9:27 PM

The Cover, a Sketch, and some Words...

Posted by John |

I realize you're probably not thinking about Christmas right now, but here we go...


You can now preorder my book on Amazon and B&N...I described it to someone the other day as an outlaw lectio divina approach to the first few chapters of Luke's gospel, graced by sketches from my good friend Amanda Jolman.  The one below shows the feet of Mary when visited by Gabriel...

“Recovering wonder is never easy. But John Blase provides a doorway through his graceful book, Touching Wonder. The anticipation meant for Advent is often lost in the very season when steady pacing, taking time, and breathing deeply ought to be its hallmarks. John gives us that unhurried time back by expanding on the human side of the Christ child’s heritage, the men and women who were there before and after His birth giving us living examples of how the Scripture speaks to us in contemporary ways. Eugene Peterson’s The Message coupled with John’s tender stories and singular prayers makes this a book I will read again and again.”

Jane Kirkpatrick, award-winning author of A Sweetness to the Soul and A Flickering Light


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5:18 AM

Nineteen years...my lord...

Posted by John |

I stood before her, nineteen years ago today, and promised.  She did the same.  By the authority invested in him and with tears in his eyes, my minister-father pronounced us husband and wife. We kissed, turned to face God and those witnesses, and stepped into the rest of our lives.  It was a June afternoon in Arkansas and hotter than sin.  We were just kids, I tell you...kids.


A lot of folks these days write their own wedding vows.  As a pastor, I used to encourage couples to if they wanted to; if I were still a pastor, I wouldn't.  Those old fashioned vows are hard to beat: for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and health, to love and to cherish... There's a lot of space between those words of extremes.

We were driving home last night after dinner with some friends and our middle girl was singing that Dixie Chicks song - wide open spaces/room to make a big mistake.  The song specifically speaks of a young girl heading off from parents and the familiar to make her way.  But as good country songs do, there's something there for everybody.  Today, celebrating nineteen years of marriage, I think that line our daughter crooned is a pretty good one for husbands and wives.

I've officiated at a wedding that was decorated to the nines and Ken and Barbie didn't last a year.  I've also stood before two giggly teenagers in a trailer park and spoke the words and crossed my fingers and last I heard, they were still giggling and married.  My lord.  Why did one fizz while the other still giggles?  Best I can tell - Grace & space: the Grace that keeps this world & room to make mistakes both big and small.  I've made more mistakes in my marriage than Washington D.C. has lonely people, but so far, by the Grace of God & Meredith, there has been space to make them.  

That good Franciscan, Richard Rohr, says the only way men learn anything after about the age of 30 is by way of failure.  Up to that age men need some wins/successes, but after that, success has nothing to teach; failure, however, does.  I believe the same holds true for marriage.  Some early days, maybe even years, of everything turning daisy is good and needed. But after a while, when the flower fades and the grass withereth, failure is the only teacher. And the question in those days, weeks, months, even years is, well, is there room for this?  The vows fashioned of old say as much.  Meredith and I are committed to wide open spaces; it's hard but most things worth anything are hard.  I may end up one of these days in front of a trailerhome sitting in a lawn chair...I'll take it, as long as she's in other chair, giggling.

Some of you out there read books and such.  My two favorite marriage books are Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and The Maytrees by Annie Dillard.  They are books of great space...and amazing grace.

Meredith, I love you.  And that statement about our doublewide was just for giggles...maybe...       

   



  

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5:30 AM

Send in the Clowns

Posted by John |

"I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina," he said.  

That sentence was a part of the public confession from the lips of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, or what puer aeternus George Stephanopoulos called "his performance."  I'm guessing you saw it, heard it, read about it, or at least you have now.

"What cannot be said will get wept." - Jim Harrison

We all react differently to revelations such as this.  But I believe with all I am that our response, as least the one by the church on earth, the body of Christ, the visible representation of Jesus Jesus-self, is to be tears.  As the good book says, "Weep with those who weep."

Yes, John, but isn't he getting what he deserves?  Ah, justice - the current golden calf for many in the Lord's army, yes sir.  We've castrated Micah 6.8.  We must be careful little hands what we cut for there is something in that verse which we christians or christ-followers or little christs or whatever we want to call ourselves are called to love...and that something is mercy. Only by loving mercy can justice worth a God's blood be done to the uttermost.

Yes, John, but what if his tears were those of a crocodile?  I'm not a tearologist nor do I play one on tv, so I really cannot say.  I will roll the dice and say they were the tears of a clown; a man, flesh and blood like thee and me, whose public persona covered a private circus of broken vows.  If we cannot weep for the clown, and maybe we can't, then let us weep for his wife and children, his staff, the people who elected him, his parents, the lady in Argentina...hell, let us weep even for ourselves for we too often paint on a smile and juggle our lives.  And sooner or later, we'll all drop the ball.

Merci.   

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5:09 AM

Last night's episode

Posted by John |




We sat on top of the bed covers, reading in our pajamas,
like some old couple with legs stuck straight out in front of us.
"I'm glad one of us has pretty feet," she said.
We both kept reading as her grin warmed the room.
I shook my fist in the cool night air:
"One of these days...one of these days."

Through the open window we heard chicken conversations next door.
"You put the neighbor's chickens in the house, right?"
She had admired the four fresh eggs I retrieved earlier,
three browns and a white.
Still, I affirmed her suspicions.
"Good.  I'm glad one of us is responsible," she grinned.






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12:55 PM

Interesting week here in Lake Sinbegone

Posted by John |

[I live just outside of Colorado Springs; based on the number of Christian ministries there, it is the evangelical equivalent of Mecca]

Well, I figured it would be a rather quiet week here in Lake Sinbegone.  Summer's here and folks are staycationing, renting Benjamin Button and all.  But bless God, I am always surprised. On Tuesday, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly announced that male employees no longer had to wear business attire, including neckties, and female employees can now wear those snappy pantsuits like Hil Clin.  According to one report, employees stood and shouted hallelujah! in response to the good news.  Some of them wanted to lift holy hands and turn on the new fog machine, but around here, one thing at time, please.  

However, the most liberating aspect of Tuesday's news was permission for the ladies at Focus to take off their pantyhose.  They were expressly urged to do this once they got home, but then, once they were off, they could leave 'em off.  Apparently the proof for this text was Song of Solomon 7.1 - "How beautiful are your feet in sandals." (NASB)  In some of those newfangled transphrases it reads "Nice toe cleavage, sis."  Focus spokeswoman Lisa Anderson said, "...easing up on formal attire also will...encourage tourists to hobnob with Focus employees." 

I must say my rocking chair missed a rock when I heard the word hobnob.  Dear lord in heaven. Sweet Merriam-Webster describes the archaic word thusly: "to drink sociably" - the etymology from the obsolete phrase drink hobnob, to drink alternately to one another.  Now I don't believe Anderson had drink hobnob in mind when she chose that word, but there are slippery black diamond slopes, there really are, and I can foresee thousands, maybe even millions, of tourists showing up on the hill this summer expecting free Fat Tire from ladies perched on legs sans hose.  From a distance such as my porch, I'm having visions of the wayward Hebrew children dancing 'round the golden beast on liberated thighs and a nicely toned calf or two. Mercy.  

Focus tour-guide (concerned): Please, folks, don't you want to come in and watch the Dobsonmentary.  It's quite comprehensive.

Tourists (smiling): Nope, we're good.  God bless America and God bless hobnobbin'.


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9:42 PM

What I Hath Seen...

Posted by John |





I would sit with this row of boys every Sunday morning, rain or shine.  I'm the helmet in the v-neck green sweater with the Scofield in my lap.  We would lean our chairs back and old Mr. Neal would cover the high school lesson, every Sunday, rain or shine.

Picture, if you will, Mr. Neal sitting before us at a small desk.  To his right was a huge window; notice where almost all of us are looking?  What Mr. Neal didn't know, and as far as I know never found out, was the peep show we good Baptist boys were treated to every Lord's day.

Through the huge window to Mr. Neal's right we could see the adjacent building with a carbon copy huge window just like ours.  Whereas our window was windex clear, this other window, right in our line of leaned-back sight, was slightly frosted.  You're wondering why aren't you? Well, you see, it gave light not to a row of folding chair Sunday School boys, but to a one-staller Ladies room.

It's hard to remember just when this revelation came upon us.  We were probably listening to Mr. Neal droll on about lukewarmness or something when one of us, could have been me even, looked over and saw a curved silhouette bend forward and wrench down her skirt, do it once more due to a girdle or lord knows what else a boy's mind could conjure, and then slowly, regally squat down as the cold ivory yoke piece embraced her warm backside.  I realize that's quite descriptive, but as I've noted, this happened every Sunday, rain or shine.

On about the third Sunday, at the beginning of class, one of our Boy's Row stood and told Mr. Neal I'll be right back. This boy didn't give a flying fig what Mr. Neal or Jesus thought; he did whatever he pleased. We secretly loved him for that.  Before he walked out, his grinned whisper was I'm gonna find out whose ass that is.  We didn't see the rebel for the rest of class, but he was waiting for us when we filed out, with a grin that showed every last pearly white he owned. He had waited the entire time and one, and only one, lady had visited that little room.  One of our disciples pulled a Thomas, so boy-don't-give-a-fig gladly agreed to scout it out again the following Sunday.  He did; one and only one visitor.  And just like that, the lady in shadow now had a name.

There would have been the usual boy wonder at such a spectacle regardless of who it was.  We were each good little Baptist boys trying to figure out how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour (see I Thess. 4.14 - I kid you not).  But the stakes were raised on this one because the lady in outline was easily the most prim, proper, and dressed to the nines female in our local representation of the body of Christ.  She was striking in her looks, but they were looks that purred don't touch.  I stood by her once during worship as she sang the mournful invitation hymn Have Thine Own Way.  I know I should have been examining my own heart, as each man ought, but all I could think of was me and mrs. mystery frolicking in the garden of Eden, unclothed, without shame.  I'm certain I rededicated my life that day, but to what, I cannot say.

For that brief season of Sundays, our class had perfect attendance; I seem to recall we even gained a few newcomers.  Mr. Neal felt honored; maybe a man his age still had something to offer the younger generation.  Maybe it was o.k. he felt that way.  Maybe.  And maybe it was o.k. those windows were placed just so; they were panes of exposure revealing the tensions of flesh that had and would follow us all the days of our lives.  So for a season, we enjoyed it, rain or shine.  We faithfully brought our Bibles and always placed them in our laps (see photo); fig leaves of sorts to cover what eye hath seen.                


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5:08 AM

Beyond the word...

Posted by John |

You have to understand the rain and the mesquite.  The clouds come on slowly and torture the drooping leaves with the promise of rain and this goes on day after day, week after week, and sometimes, not often, but sometimes the rain never comes at all, the monsoon skips, and still the tree stands and believes and waits.  But when the rain comes, and most years it does come, the feel in the desert is love.  Not the word, the thing beyond the word, the rush of life pouring from the sky...

- Charles Bowden, Blues for Cannibals

God, a glance in the mirror reveals gray hair and age spots. Damn, I look like an old mesquite tree, standing, believing, waiting.  I can soldier on quite convincingly, tortured with the promise.  But there are days, not often, but sometimes, when I wish you'd pour from the sky into my dreams that we might grapple. I'm not angry, you know that. I'd just like to feel you, not the you of the the word, but the you beyond the word. You have blessed and I hope you will continue to bless.  You have wounded and yes, I believe that too shall not cease.  But that the leaves might feel the rush...

I felt the love that day in the canyon so grand, when the water was depleted and there was still some distance to the rim. In the cleft of the rock, literally, the water bottles rested along with the note - take it. And I did.  What I drank was not water, but something beyond the word.  It tasted like...love.

There is so much talk of you, so many words.  In the way the letters C-O-W do not give milk, the letters G-O-D do not give love.  We want to believe that writing the word and speaking the word and attempting to make the word famous will bring the rain.  But I fear that may be the folly of youth; the lips are near but the leaves still droop.  Or they will.  The nations roar and you laugh.  Your children roar and I fear you may gasp.  There is so much talk of you.

I am not alone.  There are others, standing, believing, waiting. We are learning of the rain and the mesquite and that beyond the words.  



      


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