found in doing those things for which we have been created as if there was only one thing we could do. I have certainly espoused this philosophy, and, indeed such an approach has validity.

However, today I would ask us to consider another way of looking at these things. There are times when we need to consider whether we have been made, “for such a time as this.” In the ancient book of Esther (written in approximately 330 BCE), Mordecai asks Esther to consider if it is not “for such a time as this” that she has been made queen in the courts of King Xerxes (Esther4:14). This was the appropriate question for her and may sometimes be the question for our lives. We are placed in a world that needs truth and grace - justice and love - and there are judicious times when you or I may be the perfect person to be the expression of God’s love in our world. It is a question worth asking ourselves: “Am I here for such a time as this?”

Monday, September 11, 2017

Einstein on Faith and Religion


Albert Einstein had a complicated relationship with faith and religion. Some of the things he said show that he had faith that guided him toward truth and understanding. For Einstain, faith was a source of feeling and rationality. Yet, his concepts of faith were not organized as a particular faith such as faith in Jesus. He seems instead to believe in a much more generic faith that guides the scientist.

“Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up.  But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion.  To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” – Albert Einstein[1]

Other things he said certainly pointed away from historic Christianity:

“The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me.” – Einstein in a letter written in 1954.

and,

The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge. In this sense I believe that the priest must become a teacher if he wishes to do justice to his lofty educational mission.[2]

I am not here to make judgements on Einstein’s faith, work, or philosophical bent; God is the only true judge, full of grace and truth. It seems to me that Einstein was a seeker: a seeker of knowledge wherever he might find it. Certainly, he had his own cultural biases and blinders which kept him from looking in certain directions. Despite the high pedestal on which he sits in our culture, he was human like everyone else. He has taught us much about science and I believe he can also teach us something about the way we seek knowledge. Knowledge may be found in any area of life: science, religion, philosophy, faith in the ways of the Bible, and faith in Jesus Christ. I will choose to seek truth in every area of life.




[1] “Science and Religion,” Ideas and Opinions, pp.41 – 49; published in Out of My Later Years, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950. http://einsteinandreligion.com/scienceandreligion.html
[2] “Science and Religion,” Ideas and Opinions, pp.41 – 49; published in Out of My Later Years, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950. http://einsteinandreligion.com/scienceandreligion.html