IVP - Strangely Dim - December 2009 Archives

Isaiah 'Twas Foretold It

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from your friends at Strangely Dim!

O Savior, Child of Mary, who felt our human woe,
O Savior, King of glory, who dost our weakness know;
Bring us at length we pray, to the bright courts of Heaven,
And to the endless day!
--"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"

The Gospel in Glee

I'll admit it. I'm a fan of the popular show Glee, a new FOX offering all about a high school glee club. For all its moral ambiguity (and there is quite a bit--see this great little article in Time), there is something in this show that resonates deeply with me. Is it the fact that I myself was a choir geek? Probably. Is it the fact that I often associated with the misfit crowd? Likely. Yet it still doesn't account for why I find myself so moved during the musical numbers. Or during great choral music in general. What is it about music performed by groups that strikes such a chord? (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

I have to tell all of you nonsingers out there that singing in a skilled choir, no matter how geeky it may appear, is one of the greatest joys in this life. I'm not kidding. There's not much that compares. Singing great music is like seeing the back of God after he has just passed by. You know you've been close to glory, and you wish it wasn't so fleeting.

I remember singing in Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah in college under the direction of the renowned conductor John Nelson. We practiced for hours at a time three days a week for months. It was challenging. We worked on tone and balance, learning to listen to each other and match our voices to the group's voice. We worked on diction, making sure that text like "slumbers not nor sleeps" didn't sound like "slumber snot nor sleeps." We learned how to breathe and cut off together. We were 300+ individuals, but we became something more: an organism of sorts, a giant voice that created a fully-orbed sound that none of us could produce on our own. We moved and breathed and sang as one. And on the night of the first performance, the results were electrifying.

Imagine us watching the auditorium fill with 2000+ audience members, many of whom had never heard oratorio in their lives. Would they like this kind of music? Would they understand it? Would they leave at intermission?

The overture started. The crowd was hushed. In one motion we stood to our feet and the first glorious chords began. As the first half came to a close, I had to stop singing because I was so overwhelmed by emotion. "Thanks be to God, he laveth the thirsty land," we sang. I felt the flood of God's presence washing over my thirsty soul.

We worked our way through the rousing Baal choruses and Elijah's calling down fire onto the altar of God. We followed the prophet to the end of his life, when he was taken up by God in a whirlwind. The excitement mounted until the final chord echoed out over the crowd and fell silent.

Immediately everyone was on their feet with thundering applause, waving, shouting and cheering. You would've thought we'd won the homecoming game. The thrill was palpable. The joy was ecstatic. It was heavenly.

I think that's a big part of why people like Glee--not because everyone loves show choir music or can sing, but because the story of a group of flawed people coming together and being transformed into one voice that creates something beautiful is a foretaste of heaven. It speaks to the longing we all have to be unified in God and with God, to contribute to something extraordinarily beautiful and bigger than ourselves, to be caught up in the redemption and consummation of all things.

This Advent I again had the pleasure of singing with a wonderful choir. And I was reminded of who it is we await: the master conductor who comes to bring all of his creation into harmony. We will one day have the supreme pleasure of coming together in him to experience ultimate, never-ending glee.

Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus.

Authors in Their Native Habitat

This nugget of strange dimness brought to you by David A. Zimmerman.

If you are related to Mike Sares, pastor of Scum of the Earth Church in Denver and author of the forthcoming Likewise Book Pure Scum, I have three words for you: Watch your back. Mike may give someone the coat off of it.

That's what happened to me during my visit a couple of weeks ago. Because I'm a reasonably ignorant traveler, I packed a windbreaker to help me stave off the winter weather. Because Mike knows Denver well, he quickly surmised that a windbreaker wouldn't be enough. So he dipped into his son's closet (his son, incidentally, is in Brazil, blissfully unaware) and gave me--not loaned me; gave me--what his assistant later told me was "probably a $200 coat."

It's awesome. I'd be wearing it right now if my coworkers would promise not to look at me funny.

I would have counted it a great visit even without the free coat. I've been eager to get a look at Scum of the Earth since I first heard of the church, and now that they've moved into their new, permanent location, the timing seemed perfect. A wildly creative church with a longstanding relationship with the Denver homeless community, Scum has always struck me as both innovative and orthodox, a combination that many churches struggle to master--as much as anything, because attempts at both innovation and orthodoxy are so often met with contempt from outsiders.

Case in point. The new building Scum finds itself in, formerly a church-turned-residence for a mosaic artist, is smack-dab in the middle of a Denver neighborhood gradually being transformed from cosmopolitan crevice to arts district. As such, the church's creative streak is for the most part (one holdout notwithstanding) welcomed by its new neighbors, but the homeless community the church attracts is not. It can be tough to be orthodox sometimes.

Similarly, the name of the church (taken from a passage in 1 Corinthians 4) draws as much ire from church purists on the right and left as it does praise from the "left-out and right-brained" it seeks to serve, and curiosity from ambivalent onlookers. Like I said, it's not easy being orthodox.  

And yet the people from across the spectrum of Christian orthodoxy who get it, get it. I attended a year-end banquet for the church, a sort of Christmas celebration of all the good news Scum has experienced in 2009. Also in attendance were students, alumni and faculty from Denver Seminary, pastors and congregants from a number of other Denver churches, and longtime friends and supporters of various members of Scum's staff team, who count on such supporters for their salaries. We enjoyed a dinner of homemade Greek food and the company of this eclectic mix of people, set against a backdrop of good music and a slideshow of the church's activity over the past year--which included acquisition of the new building, which includes what friend of Likewise Margaret Feinberg has called "the coolest bathrooms in Christendom," or words to that effect.

Seriously, you should see the bathrooms at this church. Same goes for the kitchen, the "nursery" and the cross. It's only fitting that a church made up of so many artists and craftspeople would house itself in the former home of an artist who considered every wall, ceiling, floor and counter as creative space.

If you're intrigued by the prospect of visiting such a church, I have two words for you: sensory overload. Still, I'd recommend a visit to anyone and everyone. Mike tells the story of the church in Pure Scum, but you won't have the whole story till you've walked through the foyer and stood before the cross--not to mention used the bathroom.

Snow, Snow, Snow

By Lisa Rieck

When I started typing the title of this post, I accidentally typed "Snot" first, which I suppose is appropriate, seeing as how it's often a by-product of snow. As is what I really want to talk about: cleaning off your car in the winter. It's one of my least favorite parts of winter. I've had to scrape the frost off a few times already this winter, but today was the first real snow: the first snow that covered the ground, and the first day I've had to brush snow off of my car. Thankfully for all us poor (in spirit and in money) car-brushers, it was a light snow (never mind all those kiddos out there hoping for some good packing snow), and brushed off easily. But I still didn't like doing it.

I'm realizing, though (this is what too much time in the cold brushing off your car will do), that cleaning off my car is a good metaphor for Advent. (Ha! Take that, Floridians. Your lack of snow is stunting your spirituality.) The metaphor is particularly apt for this second week of Advent, which, as Kimberlee Conway Ireton instructs us in The Circle of Seasons, is the week we're to focus on preparing ourselves for the Savior. She writes: "We as Christians are to be paying attention to God's presence in the world and preparing for Christ's return. . . . That is why we need Advent--it reminds us to pay attention, to be on guard, to keep watch that we might be ready for Christ when he comes again."

The concept of preparing for Christ's second coming has always felt a little vague to me. What does that look like, specifically, aside from the "normal" parts of following Christ? How, in other words, do I learn to be particularly attentive? What types of things should I pay attention to?

Turns out, I think preparing is a lot like scraping the snow and ice off of my car. It's getting rid of all that clouds my vision of myself and the world--all the distractions that keep me from thinking about the true state of my heart, all the temptations that keep me from following hard after Christ. And, to be honest, this spiritual clearing away is about as fun as standing out in the cold brushing snow off of your car. It's messy, and hard. But I'm convinced the only way we can truly grow is by being willing to let God search our heart and tell us what's there.

That's how I'm "celebrating" this week of Advent. I'm asking God to search my heart, to clear away all the pretty snow and show me the hard, cold truth underneath. It's humbling for sure, but I believe it will give me a clearer picture of myself, of God's grace and of myself in light of his grace.

Here's another way I'm celebrating Advent: by fasting from listening to music in my car while I'm driving. I'm trying to use that time to ponder Christ's coming (his first and second coming), and to reorient my thoughts according to Christ's ways, not the world's. Not listening to music does not, of course, mean I'm thinking about Christ. My thoughts still roam all over. I have to deliberately choose to pull my thoughts from the distractions and temptations--to scrape away the frost, if you will--to get to what's underneath my worry, my need to be "productive" (yes, even while driving), my self-absorption. It too is humbling and hard; I'm sad how difficult it is for me to focus my thoughts on Christ during a twenty-five-minute drive. But this effort, this trying, is one more way I can prepare myself for Christ's coming, one more way I can make myself more available for his work of spreading his kingdom on earth.

So, all you cold-weather friends who might be feeling a little unprepared for the coming of winter, let the scraping of frost remind you to prepare for Christ's coming. Brush the snow from your windows and eyes. Wave your ice scrapers in the air. Try not to complain too much. (And don't lick any metal poles, even if someone dares you to. You can never be warned too many times.)

Happy Birthday, Birthday Boy

Reposted by David A. Zimmerman

Today is the birthday of longtime friend and icon of Likewise Books, Don Everts (his friends call him Donaldo). Two years ago we were in the throes of a fit of creativity here at Strangely Dim, and Don's birthday (which is today--occasioned the following, one of my all-time favorite posts. I re-present it here for your amusement. Celebrate Don's birthday by buying one or several of his books--they make great stocking stuffers. (Some of them actually do fit in socks; some of them are even about feet!)

***

Today is the first of the month, which means that once again we're participating in our friendly <a href="Rabbit'>http://strangelydim.ivpress.com/rabbit/">Rabbit competition.</a> Today also, however, falls within our Fortnight of Odes, so that ups the ante a bit. And to top it off, today is the birthday of <a href="Don'>http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/author.pl/author_id=1029">Don Everts,</a> author of four-soon-to-be-nine books. So I hope you'll forgive my infelicities as I try to marry these three phenomena together in today's post.

Ode to a Rabbit Named Don Everts

He hops in beauty as the knight
Hops to duty and sits down to write
All the ideas living in his head
This knight writes nightly; he'll sleep when he's dead.

He's heard everything in his short little life--
From "I did . . ." from his students to "I do" from his wife.
His feet may be dirty, but they're covered in luck--
For example, book contracts seem to fall off the truck

Into his laptop, where he mines all his senses
For a way to convey best our cosmic offenses.
And just when you think he's said all that needs saying,
He twitches his nose and continues conveying.

So here's to Don Everts, our favorite bunny;
He's cute, warm and friendly, decidedly funny.
A preacher, a writer, who's highly regarded;
Here's hoping he's still only just getting started.

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Don . . .
Happy birthday to you!