Tag Archives: faith

July 29, 2020

Every Church Team Needs at Least One D.O.G.

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

I prefer dogs to cats. Some wag (yes, intended) once said that dogs have owners and families with cats have servants. That has been my observation of the canine/feline divide.

So, when I say that every church needs a D.O.G., you might think I was advocating some four-legged church mascot. And, trust me, if I did, it would be a Dane or a Great Pyrenees, or some other “real” dog–not one of those micro yappers.

But, when I advocate for churches to have D.O.G.s, I am not suggesting that each church leadership team head to the local animal shelter.

Nope–I’m advocating another kind of D.O.G. This is a D.O.G. that I’d call the “Designated Old Guy (or Gal).” This D.O.G. is necessitated, in my view, by our culture’s (and our church culture’s buying into the) idea that old ministry guys and gals should just move along and make way for the young pups.

I’ve written about aspects of this before but, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems to me that D.O.G.s are more essential now than ever. The one thing universally required when dealing with potentially overwhelming issues is the mature wisdom that can only come with experienced church leaders–men and women who have navigated tough times before and therefore have (mostly) the capacity to lean back in the chair and say, “Let’s not be either cavalier or panicked; let’s be prudent and burrow into the accumulated wisdom of the church–not just the latest trending tweet from the latest twit.”

This is not the first time that the church has had to navigate a health crisis that has crowded out other concerns and fixed a population’s attention on human mortality. This is not the first time that priorities have been rapidly adjusted to minister to the hurting and dying. This is not the first time that churches’ meetings have been disrupted by a wider cultural phenomenon.

But, if you are a young pup…everything that is new to you seems like it must be actually new–when, in actuality, it’s not. The writer of Ecclesiastes nailed it when he said that there is “nothing new under the sun” (1:9). Though the particularities of a “novel Coronavirus” are different and require some specificity in the clinical responses, the generalities of widespread infectious disease impacting the church and the culture are not new. The church has been here before. The church will prevail. Church leadership teams need to take a breath and listen to accumulated wisdom–most often available through the life and ministry and learning experiences of that old D.O.G.

So, I think church leadership teams need a D.O.G. To help navigate “unprecedented times.”

I also think church leadership teams need D.O.G.s to provide readily accessible accountability and support for the rest of the team. Too many church leaders have stumbled and fallen by the wayside in recent years. And, most sadly, too many church leaders have reached the end of their personal resources and taken their own lives. D.O.G.s may not have the entirety of the Christian life mastered, but they have been with the Master longer, through more joys and difficulties. Those additional “laps around the track” provide for the perspective and wisdom and, yes, cautionary tales that can only come with time.

D.O.G.s for leadership teams need permission to ask hard questions, to look other church leaders in the eye so as to provide actual accountability. As churches (particularly we evangelicals) have focused our attention on the latest center stage personality, we have often missed the idea of responsibility toward each other that is woven throughout the Scriptures. From the early days of the forming of the Israelite people, through to the last New Testament record of church leadership responsibilities, the “one anothers” mandated often demonstrate the need for a seasoned voice to meet the relational and leadership tests that come to any church ministry team.

When COVID-19 was first gaining traction in the United States, it seemed as if every newscaster had enrolled in the “school of breathless reporting.” Many of them, it seemed to me, had spent hours with their digital thesaurus app searching for the most impactful adjectives. I tweeted to them (yes, I am a twit on twitter), “enough of the breathless reporting. Where is Walter Cronkite when you need him?” Of course, many these days will not remember much of Cronkite, but I can remember his solid, accurate, sober reporting–of even extraordinary national events–the tragic assassination of a President and the landing of the first astronauts on the moon. You could tell he was emotionally invested in those significant cultural moments, but his demeanor was always forthright and designed to do his job: pass on the news.

Similarly, we don’t need breathless church leadership–convinced that this is the one and only time that the world has faced trouble. We need the firm foundation of the D.O.G.s. Find yourself a D.O.G.–take him or her out for a walk.

© 2020, All rights reserved

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December 6, 2018

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas — Redux

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when through the church house,

All the creatures were stirring, including the mouse.

The decorations were hung by the committee with care,

In hopes that Mrs. Grumplestilskin just wouldn’t dare (complain, that is).

The children were robed for their Christmas play skits,

While visions of presents kept giving them fits.

The pastors in frocks and ushers in place,

Hoped that the cherubs wouldn’t burn down the place.

When outside the doors there rose such a clatter,

You’d think Mrs. Bones had dropped her old platter.

Away to the sidewalk deacons flew in a flash

            (well, not really a flash–average age is 92),

To see if folks had come, perhaps flush with some cash.

The moon on the top of the stinkin’, slick ice,

Made their stroll on the sidewalk not very nice.

When what to their wondering eyes did appear,

But a late Uber driver all red in his ears.

With passengers old but so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment ‘twas some medical trick.

To the church doors they moved, so promptly they came,

As the driver shouted for his fare and called them by name.

“Now, Asher! Now, Stanfield! Now Tricia, you vixen!

Hey, darn it, I’m calling! Come on now, please listen!”

As leaves before a good leaf blower fly,

They scurried to the front, all eager and spry.

So up to the stage did the play director crawl,

Hoping this year there’d be no post-production brawl.

And then, in a twinkling, I couldn’t believe,

Young Johnny missed his cue and forgot to bring Steve.

But there was sweet Mary (her actual name) who played the best part,

Of the little babe’s Mom, all dressed for the start.

The innkeeper was garbed in white from his head to his foot,

But he’d gotten into the furnace room and was covered with soot.

The pastors let out a simultaneous sigh,

Wondering if they could just escape on the sly.

To their utmost chagrin they could not escape,

Sadly, seminary had not prepared them for this (ahem) wonderful fate.

Proceeded then the play, with its fits and its starts,

Until little Johnny let out a series of loud (nope, can’t say that).

The faint-hearted director was taken aback,

By the prospects of (still can’t say that) taking over the pack.

Cherub giggling broke out and there was some very great chatter,

The spry ones in front pew couldn’t tell just what ‘twas the matter.

The pastors tried to seem like not a thing was astray,

But they knew they couldn’t pull it off, no how and no way.

All of a sudden, from way in the back,

Five live sheep appeared and a man with a sack.

They stumbled forward not realizing the fuss,

The sheep all wondering whom they could trust.

They got to the front and saw the small crowd,

Of cherubs all giggling and talking aloud.

The play was so lost that the director made haste,

To get to the finish with no time to waste.

But the sheep not clued in to the need for some speed,

Spent time chewing stuff and one of them (nope, can’t say that either).

The director cried out that she’d had enough,

And went for the door in a pretty great huff.

The kids left alone without any direction,

Didn’t really care about the want of attention.

By this time the crowd was after the pastors,

It seems they own everything, even those old gal crafters.

So, one pastor stood with his face all aglow,

He wanted to land just one mighty blow.

But they did say, in that seminary school,

That throttling kids or sheep was, well, totally uncool.

The play with kids and the sheep and the smells,

Couldn’t go any more badly on this day of the bells.

But just when all thought nothing worse could be done,

Flames shot out from one young sheep’s buns.

It seems that a cherub had taken a candle,

Even one he’d been told that he shouldn’t handle.

The candle had lit up the front of the place,

Bright flames were alighting in most every space.

With everything wrong and the prospect of danger,

It seemed that there’d be no time for the manger.

It ‘twas such surreal and crazy, fraught scene,

That the pastors both just wanted to scream.

It couldn’t be; they couldn’t take any more,

They both ran (with no twinkle) right for the door.

Sad tale this is and pretty darn rotten,

But truth is, it doesn’t happen that often.

Turns out this time that the pastor was dreaming,

His wife woke him up when he started some screaming.

He couldn’t believe the old play gave such great fright,

He just wanted to try to make everything right.

But it seems that tradition grabs hold of all things,

And fills up the nights with such very bad dreams.

It appears that it’s true that it’s most hard to do,

To hold onto Jesus and everything true.

But still, those pastors will try with all of their might,

Even this year to say,

“Happy Christmas to all and, to all a good night!”

 

© 2018, All Rights Reserved

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June 27, 2018

On Being Wise, or Smart, or a Smart A**

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

I saw my dermatologist a while back. She looked me over in search of problematic skin developments because I once had a Basel Cell Carcinoma episode. (Note: when they carve on your ear, you can hear every scrape–it’s creepy.)

Anyway, I pointed to a dark spot on the back of my hand that had given me pause and she said, “Oh, that is a wisdom spot.” My dermatologist hails from China where they graciously refer to what I would have called an “age spot” (if I’d known what I was looking at) as a “wisdom spot.” This, in apparent deference to the biological reality that most of these spots are carried by, ahem, older folks. And, given traditional oriental respect for the aged and reverence for ancestors, there is a pervasive cultural mindset that associates age with wisdom.

Now, I know that the accumulation of years and wisdom do not necessarily travel together (I have met some folks who have not lived 75 years, but just one year, 75 times). But the wisdom/age couplet is more frequently observed than say, kindergarten and wisdom. Which brings me to this.

I have a concern that we no longer value wisdom. Wisdom has been replaced by its normally less mature cousin: smart. And smart itself is often been traded in for smart a**.

(Another note: some of you may stop reading here because you are offended by my asterisked version of the word “a**.” Sorry about that, but it is apropos for this particular post and, while I will bemoan the coarsening of culture, I here call it like I see it.)

Now, I have nothing against smart. Smart people have brought many advances, in multiple fields of endeavor. I, for one, am grateful that I can check my email, or text, or read the news headlines on my “smart” phone “anywhere” (I was going to say, “in the bathroom,” but my very wise ministry partner and wife said I should change that–so I did).

But I am afraid that western culture worships at the altar of “smart.” We see the intelligent and presume that with intelligence comes wisdom. But intelligence (smart) and wisdom are not partners as often as we would like to think.

It was smart that someone figured out how to mine the data and capture hundreds of thousands of social media connections. But was it wise that social media trolls used that data to try and manipulate voters? No. The lessons of wisdom often lag woefully behind “smart.” Wisdom takes time; wisdom takes reflection; wisdom benefits from, nay, depends on lived experience.

It seems our culture is in a desperate search for smarts and often that desperate search for smarts is itself reduced to settling for smart a**.

Good Will Hunting was a film in 1997 that featured the late Robin Williams and Matt Damon (the “Will Hunting” from the movie title). Damon’s character was an autodidact savant (wicked smaaht in his Bostonian native environs), particularly gifted in math, who was discovered by a professor at M.I.T. The trouble with the savant was that he was very fond of demonstrating his intelligence and most often did it in a smart a** way.

Inevitably, the tendency toward smart a**ness got him in trouble. He had trouble with the law and, when he found a woman he liked, he had trouble sustaining a relationship.

Williams’ character was a psychologist–wise, caring, insightful, bruised by the loss of his wife to cancer–who worked at the local community college and was engaged to help Damon’s character mute his smart a** tendencies and deflate his recurring self-destructive antics–to find a path towards becoming the Good Will Hunting.

The difference between Damon’s character’s smarts and Williams’ character’s wisdom? Lived smarts…validating actual “smartness” and discarding faux “smartness” (usually of the smart a** kind) through many laps around the life track.

After a particularly emotive, smart a** outbreak on the part of “Good Will,” Williams’ character looks at him and says, “So if I asked you about art you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo? You know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right? But I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling… “(when I) look at you, I don’t see an intelligent, confident man. I see a cocky, scared sh*tless kid.”

Eventually Williams’ character says to “Good Will,” “You’re just a kid; you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

Fast forward twenty years and smart a** tendencies have been magnified by social media. Witness the many posts, tweets, comments, emojis, and the unflagging determination on the part of many to underscore the “dis” in discourse–no matter what the subject.

Kids from 8 to 80 are contributing to the ever-growing smart a** quotient in our culture. There may be smarts, but the smarts are so often devoid of wisdom and couched in smart a**ness, that the only result is self-congratulatory applause from within one’s own “tribe.”

For us in the Christian community we cannot submit to or participate in this cultural crassness. We are called to be agents of salt and light, reflecting the image of Jesus and pointing to the source of real wisdom–God Himself. Because, in fact, wisdom is not the mere accumulation of information (see the previous post); wisdom is pointing beyond ourselves to that source of all wisdom.

The Ancient of Days is the source for all the wisdom of the ages and He most often expresses that biblically nurtured wisdom through the lived experience of those who have aged. A recent crop of soup commercials to the contrary, there is no “Wisest Kid.” There may be some very smart ones–and there are certainly some smart a** ones–but wise? I think not.

To be sure, there are moments in the lives of young persons when we recognize insights of a masterful quality. But, when those moments come, we call those folks, “wise beyond their years,” recognizing an atypical expression of youth-sprung wisdom.

“From the lips of children and infants” was not a call to abandon wisdom but to embrace the celebration of God’s presence among the people. “Out of the mouths of babes” is not a universal prescription for what ails humanity; it was a commendation of worship of Jesus in the face of religious hypocrisy on the part of those who should have known better.

What we all need to do–youngsters, oldsters, in betweensters, deniers of being oldsters–is immerse ourselves in God’s truth and grow in our personal understanding of the “way we should go.” Then, as we apply those truths in lived experience, we will grow into the kind of people who can be seen as wise–even if we’re not the smartest person in the room.

When we bask in the wisdom of God’s Word and we lean into the wisdom that God has packed into the lives of ever-maturing, more “seasoned” saints, we can begin ourselves the path toward acquired wisdom and shed the culture’s current default toward smart a**ness.

While being sensitive to the “new”–in terms of cultural engagement–we ought not forget the “old”–many of whom (not all, but many) are sitting in our churches who have the life battle scars as evidence of their ability to help us navigate contemporary struggles.

© 2018

 

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June 19, 2018

In Order to Be Servers, We Have to Be Servers

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

I will inevitably misapply some technological terms in this post. I beg your indulgence.

We used to be servers (in the technology sense). We had built in capacity. We had memory–both working memory and storage. Arguably, we used a fairly significant portion of our brains actually holding onto data. We never reached capacity–and some stored more data than others–but we were servers. Our teachers asked us to remember stuff. The more we remembered, the better able we were to navigate–life, jobs, algebra, friendships, the world. We paid attention. We were intrigued by interesting ideas and, when we “looked something up,” it was to hold onto the information we acquired, not just briefly “fondle” it.

I know what you’re thinking: someone else piling onto the “we use technology too much” bandwagon.

But I am not–piling on–that is. At least not in the way you might think I am. I do bemoan my own readily acknowledged shortened attention span. I’ve noticed that I often don’t read articles all the way through any more. I skim them, pick up the information that made it into the first few paragraphs, and then discard the article  because I can “always look it up again later.” There is reputable research to suggest that we have become beholden to our devices (indeed, perhaps becoming one with those devices) and that our cognitive capacity is reduced as a result.

We used to be servers–holding onto data because we knew that acquisition and personal processing of information better prepared us to face the persons and ideas that came our way. But now we’re just peripheral devices. We go to the servers via our preferred search engines (Google, etc., those collections of ones and zeroes that someone else holds onto, out there, in the “cloud”) and acquire data for utility in the moment, and then we let it slip away–back to the cloud–which never forgets. Our Google search history will remind us, when go to look up the same data again, and again, and again.

Why does this matter for Christians? Because, in my view, we cannot be servers (in the biblical sense) if we’re not servers (data hosts) in the technological sense. Putting aside the cultural forces at play and generational transitions, the much researched and readily acknowledged decline in biblical worldview can, I think, be directly traced to a concomitant decline in personal storage of biblical information.

Accumulating Bible knowledge was (and is) never an end in itself. It is always information acquired for purposes: helping us recognize our need for Jesus; helping us better reflect His image; helping us better serve Him; helping us better serve the world around us; helping us better serve. The original languages of the Bible have words for acquiring knowledge. Both the Hebrew word and the Greek word imply knowledge gained with informed action in mind.

But we do not act on the truth from the Bible because we do not know it. When we run into a personal or cultural jam, we try to Google our way out of it–like lighting one match at a time to find our way out of a dark cave, finding just the right passage to support our idea of the moment. When we do that–find those passages, that is–we rip them from their context and apply them in foolish ways–handicapping our capacity to serve Jesus well.

We do not have a fully orbed Christian worldview because we do not have, in resident memory, the stuff from which that worldview is formed. We get trapped in conversations about particular issues–often finding ourselves at the end of a self-constructed mental cul-de-sac–because we do not know the larger context of the pertinent biblical teaching. We settle for ineptly crafted, fortune cookie “wisdom” when we could be offering full slices of the Bread of Life.

I believe that the steady accumulation of biblical data (returning to becoming “servers”) will incrementally and, perhaps even exponentially, enhance our capacity to serve this world in the ways that God would have us.

Exposure to the sweep of the Gospel will enable us to recognize injustice and respond with compassion. Ingesting and digesting the biblical data about love will make us better lovers of God and others and, yes, self. A steady diet of biblical truth will enable us to sort through the multi-channel waves of cultural and political upheaval to discern a way forward that honors God and lifts people up.

We must bask in the truth of the totality of God’s Word to discern the way forward with Him. Let’s become servers in order to be servers.

© 2018

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May 9, 2018

All I Want in My Cashew Chicken is More Chicken

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

We recently moved and we’ve been trying the local eateries. Today I stopped by a Chinese food place and ordered the Cashew Chicken (side note: it comes with fried rice, which explains the odd look on the server’s face when I ordered some supplemental fried rice). I got my takeout order and walked back to my study to enjoy my meal while, you know, pastorally multi-tasking.

Imagine my surprise when I opened the Cashew Chicken box and couldn’t see any, ummm, chicken. It was there; I just couldn’t see it at first. I had to dig for it amongst an array of ingredients that didn’t seem to need to be there: carrots (ok…yeah and yum), mushrooms (boo…who wants to eat a fungus?), water chestnuts (good for crunch), along with some other ingredient that I could not actually identify. And, of course, there were the cashews…enough of them to meet the minimum daily requirement for nut intake–if there is such a thing–outside Washington D.C., that is.

Overall taste…not too bad. But, man, I had to go looking for the chicken–and I wanted more of it.

Sometimes I think we get like that in our Christian life. We do lots of good things–some of them actually tasty–in our efforts to reach people and serve them. We try really, really, really hard to be Christianly “nice”–and, we sometimes pull that off (unless we’re in a curmudgeon-infested church board meeting). But those good things are not, in my view, explicitly Christian. They’re good and we’re nice but our niceness sometimes even masks the call we have to serve explicitly in the name of Jesus.

I know all about the ways in which we’re told to make our presence felt with genuine hearts of service. And I know that we are called to be relationally invested in people as people–and not people as objects for evangelism or church recruitment. And I get it. We have to actually care for actual people–love them the way Jesus did.

So, we serve, with our outreach and community investments and our willingness to be “present” with people. But, I think sometimes we cover up the chicken with our genuine “niceness.” The Kingdom is about more than being nice (though I wish the lady in the beige sedan had been nice and honored the crosswalk sign–instead of trying to run me down–while looking at me as if I was in her way).

Jesus needs to be front and center. He is the Way and Truth and the Life. He said that what we do, we do in His Name. And it’s highly likely that if we are more purposeful about sharing Him, that people will want more of Him.

So maybe we could just be a little more obvious about using Jesus’ name and sharing His Name while we’re being “nice” to people.

Or maybe we’re just chicken.

© 2018, All rights reserved.

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October 28, 2014

Maybe Gene was Right and Failure is Not an Option; I’m Still Not Sure (Part 2)

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

I have had lots of input since my last post (link here).  Many, many folks have been insistent that, in Christ, failure is not an option–if (and this, I think, is a big IF) we are honoring His call and committing ourselves to His purposes.  They have said (as I noted last time) that we do, indeed, live by faith and not by sight.  They have reminded me that human perceptions and evaluations are inevitably incomplete…handicapped by a lack of data and obscured by the sinful nature that continues to blur the plans and purposes of God.

So maybe Gene Kranz was right (or, at least, the Apollo 13 screenwriter who had Kranz’s character say), “Failure is not an option.”  I’m still not sure.

Perhaps it’s just vocational or existential angst.  [Don’t you love the onomatopoeia of “angst”?  Don’t you love the onomatopoeia of “onomatopoeia”?]

Anyway, perhaps it’s just vocational or existential or even life stage angst.  I don’t know.  I do know that the feeling of failure still hovers–faintly whispering like the revolving rotary wings of a black ops helicopter–just waiting to touch down with its rapid assault team to confirm my fears.

But I have been deeply appreciative of the encouragement.  And that is definitely something.  Really, definitely, something.

And I have been prompted to do what I have encouraged so many others to do when faced with hard questions for which there seem to be no easy answers.  When faced with what I don’t know about the Christian life, I hearken back to what I do know.

I know this: God is good all the time (go ahead, you can toss back the response, “And all the time, God is good”).  It’s worth reminding myself that the God we worship is not arbitrary nor capricious nor tantrum tossing nor ignorant of our circumstances and peccadillos.  His goodness is who He is; His goodness is what He does; His goodness flows from His love; and His love is deeper, wider, and higher than we can comprehend.

I know this: God has resources–has them all, in fact. And, though those resources are most often arrayed just beyond our sight sense, that doesn’t mean they’re not there.  It simply means that we don’t always get to see them.  Sometimes we hardly ever get to see them.  And maybe it’s the “hardly ever” that makes it seem, well, hard.

It was panic time.  The ancient city of Dothan was surrounded by an Aramean army which had snuck in overnight.  It was a manhunt…more accurately a prophet hunt.  Elisha kept derailing the King of Aram and his plans to destroy the Israelites.  The King thought he had a double agent among his people; but Elisha was giving the Israelites divine intel about Aramean troop movements.  Aram’s King wanted Elisha…badly.

So Aram surrounded Dothan in the night.  Not a good next morning for Dothanites (Dothanians?).  Elisha’s servant was mess-your-pants scared. Elisha prays and asks God to show nervous servant boy what’s really there.  Massed in the hills–masked to normal human sight–the Lord’s horses and chariots of fire surround the Aramean army.

That time, a servant of God got to see all that God had at His disposal.

I have to confess that I’m envious of Elisha’s servant.  Not envious of his era with its lack of indoor plumbing and all things “i” (Phone, Pad, Pod, etc.).  I am envious of that real time get-to-see-it experience in the middle of what looked like failure.  Man, what a day!

But part of what marks that day as spectacular is that it was not the norm.  To be sure, hanging around with Elisha heightened the probability that supercalifragilistic things would happen.  But even by God’s-prophet-is-in-town standards (see ax, floating), the vision of the Army of God for the servant of God was blockbuster stuff.

But it was not the norm.  The norm: we live by faith, not sight.  Right?

And I highlight that on the list of things I have known about God and this Christian life.  I live in the tension between what I know to be true about God and what I see happening around me.  So, maybe Gene was right, “Failure is not an option.”  But I have to confess I still hear the whispering blades of that black ops chopper.  Sigh…

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

© All rights reserved.  Scripture from the NIV.

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October 14, 2014

With Respect, Gene, Failure Is An Option

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

apollo-13-failure-is-not-an-option-bumper-sticker-1608-p

They made a movie about it; they called it, “Apollo 13.”  The film dramatized the heroic and herculean efforts by the ground and space crews to get three astronauts home after a malfunction that cost the Apollo 13 crew their moon landing and had real potential to kill them outright or leave them stranded to slip into a deep and cold space death.

When confronted with the breadth of multiple systems failures, Ed Harris, portraying Gene Kranz, the NASA Flight Director, crisply insists that “Failure is NOT an option.”

Ironically, the words actually came from the “Apollo 13” script writer, Bill Broyles, and not Gene himself.  Kranz later adopted the phrase (which certainly characterized the NASA mindset…and his own), and used it as the title for his autobiography.

But, with respect to Gene, it is actually the case that failure is, not only an option, but an all too frequent reality for many, many, many, maybe most, perhaps all.

I was still in high school and was, ahem, “mastering” piano playing of the: you-can-be-in-a-party-band-and-plunk-chords-but-don’t-get-any-professional-real-musician-ideas kind of way.  My piano teacher had been offered a gig at a small honkytonk in Vermont.  He was not available, so he offered me the gig.  Problem: they did not have a piano; they had a two manual (read keyboard) Hammond B3 organ instead.

Now, I had seen Hammond organs before and heard some folks who could play really well, but I WAS NOT ONE of them.  I had never, ever even actually sat down at an organ to try to play.  When I mentioned this to my piano teacher (who was, in the “by the way” department) COMPLETELY AWARE of this, he said (and I quote because the entire episode is seared in that part of my memory labeled, “trauma”), “No problem; come on over this afternoon and I’ll run you through the basics and you’ll be fine.”

Assuming he knew what he was talking about, I went to his studio and sat with him for (another “ahem”) WHOLE thirty minutes, during which I apparently grasped organ playing to a degree he thought would bode success way up there in Vermont honkytonkdom.  Vainly trying to adopt his confidence (but not his skill…really and truly), I got in the car for the two-hour trip to the aforementioned honkytonk.

[Aside number one:  assuming you can play the organ because you play the piano and they both have keyboards is like assuming you can drive a tandem tractor trailer rig for UPS because you drive a car and the car and the truck both have tires.]

[Aside number two: this was before they had “The Voice” or any of the other searching-for-new-talent-because-there-is-a-worldwide-shortage-of-superstars shows.  I suppose there could be a show called “The Organ” but I’m confident too many people would get exactly the kind of wrong idea you’re getting right now.]

I got to the honkytonk.  I took my place at the organ on what passed for a stage.  I went on at 8:00 p.m.  I left at 8:25 p.m.  During the intervening 25 minutes I slaughtered several songs–killed them dead, dead, dead–mashing them into unrecognizable pseudo zombie songs; notes falling off like appendages from the undead.

Faux music was flung from the defenseless Hammond B3 by the sad combination of my less-than-novice organ playing and my mist-like confidence that vaporized when a honkytonk patron said (upon sighting this then skinny high school kid with his BIG FAKE BOOK of music), “Do have any idea what you’re doing?  We’re partial to GOOD music here.  You don’t look like you know what you’re doing.  Get me another beer!”  [That last part was aimed at the barkeep.]

After 25 minutes of organ-based torture (since outlawed by the Geneva Conventions), the honkytonk proprietor (who was kind of nice enough but insistent…really, absolutely insistent) said (again, words seared into the previously mentioned trauma memory section), “You can go now; we’ll just drop quarters in the juke box.  You wanna donate some quarters?”  [I made up that bit about him wanting me to donate quarters…but with the look on his face, I could tell he wanted me to feed the jukebox on my way out.]

Failure is most certainly an option.  Since the “organ episode,” I’ve had a not exceptional, but successful military career, been moderately effective in the classroom, had an advancing business-world effort as a health care administrator, and, in my primary vocation, pastored not “mega,” but certainly (except for one purposeful “church hospice” experience) churches that moved in forward directions (by those things we can measure).  Some super sweet kids and a terrific wife and blessingly adorable grandkids round out the resume. [I know, these should have been first on the list…mark my list making fail as yet another, ummmm, failure.]

Now, I am beginning to feel “failure” again on the horizon.  It seems tantalizingly close by.  It is stalking me–I see its shadow and its reflective glimpse when I turn quickly.  But this time with much bigger stakes.  And it scares me…really scares me.

And it raises so many questions.

After mustering experience-based wisdom and genuinely seeking God’s heart and plans and purposes for my enterprise, what if I fail?

Or, can it not be failure and still look like failure?

And, where is God in the middle of the failures?  Are they lessons in humility?  If so, why do so many other people have to be affected or tainted by my failed effort?  I am most certainly handicapped by lack of eternal perspective in moments of failure.

And, how much of our failures are we supposed to own?  Because, honestly, my tendency is to own all of it–even those pieces well outside my illusory control.  But if I haven’t purposed to fail (and who, in their right mind, would), then it seems as if failure is a divinely permitted dagger aimed straight at the core of my spirit.

And I know that God is sovereign and that we are called to live by faith and not sight.  But how much faith?  And is any sight permitted in the process?  No sight?  Never? Never ever?

And I know that conflating what we do (for good or ill) with who we are is always problematic.  Lean in one direction and you get pride; lean in the other and you get despair.  Traveling the road of pride is a recipe for disaster; taking the byway of despair drains one’s physical, emotional, and spiritual energy.

I could (and do) run to the scriptures in these moments…but is there anyone else who is left unsatisfied with the delayed response that they most always offer?  I know I’m not supposed to think that or (certainly not) say it out loud.  But there it is.  How many “somedays” and “perseverances” and “patiences” is one soul called upon to endure?

And I know that this feels like a little (ok, maybe a very lot) of whining when people around the world lose their lives or their livelihoods for their faith.  But it is real; it is here; it is scary.

Failure is most certainly an option, Gene.  When I am on the cusp of one, I struggle with all of the above and more…and I do not know what to make of it.  Do you?

© All rights reserved.

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January 28, 2014

The “Not So New Math” or When Does $29 Equal $1340?

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

Confession:  I am not a math whiz…adding and subtracting, simple multiplication and division; those operations pretty much exhaust my math skills.  I figure (get it? “figure”?) that, if God had wanted me to be a math whiz, He would not have overseen the creation of the MyScript Calculator app for my phone.  And, calculus?  Math with no numbers?  Why oh why oh why?

But, I am also not an idiot.  Stop:  put those hands down; I know you want to object to my self-descriptor, but you cannot.  Unless, of course, you post a comment; then I suppose you can…object…that is. 

So I was mildly (only mildly; I’ll unpack that momentarily) surprised when we were at the auto dealership last night.  My car’s lease had come up and it was time to make the dreaded decisions: purchase or lease; new or used; same make and model or different.  Some people love car shopping.  I rank car shopping down there with root canals (with or without Novocain) and expressing the slime from a MRSA infection.  [Yes, I know that was a gross mental image, but it’s truly how I feel about car shopping.] 

Meanwhile…back at the car dealership.  A nice chap (The Cheerful Car Chap or CCC) was very happy to see us when we arrived.  He held the door for us as we entered the showroom (partially to escape the ridiculous cold).  [On another note:  Polar Vortex, go back to the Pole or Poland, or wherever you came from; I’m done with the subzero wind chill.]  He asked us why we were there and that’s when I produced the ad his dealership friends had so kindly emailed:  the ad for a $29 lease!  I figured I could afford a $29 lease.  The CCC inquired as to our car preference. 

I shared with him that we were looking for something a little bigger than we’d had.  The compact I had driven for three years had been great: terrific gas mileage coupled with car doors that locked and unlocked electronically (that last bit is an entirely other story); that car had gotten me around town and up and down the East Coast. 

But it was a small car and I have, ahem, “girthed up” somewhat over the last few years. [Comments about my increased girth are not welcome and will be ignored.]  So I was looking for something with more ease of ingress and egress.  The CCC took us on a test run in a larger car and it seemed to be just the thing.  The CCC showed us the various available colors and we picked one:  blue (the lighter blue because the dark blue looks kind of purple in the dark under street lights; I know this because my friend has one and I had teased him about it.  Purple is fine for many people; just not me). 

We then sat down with The CCC to “do the deal.”  That’s when came the “math surprise.”  It wasn’t a complete surprise (as I mentioned earlier).  Unfortunately I have come to expect “car dealership surprises” packed into the fine print or hidden behind some obscure link on some not so crystal clear web site. 

The “fine print” (in this case) meant that $29 was just the beginning of the math problem.  To the $29, it seems, one must add:  the first month’s lease payment, dealer prep charges, documentation fees, taxes, tips, licenses, bonuses, flea dusting charges (threw that last one in there to see if you were paying attention), etc.  Final tally:  $1340 NOT $29. 

Since I had been half expecting additional fees and the final amount was in the price range we had anticipated, we went ahead and closed the deal.  My girthness now girths itself in a roomier ride. 

But the auto dealership is not the only place where very little can mean much, much more. 

When we come to the place where we recognize our need for Jesus Christ, we realize that we have very, very little to offer: broken and sin-scarred souls and a spiritual pauper’s faith (not even $29 worth, really…and…it turns out that the $29 we thought we gave Him, had itself been a gift).  He takes our $29 then does some Not So New Math:  grace “operations” that have been performed since eternity by a loving, Heavenly Father:  He turns our measly $29 into ever much more. 

“Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every familyin heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19).

Not bad…our meagerness being turned by God into a life that is much, much more than we dreamed possible:  wider, longer, higher, deeper.  Not bad at all for $29.

I think I’ll hoist my girth into the new car and go for a ride. 

© All rights reserved.  Scripture from the NIV, Zondervan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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October 23, 2013

The First Post

By Howard Cassidy-Moffatt

Of the making many books (and blogs) there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12), so why another and why from me?  I don’t know the answer to either of those questions.  I just feel compelled by some inner urge (trusting that it is not bad pizza) to write in bits and pieces about a little of this and a little of that–mostly about the things that occupy my attention in the Church.  So, here goes.  Tune in if you’d like; tune out if you must.  This one is very personal; they will not all be.

I watched my Mom step from life to life 25 days ago.  She had never thought of herself as remarkable; I had never thought of her as anything but remarkable.  She had it tough as a child and made it through the toughness without becoming hardened.  I’ve heard the stories from my Dad and still am awed by the understated power and overwhelming compassion of the woman, wife, and mother she became.

We shared a common faith in Christ.  I had the privilege of baptizing her (and my wallet).  That sharing is what made it possible for me to watch and listen (mostly from a distance) as she surrendered her earthly body to a most relentless cancer.  I was there the day she slipped away.  

I had arrived two hours before; I prayed with her; read to her from her very used Bible; listened with her and my Dad to her favorite Elvis Presley hymn collection (Elvis may have worn blue suede shoes and warned off hound dogs, but the boy could sing a hymn like few others–when he sang, “How Great Thou Art” there was no doubt about the greatness of God).  I slipped out of the room to make a five minute phone call and when I came back into the room, my Dad said, “I don’t think she’s breathing.”  She wasn’t.

I kept wondering why I didn’t fall apart.  I kept wondering if I was some hard-hearted weird boy who didn’t realize that his Mom had just died.  Why didn’t I cry?  I was sad.  I am still sad.  And I have cried since (the tears sneaking up on me like some stealth grief bomb) but I didn’t cry then. 

It has since hit me:  I didn’t believe she was dead.  This was not the disbelief of denial.  No, this was something deeper:  it was, I think, the disbelief of faith.  It was a disbelief that she was dead because I knew she was really not.  Certainly her body had quit.  Certainly the cancer had finished its ugly ravaging.  But she was not dead.

There are those “Oh, that’s it!” moments in the life of a follower of Jesus Christ.  This was one for me.  “We do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope,” said the Apostle Paul.  We do grieve; we do cry; we do know sadness (I would give anything to be able to have one of my weekly chats with her…to hear her pick up the phone and say, “Hi, honey.”).  But we do not grieve like those who have no hope.

In her last days, wracked with pain, she had cried out to be with Jesus.  Though it sprang from her pain, it was not the cry of the desperate; it was the cry of faith.  To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  To be separated from my Mom because she has passed away from this life is not to lose her.  She’s taken an earlier flight.  I’ll catch up with her later.  She’s enjoying the rest from her pain and the joy of her Lord.  I can be sad that I am not with her now but I know I will be with her again.

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