Learning to sing --remembering my mother-in-law, the silence of God and the wisdom of Psalm 13

“How Long, Oh Lord, will You forget me? Forever?

How long will you turn away Your face from me?...

 

As for me, I trust in your faithful love, Oh Lord.

Let my heart delight in your saving help.

Let me sing to the Lord for His generosity to me,

let me sing to the name of the Lord the Most High.”

--Psalm 13:1, 5

 

Lynne’s mother passed away about two weeks ago.  It was beautiful and quiet and the whole family was with her when she died. But the aftermath has been strangely difficult. Lots of tears, of course. Lots of sighs.  But it’s the silence and the emptiness that stand out. Lynne and I are both having trouble with sleep. She has difficulty settling down and going to sleep. I have trouble staying asleep.  This mirrors our shifts as caregivers.  Lynne would stay awake with her mom until 3-4 in the morning, and then I would get up and take over so she could sleep.  Well, two weeks later, I am still waking up around 3am every morning to take that second shift. But there is no one to relieve, no one there for me to care for, except perhaps the cats—who sense me stirring and think that means it is time for breakfast. 

 I am still feeling a strange and inexpressible absence or emptiness when I step outside in the morning with my cup of coffee and my bag of peanuts.  These days, Lynne joins me. The two of us sit there watching the squirrels and sipping our coffee. But we know something is missing.  In fact, there is that extra cup of coffee we bring out with us every morning, to remind us.  Walking this journey with Carol was a strange and often overwhelming blessing. I think we are all still grappling with the gift of that blessing. The blessing that comes from surrendering to the needs of another. The blessing of the demands her dying body made upon us as a family. Demanding that we put down everything else and really pay, wake up and really live—not for ourselves, but for the love of another.  I know I will be pondering this gift for the rest of my life and probably writing about it for quite some time.  Anyway, those comments are by way of an introduction.  Here is a piece that I began working on while Carol was still alive.  I just finished it this morning.

 A few weeks back I wrote about sitting with my mother-in-law and sharing the psalms over our morning coffee.  In that piece I wrote about how Psalm 31 seemed to open her up a little and got her talking about her faith—a little.  Anyway, the very next day as we sat there with the blue jays and the squirrels and Bobby Darin singing from the I-pad, I opened up my book of psalms and found myself staring at Psalm 13—and it just seemed like fate:  31 / 13… Why not? So I began to read.  When I finished, I asked her whether any part of the psalm spoke to her.  Without looking at me she said something that sounded like: the singing.   She didn’t say anything else.  Nothing about God forgetting us, or about the enemy delighting in our every stumble.  She just very quietly said: the singing.

 Okay, I thought. I can live with that.  And so, I tried to just sit there with her, listening to the blue jays calling each other, and Bobby Darin singing about somewhere across the sea, but despite my best efforts I kept going back to that lament: How long, Oh Lord? How long? How long will our life be governed by sleepless night, bedside toilets, medicine schedules, and an overabundance of cats!

 After a bit, the song changed and without realizing it, I found myself softly singing along with Nat King Cole: 

 Smile, though your heart is aching….
Smile, even though its breaking….
You’ll see the sun coming shining through,
if you…  just... smile…

 And then I heard another sound, a soft whispering voice, and realized Carol was singing with me. We were sitting there together in the quiet of a Tuesday morning, coffee in hand, and both of us hesitantly, shyly singing…together.

 That was when I realized what a wise woman my mother-in-law was, and how she was still teaching me things—even in her silences, even through her shy singing.  Without any fanfare or self-aggrandizement, she was humbly and graciously teaching me to listen to God.

Here’s what I mean:  when I read that psalm I got stuck on the pain and the anxiety of the first part; the fear of being abandoned by God and overwhelmed by life. I even feared for Carol. Worried about how she must feel, what she must be thinking... There was a brief period when her symptoms seemed to subside; she seemed to be getting healthier and her appetite returned to something like normal. In the midst of that, I found myself not feeling grateful and thankful but worrying: What does this mean? How long will this last? She still needed our care and 24/7 attention but what if she just stays at this level. What if/ What if? A How long could we manage this schedule? Sleeping in shifts? Surviving on 4-5 hours of sleep a night? nd where was God? Why wasn't He helping us? As Jesus warns, I was worried about many things (Luke 10:41) … And high on that list was the desperate question: How long?

 But Carol seemed at peace. Despite the fact that she was unable to sleep at night, and that she was –in truth-- growing weaker, she awoke every morning ready for her coffee and the porch. And our psalm.  And the singing. As we sat there listening to the crooners she loved, she would always find something to praise. She would tell me how good the coffee was, or how the muffins I made were the best she’d ever had, or she’d simply tell me what a good job Lynne and I were doing taking care of her. Sometimes she seemed almost overflowing with gratitude and praise. 

 Looking back, I think she was becoming a model of presence for me, an example of living in the moment.  Instead of getting lost in fear and dread, she simply lived in the moment, simply enjoyed what was right in front of her, accepted everything as gift, as grace. While I was reading psalms in search of profound insights and answers, she listened to them with an openness and innocence, ready to receive whatever God had to offer. And, I think it was that approach that led to her always looking for something to be grateful for, and something to praise.  And something to sing about…

 Looking back now, I have been struck by how obviously that was/is the point of the psalm.  The psalmist cries out that God is distant and silent; that God has abandoned him to the enemy and everything feels hopeless. Sound familiar? It does to me.  And, on top of that, the psalm offers no apparent response to this lament. Instead, the psalmist simply tells us that despite God’s absence, he will be grateful and he will sing God’s praises.

 Gratitude and praise.  Suddenly I realize it: that is the answer. That is the lesson Carol was trying to teach me.  Gratitude and praise.  Yes, life is hard. Sometimes it is unbearably hard. And unfairly hard.  And there is nothing you can do to change that. But you can change yourself. You can begin to change the way you look at life, at the world. Despite your hardships, your struggles, you can begin to look for things to praise, things to be grateful for. 

 And when all else fails, you can sing.  It helps. It’s scientifically proven. Here is an article from the BBC to explain. Something to do with endorphins, I think.  Whether you have a weak voice, or sing like Pavarotti, you will be amazed at how much better you feel when you look at life through the blessing of a song.

 Sitting there –on the porch-- singing that mournful song about smiling through the heartache, and the pain, I suddenly felt better. I suddenly felt a little more grateful for the time I had with Carol, for the mornings together. And I began to realize that I wasn’t alone. That there was even someone who I wanted to praise and thank for such a gift. And so I kept on singing, even after Carol stopped. Me and Mel Torme singing an old Fred Astaire song: They can’t take that away from me.  And it’s true.   

And I am so grateful.   

Thank you, Carol, for teaching me how to listen and how to sing.

 

On fear and silence and the end of Mark's Gospel

 “…and they said nothing to anyone,
for they were afraid.”

--Mark 16:8

 

 

This morning I finished the Gospel of Mark.  There is so much to say about this shortest of the gospels.  Most scholars now think of it as the earliest gospel, asserting that its conciseness is a sign of its chronological place. One theory is that the other synoptic gospels derive their basic structure from it, embellishing it with details from lost sources, including a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus. The late literary critic Harold Bloom valued Mark’s gospel for its mysterious urgency and dramatic flair.  It is often referred to as a Passion narrative with a long introduction. 

 

Like all the gospels, all of scripture—I guess—I like it for its strangeness.  With this gospel, in particular, I am drawn to the way it seems to rush along, beginning in media res, then rushing head-long into the action, with Jesus “at once…” going out, and the disciples “at once…” following Him and the demons “at once…” crying out and the sick “at once…” being healed, etc etc.  As Bloom, and others, pointed out, everything in this story happens with a strange urgency.  Some translations use the word “immediately” (cf 1:12, 1:18, 1:20, 1:42, etc etc) to express this urgent movement.  I find this element of the book compelling and strange and worth meditation.

 

But this morning I am thinking of a different element from the end of this Gospel.  In my New Jerusalem Bible there is a note on 16:8 that informs me Mark probably originally ended there with the story of the  women who witnessed some manifestation of the resurrection and, overwhelmed by it, went away in silence and fear. No “immediately,” no “at once,” but only a kind of strange quiet and stillness—as if suddenly everything stopped. Ending as it began, in media res (which is Latin for “in the middle of things”).  The scholars speculate that the next 12 verses were an addendum derived from the other gospels and added in order to harmonize Mark with Matthew and Luke.  Those kind of issues, I have no insight into.  I leave that to the historians and the scholars with their degrees and dissertations.

 

My thought today is only of that image of the women saying nothing to anyone, “because they were afraid.”  They have received the “good news” of the resurrection, of the conquering of death, of the return to life of their beloved friend… Why wouldn’t they rush off to share this news? Why wouldn’t they be blowing a trumpet and crying from the hilltops to anyone and everyone?  Yet they “said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” 

 

Why? What were they afraid of? Looking foolish?  Being ridiculed? Rejection? I think quite often I remain silent out of fear of how someone will react. What they might say to me. How they will treat me… Or worse, that they might question me, challenge me, make me begin to doubt what I know is true.

 

I fear that they won’t really hear what I am saying, but only the weakness of my words, my failure to express myself adequately.  Often, when I am overwhelmed by an experience, my words fail me. Too often, some might say, I flounder a bit and then suddenly (at once, and with a strange kind of immediacy) I melt into tears. And feel like a fool. 

 

What was it that made the women leave the tomb of Jesus and go away in silence and fear?  What was the author (Mark) trying to say about their experience? About the experience of the early church? Why that fearful silence?

 

It forces me to remember the many times I too remained silent for fear of how people might react.  But it also makes me aware of the importance of another kind of silence. Of the willingness to listen when someone comes to you with something to say. The willingness to hear them out and even to let them have the last word.  The willingness to listen, openly and completely; the willingness to listen without feeling a need to correct, or challenge or show my own intelligence.  To just listen to the message that the other person brings, their experience, their perception, their desire to share, and their witness to the wideness of the world.

 

There are so many lessons to be found in the Gospels, and even a few to be found in the footnotes.

Keep silent— A meditation on prophets & prophecies

“Keep silent!”

(Amos 8:3c)

“…and they will never be uprooted again.”

(Amos 9:15)

Keep silent!  Last time I was reflecting on the fascinating question of who was actually speaking in the Bible, especially when it was supposed to be God.  But now, I am wondering:  Who is being spoken to?  The other morning, sitting on the porch with my coffee and my Bible, waving to the few people who walk by at 6:45 in the morning, listening to the cars pass on the distant tollway, and wondering what will be for breakfast, I was reading this section of Amos and getting kind of lulled into a scriptural stupor by all the woes and unto yous and thus says the Lords –as often happens when I am reading—my mind began to wonder. I probably was starting to drift off into a daydream of famine and drought, locust and destruction when all of a sudden I read:

That day, the palace songs

will turn to howls,

--declares the Lord, Your God—

the corpses will be many

that are thrown down everywhere.

Keep silent!

And I was startled out of my drowsing.  I was stunned by how direct that final command felt. And my immediate thought was: who is God talking to?

Was He talking to the Israelites who are howling in their palaces and throwing bodies everywhere?  Telling them to hold it down; what did they expect after all their sin and betrayal?  Was He talking to Amos?  Telling the prophet to keep this horrible secret to himself; i.e. Keep this between us! Don’t speak a word! Don’t tell the Israelites what is in store for them! Let it be a surprise.

A little research and I soon discovered that other translations have interpreted that “Keep silent” as a description of how the bodies of the slaughtered will be disposed: “Many shall be the bodies. They shall cast them forth in silence.” (NASB)

But I was still struck by that “Keep silent.” It sat there in front of me; a directive, a command even.  And I couldn’t help but wonder, if this is God’s word, in the end isn’t God really talking to me?  I was the one reading it? I was the one whose mind was wandering. Whose head was full of blue jays and car sounds and strollers and scrambled eggs. I was the one who was drifting aimlessly through God’s word, watching only for some new phrase to hang another essay on.  I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy being distracted by all the voices in my head…

Keep silent.

And from that moment on, I was focused. The voices inside me, the distracted anxious voices telling me I was wasting my time stopped. They were quiet. Even that voice that kept asking about those dishes in the sink from last night. Shouldn’t I get to those first. After I finished those dishes and made another pot of coffee, then I’d be able to give the Word of God the attention it deserved! Then… then… then… For the moment, they were all still. Silent.  And I read on.

Toward the end of Amos there is a beautiful simple statement:

“…and they will never be uprooted again.” (9:15)

Reading that I began to ponder anew: In hindsight what does a statement like that mean to a people who were to see their temple destroyed, their kingdom conquered, and so many dragged off into exile? A people who have (it seems) never really known the kind of stability it seems to promise; at least not for over 2500 years?   

It comes at the end of a prophecy of destruction; God’s wrath unleashed.  And yet God promises to plant them in their own soil and “they will never be uprooted again.” It seems to be a promise of peace and harmony, of permanence and stability in Israel. And yet, reading this promise 2500+ years later, one has to ask:  Is it just some words in a story? Is it a fairy tale? Some kind of magical thinking? Or worse, a lie? 

If it is a prophecy of God’s chosen people finding permanence and stability in the Promised Land, then it seems like foolishness. Historically the Jews have been displaced time and again.

But, as I sat –being silent—quietly contemplating this phrase, I began to wonder: is it possible God means something else entirely? Is it possible God is speaking not to a limited group of people here, but to all of His people everywhere.  Is it possible that this promise, though made specifically through the prophet Amos to the people of Israel, was actually meant to transcend that time and place; was meant not for a specific tribe or race, but for all God’s children? It is a promise to all of us, from God, that we can never again be uprooted; because He has planted us beyond the reach of the one who would uproot us. 

The LOVE of God became flesh, became a gardener (cf. John 20:15), a gardener who plants the seed so deep and so true it can never be uprooted. And His plow, His shovel, His spade, is the Cross. By His plow He opens the universe, opens eternity, opens even His own heart, and plants us so deeply within His love that we can never again be uprooted.

It is not by our efforts that we are saved, not by our lack of sin, but simply by His love, His grace, His Cross.  The peace, the harmony, the stability comes not from our prayers, not from our fasting or sacrifices, not from any restraint or self-control on our part, but from God’s love.

However, teaching our ears to hear and appreciate the harmony and beauty in God’s love takes some effort, at least for some of us.  We can’t find peace in it while we are letting our ego wnder, our eyes wander, our desires wander freely, and so we may find ourselves tugging at our own roots, agitated by wants and old nurtured longings.  And so, in such cases, we may find that prayer and fasting make good choir masters for the soul. They can help us train our ear to hear in God’s mysterious melody a beauty and glory we could never imagine on our own. All our desires are fulfilled in it, this endless glorious song of permanence and peace, if only we allow ourselves to hear it. 

If only we “keep silent” and listen.

Comforting the downcast: some thoughts on the friends of Job

“...For He casts down the pride of the arrogant,

but He saves those of downcast eyes. He rescues

anyone who is innocent...”

--Job 22:29-30

“Have your hands clean, and you will be saved...” is how the above passage ends.  Eliphaz is telling Job what sounds like good advice.  It seems true. I think that is part of what makes it sound so strange to me.  Here we have one of those famous friends of Job who have come to comfort him in his hour of need. According to the story, this man has sat in the dirt in silence with Job for three days out of sympathy for his friend.  He (along with Bildad, Zophar and Job) has –at this point in the story—now engaged in a spirited debate about God’s justice and mercy for almost 20 chapters (and there are still a few more to come).  And in the end the main thrust of his argument (and of Zophar & Bildad) is that if you repent and confess your sins, God will be merciful. God saves “...those of downcast eyes. He rescues anyone who is innocent...”  And one can imagine these same words coming out of a minister today:

Brothers and sisters!

The cleansing power of Jesus has come to wash your sins away!

He will wash the stain of sin from your hands.  His saving blood

will wash your whiter than snow. Let Jesus wash you! Let Jesus

wash the stain of sin off your hands and you will be saved!

I can hear it.  But the problem is –the complication here in this particular story is—that Job is not being punished for any particular sin.  And though this supposedly wise friend doesn’t know that, we do –because we read chapters 1 and 2 and we saw God talking with Satan and handing Job over to him.  We know that what has befallen Job has nothing to do with any sin Job has committed but simply because God has allowed it. God has allowed Satan power over his servant Job as part of some heavenly “test.”  And so, in the back of my head as I read this advice, what am I supposed to make of it? What am I to make of Job’s friends and their seemingly wise (if banal) theological advice?

Too often these three are simply dismissed as stooges; straw men.  The fact that they don’t have any idea what is going on between God and Job, is used as an excuse to dismiss without consideration them and the theology they rode in on.  And this is all because of the context.  We know the story and so we know their basic premise –that Job has brought these afflictions upon himself—is wrong.  And in the context of the book, it begins to seem a little ironic that such seemingly good advice (or theology) is so very wrong.  Which leaves me only to remark on the inspired use of irony by the author of this book:  A character (3 of them, in fact) propose something we believe to be true about God and His justice, His mercy, and yet the in the context of the narrative these truths are shown (ironically) to be completely false.  That seems kind of bold –on both a literary and a theological level.  And yet, to push my point a little further, let me move forward to chapter 25 & 26 where Bildad offers a vision of God that prefigures God’s own response to Job at the end of the book. Bildad asks whether anyone can be virtuous in God’s eyes? God, who “spreads the North above the void” who “fastens up the water in the clouds” who sets a boundary between light and dark, who crushes Rahab (i.e. the behemoth, not the woman from Jericho), whose breath gives light to the heavens; a God who transcends human imagining... who of us can be virtuous in His eyes? What right do we have to question His judgment? Well, that’s certainly true.  And yet, Job responds to this with a statement so bitter and sarcastic that it made my heart leap.  He says:

“To one so weak, what a help you are...” (26:1)

I almost laughed out loud when I read this; it caught me off guard to stumble upon something so sarcastic and obviously humorous in the midst of all this suffering.  It is as if Job says to his friends:

Oh, of course you are right. Yes. It is such a comfort to know

that my children died, my crops failed, my property has been destroyed

and my skin is falling off and my wife is encouraging me to commit

suicide –but God is so amazing and transcendent that I shouldn’t
question His plans!  Anyway, I’m sure I must have done something
wrong. Yes, even these running sores must be part of God’s amazing plan.
Thank you. Now I understand and now everything feels better. 
Thank you. What a comfort and a help you are; such dear dear friends!

Please come again!  Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
–If only I still had a door.

It also struck me as a kind of slap in the face.  I recognized in it an honest and bitter response to such theologizing of pain.  “To one so weak, what a help you are...” Those words spoke to me about the value of such talk; to speak of suffering and God’s majesty in such a way suddenly felt sacrilegious. And I began to wonder, how many times have I been like Bildad or Eliphaz?  How many times have I –sincerely trying to comfort someone—fell into the trap of platitudes about God’s glory and mercy and love and how we can’t understand –but God has His plans and we just need to repent and... And I wondered, how much harm have I done?  How many hearts have I hardened by my words of comfort?

And looking back into the story and wondering what should his friends have done? What should I do when faced with someone who is in crisis and in need of comfort?  And I keep coming back to one moment in the story:

“The news of all the disasters that had fallen on Job

came to the ears of three of his friends.  Each of them

set out from home... and by common consent they decided

to go and offer him sympathy and consolation.  Looking

at him from a distance, they could not recognize him;

they wept aloud and tore their robes and threw dust over

their heads.  They sat there on the ground beside him

for seven days and seven nights; never speaking a word

for they saw how much he was suffering.”

–Job 2:11-13

I am thinking about those times I went into a hospital room and began to theologize about suffering and I wonder if my words weren’t more to protect and comfort me than the person I was visiting.  I wonder if perhaps I shouldn’t learn a lesson from Job’s three friends.  Perhaps the best thing we can do when we are faced with suffering is just that: sit with them in silence as best and for as long as we can, and if there is something needing to be said, perhaps you can just let your tears speak for themselves.  There is a lot of comfort in a friend’s silence and in a friend’s tears, and a lot of truth in someone willing to just sit and be present with us in our time of need.

And I can speak to that, from experience.  I remember waking up in the ICU and seeing an unexpected face sitting nearby, just waiting with me, in silence, tears glistening in her eyes.  There was no need to speak. That unexpected presence was all the theology I needed.

If Job’s friends had only remained silent... but that would be a different story.