Silenced

I am not going to post for awhile...I have been blown away by reading much on the Open Door Community in Atlanta, GA (see http://www.opendoorcommunity.org/)

Save the time from reading my posts (if anyone does) and the many other blogs that are out there and read what people are actually doing not simply saying.

http://www.opendoorcommunity.org/-in case you missed the link, you will be a truer disciple if you read what these disciples are up to. Though some might not agree with certian positions one would be crazy to ignore the prophetic nature of their ministry to those of us in comfortable wealthy clubs we are calling churches.

Against the Powers

Charles Campbell's Word Before the Powers challenges all notions of what it means to be a Jesus follower. His conviction is that Jesus is depicted as the God ordained prophet/teacher who did everything to resist, usurp, name, and expose the "principalities and powers" of darkness. Though he is not original with this idea (none of us are by the way) his particular approach of desribing the Christian life is compelling.

In resisting the powers we are truly following Jesus and we serve as foreshadows to the full inbreaking of the Kingdom.

One section in particular really transformed me this week. In resisting the powers of darkness, even if it means marginalization and death, we beging to witness tokens of Christ's resurrection.

In my own life, these glimpses of God's Shalom have often come on the streets of Atlanta among homeless people. Several months ago, for example, I was leading worship in the front yard of the Open Door Community, a Christian community that ministers with homeless people. A group of us were standing in a circle, holding hands, praising God amid the noise of rush-hour traffic...Then, as I looked around the circle, I noticed one homeless man waiving to me and pointing to himself, indicating he wanted to do something. I was surprised when I saw him, for the man can neither hear or speak, and normally he is very reserved. But there he was, urgently waving to me, requesting to provide leadership for the worship.

I nodded to him, and he stepped into the middle of the circle. Then, after bowing his head for a few moments in silence, he began to sign a hymn for us. It was remarkable, beautiful, like a dance. And while the rest of us didn't understand all of the signs, some of them were unmistakable, like the sign for Jesus on the cross. And we all knew the Word the man proclaimed through his dance. (pp. 123-24)

As easy as it is to name the powers at work (indiffernce, nationalism, materialism, and racism) I shudder to think of the ways in which I allow and encourage the powers and prinicipalities of darkness to ravage the ones Jesus identified with.

It is time for those of us doing theology and preaching to do theology that is concerned about the church and her witness in the world and not 3rd Century Ancient Roman bathroom construction, or depicting a God who wants to "increase our territory." Both reduce the Christian Story to a pitifall version of the Jesus on display in the Gosels and throughout the history of his church. Christ means a real and present hope for all people. Christ means change. Christ means ongoing transformation. Christ means the liberation of creation from the grip of death.
That is the music to which we all are invited to dance.

My first ever blog came in the fall (I think October) about a good friend Mary Morris. Mary is the Director of Character Counts in Nashville and teaches in the Education Department at Lipscomb University.

Mary has a very dangerous form of cancer and has been battling its effects for nearly 10 months now. We are all hopeful, but we honestly have no idea what the next 2 or 3 months have in store. Yesterday, a small group of disciples gathered in a hospital holding room at Vanderbilt Hospital to praise, pray, partake of the Eucharist and listen to a short homily.

In the room: family members, two college students, the former governor of TN, many teriffic women who've made parenting an honorable vocation, several College professors and host of other people.

It is in the most Christian moments that the playing fields are leveled. Honor, power, and status mean nothing when Jesus' apprentices come together to practice authentic community. Mary spoke up and gave a stirring encouragement to us. At one point she said, "This is my family."

For me, the church is the greatest apologetic for the ressurection. Oh, I know it is also the greatest support AGAINST the ressurection as well. But in moments like the one we shared yesterday, I believe because I want to believe. You can have the ontological argument for God. You can have all of the proofs for the ressurection The Case For Christ can conjur. But me, I came to Christ and have been sustained by Him because of his dysfunctional band of brothers and sisters we call the broken body of Christ. For me, being a part of the church has been salvation through and through.

A Menorah from the Pope?

I've enjoyed hearing the many anecdotes that have surfaced in regards to the life of Pope John Paul II over the last few days. Tales of his love for poetry, skiing, philosophy, and hiking. The world needs to remember that before he was the Pope, he was a man with crazy dreams about life, love, and friendship.

One story in particular came during an interview with Larry King the other night. I forget the gentleman's name, he was the Pope's official orchestra director, but he developed a unique relationship with the man. A few details are important here. One, the Pope sought this man out because he lived in the Pope's childhood town. Second, this man is Jewish.

One of the director's sons recently recieved a menorah from the 16th century as a gift from the Pope. The director said this gift was typical of the nature of their friendship. Love, acceptance, affection-some call it incarnational, some call it being Jesus. I call it true to the nature of the Gospel. Living with people in a Gospel way as opposed to convincing people that the Christian faith is the sum of its rational arguments.

One of the pastors at the church I attend noted the incarnational nature of the Pope's ministry-being among the poor, hugging them, touching, looking them in their eyes, validating their humanity, seeing them as full persons.

There is much I don't understand about highly institutionalized relgions (of which fundamentalists sometimes tend to be the worst)but I do know that God can redeem them. I think Pope John Paul II was God's activity in the life of the Church universal among the world.

Camden

I spent my spring break with a group of students and one teacher (Phillip Camp) from Lipscomb in Camden, New Jersey. One of my best friends is doing his Ph.D. in Philadelphia (Westminster) and we worked with his church to somehow be good news for the six days we were there. Most people do not know this but Camden was recently voted the most dangerous city in the U.S. (U.S. News and World Report). It edged out Detroit, Houston, New York, and Los Angeles (and a few others).

Camden is actually an extension of Philadelphia--just across the river. It only has about 50,000 people. Buildings are abandoned, streets are occupied with trash. As we stood on the corner of one of the most dangerous parts of Camden I thought to myself, "This cannot be America." I've been to Trujillo, Honduras and Ocho Rios, Jamaica-but I expected poverty, despair and hunger.

Our group worked with "My Brothers Keeper"-a mission house run by a pentecostal church in which former addicts, pushers, and pimps come for food, healing, and restoration. Day by day, with prayer and community, they are made whole again. Real people with real pain. Not simply "lazy blacks/latinos" who don't want a better life. Men who've been overrun by institutional sin.

I wonder when our churches will start sending missionaries to Camden. I wonder when the churches in Korea will start sending missionaries to Detroit. Missiologists say (people who study mission contexts) that more Christians live in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe than in the West. This hasn't been the case for several hundred years.

I wonder when Christians will start to reclaim their identity as missionaries in a context that is hostile towards the claim of the gospel? Maybe those of us in vocational ministry (preachers, pastors, and counselors) should spend more time equipping the disciples than performing psychology; bad psychology at that.

Where the poor exist, Christ is present. Is the church spending time with Christ or with Caesar and the spoils of his empire?

As we prepare to remember and reinact the passion of Jesus it strikes me how strange it might seem to many that a band of believers would suscribe to the following elements of the Christian faith.

1. That Jesus' cross now belongs to all of those who would dare to follow him.

2. To be Christian is to, in sense, denounce all other powers we've historically run to for identity and sustainment.

3. Life with the marginalized is not something the church plans--this is who the church is. Not because it is the natural response but because we take seriously the teachings and life of Jesus.

4. Our faith is not "successful"--it does not bring more wealth,power, or influence-- if it does it might not be the faith. Our faith is in a God who is moving the world to his own purposes. In fact, our faith looks quiet foolish when we get right down to it.

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When I read the Gospels, this is the world I see it creating; a world radically different than the one we live in.

Besides a few of my seminary teachers, Barbara Brown Taylor has challenged my faith in ways I cannot explain. Here is an excerpt from The Preaching Life I used on Sunday at Woodmont Hills. She is a poet who writes as if words still matter a great deal.


God is not through with us yet. At our worst moments, both individually and corporately, we act as if that were so. We act as if creation had all been finished a long, long time ago, and encased in glass, where we may look at it through the grime of centuries but may not touch. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Holy Spirit still moves over the face of the waters, God still breaths life into piles of dust, Jesus still shouts us from our tombs. The deep river of revelation still runs strong from the fresh headwaters of its source to its jewel-encrusted banks in the heavenly city, with power to drench our dry days along the way. (From The Preaching Life)

The Spirit still moves over the face of the waters...blowing wherever it pleases.

For Those Who Have No Voice

Part of my grad school experience has been sub teaching with the Metro Public School System. This of course is about paying Lipscomb, not some kind of “ministry training experience.” Recently I taught at risk at a large, well-known high school here in downtown Nashville. Vanderbilt sends a child-therapist over every Thursday to help these at risk kid’s deal with anger, depression, and hatred. Some of them talked about their fears of all the gangs-the BP’s, KP’s, Crips, Bloods, and KKK. After a few minutes of this, the therapist got the young men and women to talk about their personal lives. One young boy, a talented artist, spoke of not ever knowing his father. His mother works three jobs to pay the bills for him and his brother. He wants to drop out of school so his mother “don’t have to work to the bone every day and night.” A young girl sat next to him. She is 17 and has a two-year old daughter. She spoke of her hatred for her father. She said she wished he would disappear from her life. Said it would be better to deal with an absent father than an abusive father. Her mother doesn’t work and makes her take care of the house, her three younger siblings, plus her own two-year old daughter. The boyfriend/father is kept in the picture because “he got money and that’s the only thing I got going for me right now.”

Next to her sits a young African American male. He is shy but intelligent. He is not confident enough to look the therapist in the eye. After a few moments of prodding, he talks about the rage he keeps inside towards his mother. Seems she no longer wanted to be around. He’s never seen a picture of his father, let alone met him. One day, a few years ago, she dropped him off at his Aunt’s house and no one has heard from her since. He asks through his tears, “Why you think my momma don’t want to be around me?” The last girl at the table speaks up after a few moments of silence. She is a talent on the basketball floor, I’m later told. Last year, her mother (her idol) was killed by a drunk driver. No father to comfort her. Just like that-her life is flipped upside down. She lives with different family members, bouncing from house to house, grinding it out day by day.

I enjoy the various theories of the Atonement. Propitiation, reconciliation, justification, liberation—all the words that we wrestle with. But I’m challenged by the notion that all theories of the cross-its meaning for the church must be relational and communal. We cannot stay in the courtroom mentality, walking around declaring, “Aren’t we fortunate to have been forgiven.” Only to return back to life as usual. The Gospel knows nothing of life as usual. The Gospel is a revolution that is supposed to turn everything upside down-all aspects of life in the here and now. Most importantly the cross must change the way we think about those we live with and amongst. If Christ speaks on our behalf, is he not relying upon us to speak for those with no voice? The ones who’ve been dealt an UNO hand at the poker table. Does the cross not demand that we get over ourselves, our way of being Christian to follow Jesus as light into every dark corner of society? If God’s mercy does not cause us to be merciful, is it really the gospel that we’ve been claiming all along?

Speaking of Sin

It is all around us. At every turn, in every corner and in every place, high or low, sin is present in our world. It is easy to see its effects in the world around us if we’d just pay attention long enough to hear the voices of those being crushed under its oppressive force. In Africa, H.I.V. and A.I.D.S. are killing young people by the hundreds of thousands. In the Sudan, Muslims are slaughtering Christians, and Christians are returning the favor. The genocide is rooted in their tribal narratives- each is convinced that the other one initiated the mass murder. Each tribe is convinced God is on there side. Russia still hasn’t recovered from the painful transition of Communism to Democracy. For many, life has gotten worse. In China, it is estimated that there are close to 6 million missing women since the government sanctioned limit to children went into place. In other eastern countries, women are abandoned, aborted, or sold into sex slavery rather than be raised in the family in which they were conceived.

If we look a little closer to home, we know the consuming nature of sin. We’ve experienced it first hand. For some, institutional racism has gone underground making it more dangerous than fifty years ago. For others, life in a family of alcoholics has killed every ounce of life left after a childhood of broken dreams and broken bones. Nashville, the alleged belt buckle of the Bible belt, is one of the most racially divided cities in America. White, Black, Hispanic, and Middle Easterners know which part of the city is theirs, which schools, which neighborhoods, in which churches they are welcome. Sin is everywhere. If we’d just look, we would see it staring us right back in the eyes.

But we don’t have to go looking for sin do we? There’s enough messiness and rebellion in our churches at this very moment to talk about for ages. In the name of religion, many of you have been dehumanized and in the name of particular arrogance we have returned the favor. “Some of the worst things that will happen to you in life will either come from your physical family or church family,” (William Willomon).

Does the gospel have the power to transform this dark reality?

Weeping for Katie

The first time I met Katie I was struck by several things. She was a beauty with few rivals. She was sharp, witty, with a refreshing sense of humor. She listened to people when they talked. She looked you in the eye, smiled and processed your own words, ideas, and life stories. She was not your typical beautiful girl. There was much to her. Too much for any one person to know.

I remember a prayer group (which she was a faithufl member) we held at my apartment my senior year of college. The two hours was filled with laughter, tears, deep questions, etc. Near the end, someone asked Katie to pray. I could not help but thinking "There is something inside her that is eternal, something so good."

A few months after this, we learned that Katie had a rare form of brain cancer. She's been battling for the last two plus years. She rode with Lance Armstrong to raise money for research. Last week, she literally picked herself off of the deathbed to marry her highschool sweetheart. Five days later (yesterday) she stopped breathing.

She's still alive to be sure, though in a form I cannot prove. Today, the Rochester College community mourns for the families, friends, and parents of Katie. "It seemed to me, you lived your life like a candle in the wind."

For all who have been ravaged by the chaos, disciples around the planet join you in your suffering and long for the day when this reality will pass away; when God will make all things new.

Please visit www.katiekirkpatrick.com for the life narrative of Katie.

Following Jesus isn’t easy. I used to think it was. I used to think this religion thing was a piece of cake. Go to church a few times a week. Smile a lot and learn the right vocabulary, “good to see you”, “if I was any better I’d be you”. Any thinking person can jump into this culture and learn the jargon and the right ritual activity. Youth group activities, small group devo, Sunday afternoon trip to the nursing home…but only once a month…we have plenty of men to do the other Sundays. Easy. I thought being a follower of Jesus was like being an American. All I had to do was fulfill a few duties, a sorted amount of responsibilities: pay taxes, attend a Fourth of July party, memorize and repeat the pledge, love sports (after all sports is our true religion), listen to country music, partake of apple pie, wave a flag, know the Presidents from 1950 on, and, of course, remember the words to the Star Spangled Banner. See, that’s easy. Make a list, execute the list on a semi-regular basis and there I am-- a good ol’ American patriot. Now that’s a simple list.

Then I did a terrible thing several years back—I read the Gospels. I know, I know, why would someone who’d been raised in church his entire life (by a preacher no less) do a thing like that? Well, I figured that I should know why it was I told the church one balmy Michigan Sunday “I believe that Jesus is the son of God and I will follow him from this point forward. I choose to be baptized.” That’s quiet a confession you know. This isn’t just signing up for boy scouts, trying out for the football team: When I started thinking about it, this is a scary proposition. I’d rather be a fan of God. Jesus could be the mascot, the church could be the audience, and then I’d get my religious fix for the week. Or I could be an admirer of Jesus, reading a lot of books about him, learning more theological language to prove my spirituality. Or, better yet, I could become a believer of Jesus. I could memorize all the important passages (“for God so loved the world…”)—you know the good stuff. I’d have all the right answers. After all, having answers is easier than practicing sacrifice.

But when I read the Gospels, I realize there is cost of following Jesus. A young rich man who graduated suma cum laude from Vanderbilt approaches Jesus and declares his desire to join the movement. Jesus, to our surprise, tells him he’s not ready. “You don’t know what you’re getting into. You want to really be a part of this movement? Sell everything you have and give the profit to the poor. Only then will you be ready and fit to be a part of my new religion.” Ouch. So much for seeker sensitive.

I think this is why Jesus chose to speak in rabbinic parables, a familiar form of teaching with intentional, brief stories. Jesus knew the difficulty of the Kingdom message he uttered, and so he taught in a way the people could capture the cost.

Father Joe

Tony Hendra has recently written a spiritual autobiography entitled Father Joe (www.tonyhendra.com). The book (ala Tuesdays With Morrie)is filled with power, grace, and wisdom. It is unapologetically authentic about faith, and all the monsters that come with such a journey.

Father Joe (a Benedictine monk) is Tony's friend, spirutal guide, and replacement father. Through substance addictions, loneliness and promiscuity, Father Joe remains the calm, truth-telling voice in a life filled with apparent success.

I'm not going to write anything (for real write) until much later in my life. Until then I will encourage others to read people like Tony Hendra who understand the complexity of the journey, the paradox that is "believing what is unseen to be more real that what is seen."

My father, unlike Tony's biological father, has always been open, honest, and humble. He is the hardest worker I know and the last one to ever tell you about it. He is a hero to his wife, three children, and one grandchild. But not the hero you might expect. A hero who goes unnoticed, unassuming. Steady as the seasons in Kentucky, my dad is a pure picture of what it means to be in Christ.

For Father Joe's (and Phil's) living every day with others on there mind, thank-you from those of us who are still addicted to our own lives. The ones who are convinced that this play called life stars us as the main actor, the center of the universe.

A recent theologian commented, "One of the great scandals of Western Christianity is that it has forgotten the implications of being blessed. To be blessed, at least in the Hebrew Story, is to bless others."

While we (all of us) thank God for our continual blessings we rarely, in turn, use the blessings in order to bring goodness to those around us. A question has been haunting me recently (in light of the events in South Asia)--"what if God blessed America according to manner in which America blessed other nations?" I realize this question assumes that all of our wealth (and other supposed blessings) comes from God, a point which can and should be debated.

When I brush my teeth this week I cannot help but think of my brothers and sisters in Sri Lanka who are going to die this week because they have no water to sustain their bodies. As Mother Teresa so aptly put it, we can do no great things, only small things, one day at a time.

My conviction for 2005 is simply to attempt to be a blessing in every relationship, situation, email, letter, conversation, and setting I find myself. I resolve to quit the politics of "getting ahead" and to embrace a life of downward mobility.
It is amazing what joy surfaces when I decide and am convicted to empty myself in order to fill others.

It is one of the great mysteries of the human experience. It is one of the great mysteries in searching for the divine among us.

disturbed

My reaction to the devastation in South Asia is perhaps troubling. If Christians give God credit for the good that happens in the world (humanitarian efforts in Africa, improvement in literacy rates, etc.) why do we cower away when tragedy happens? If we give God credit for the good aren't we naively selective by saying the Lord absolutely has nothing to do in the times of evil?

I am not saying that God is directly responsible for all the evil that happens in the world but I am suggesting that in the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament)the writers are perfectly comfortable with giving the Lord credit for both the success and failure. In fact, one of the great mysteries of God is that he will often fight against a people in order to fight for them (salvation). Discernment is necessary when discussing this sensitive subject, and I do not want to put God on the anvil for something he is not responsible for directly.

I am not suggesting that God caused the 80,000 deaths in South Asia, but I do think that he could have intervened just as he has intervened in the lives of so many other people (Parting of the Red Sea for instance). I am not upset with God or bitter for this--ultimately I trust that "in all things He is at work for the good of those who love him." Sometime our easy categories don't stand up in light of events in human history. People see right through the shallow claim that God caused the good, Satan caused the bad. Especially those who read their Holy Scripture.

As members of the same community (the human community) the deaths, loss, and despair of last Sunday's unfoldings should remind us that instead of looking up at the sky, we should look around and see the image of God in our fellow planet-dwellers and ask what the church is doing to serve as foreshadows to the coming day when hurricanes, hunger, and hate will bow to the Lordship of Jesus Messiah.

First, go to www.freep.com to read two interesting pieces. There is a piece on the problem of infant fatality rates among whites, blacks, and other groups in the Metro Detroit Area. Second, there is a series about the cycles of violence and murder that has plagued Detroit for some fifty plus years.

The Kingdom has not fully come.

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Second, I loved the film "A Series of Unfortunate Events"--I had never read the books but am hoping to now that I've been introduced to the world of Lemony Snickett (sp?).

I think "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is a welcomed antithesis to the sometimes shallow and short-sighted sermons of Disney. Misforutne, despair, and disaster are staples of the human experience. In each other, we can find meaning and hope in life beyond. There is a reason hundreds of thousands of young people are flocking to these novels. There are traces of the divine laced into the daunting journey of being human in a world full of monsters.

I'm paraphrasing Kathleen Norris: "A writer whose name I have since forgotten once said that the two true religions of America are optimism and denial," (The Cloister Walk).

As one who has staked his life in the carpenter from Nazareth, I am humbled by these words during this Holiday/Christmas/Advent season.

Optimism. The belief that things are better than they really are or will turn out better than they really will. Denial. The refusal to see or admit reality/truth. Denying the larger evidence in motivation to preserve self.

The gospel has a word for these two great American religions: confession and repentance. Christians proclaims that to be in Christ is to participate in him with the shame and suffering of the cross. Christians repent (daily)for the ways in which the church has aided optimism and denial in ruling the day.

Instead of exchanging our native language for more contemporary lingo, may we honor the language of our Holy story. Sin (confession and repentance) just might be "the last best hope of the church," (B.B. Taylor).

Loud Clapp

Here is an excerpt from Rodney Clapp's challenging book A Peculiar People

"Church is a way of life lived not with the expectations that Christians can, through the managerial arts of sudden heroism, make the world right. It is instead a way of life lived in the confidence that God has, in the kingdom of Christ, begun to set the world right-and that someday Christ will bring his kingdom to its fulfillment. Only then will wars cease, will the lion lie down with the lamb, will death itself die, will children frolic at the mouth of the viper's den...what we are about then might be called sanctified subversion," (Clapp, 200).

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I worked with more "unique" children today (see recent post "Tucked Away Jesus") and enjoyed a little more inbreaking of divine love. My friend Karen (Asian 12 year old with Downs) constantly hugged my saying, "I love you big boy...I love you big boy." Sometimes, big boys are the ones who need to be hugged the most...even if they're 25, 55, 75 years old.

Words from Fred Craddock ("Why the Cross?")

"I do not know for sure, but I think Paul had to preach the cross to say that this is not only the way the world is, this is also the way the Christian life is. The Christian life says you get involved in other people's lives, sometimes at the risk to name, reputation, fortune, money, and job. You get involved because it is your business to do so. They do you wrong on radio, on television, or any other pulpit when they say, 'If you just believe in God, everything is peaceful, serene, and beautiful, and the dying winds move your ship sailing toward the sunset in beatitude.'"

(From The Cherry Log Sermons, pg. 82)


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A Prayer for The Moment

Father, in the midst of this moment, bring me near the cross. Help me to be fully aware of the many ways your grace pentrates this complacent heart. Father, as your heart breaks, help mine to also break. As your eyes tear, help my eyes to be filled with holy vision. As you long to return to Shalom, help my words and my steps be soaked with the message of your cross; that to truly live I must be willing to exist no more. For it is not I that live, but Christ alive speaking a fresh word to my weary soul.

Tucked Away Jesus

Tucked away in a tiny classroom at Apollo Middle School in forgotten Antioch, TN is Mrs. Bennett's middle school special education classroom. Inside the room you will find Robert, Karen, Tierra, Andres, and Paolo. A few of them have Downs, one is paralyzed from the waist down with little motor skills remaining after a series of strokes at the tender age of five. One is deathly afraid of human contact, and yet another spends her day tearing anything in sight; she cannot talk but only tear.

We look at people who are born with a physical disease or handicap and, in an attempt to psychologize ourselves, we feel sorry for them. That's what people do when they do not intend to do anything, they feel bad about a given situation. This is the emotion we cling to when we seek to rationalize our own existence instead investing outside of oursevles.

If anything, us normal, healthy, consumer-driven, individualistic people are the ones who should be pitied. We've forgotten what it means to depend on others for life, community, and joy. We've forgotten what it is to serve without expecting something in return. We've forgotten what it means to simply be in the presence of another person, uttering no words, yet having the deepest of conversation. Is Christ among us? Yes, but in the places we only talk about going.

Jesus challenged his disciples in the strongest of fashions when he told them that they were now required to love their fellow humans as he loved them, laying down blood, sweat, tears, dreams, and hopes for the purposes of the Kingdom. It was no longer good enough to love as they loved themselves--now the stakes are raised, and the riskiest proposition is laid before us.

If you've not seen the move "Ray" (a film that depicts the life of Ray Charles Robinson--one of the great musicians of the 20th Century) you need to pay the $7.50, and take a friend with you.

Ray Charles is depicted as a musical genuis (which he was) as well as a womanizer, drug addict (until the late 70's)...but more than the music success or the personal failure, "Ray" is about the life of an African-American man seeking to find redemption in whatever manner life offers.

As a young boy he witnessed the tragic accidental death of his younger brother who drowned. The loss of that pure relationship as well as the dynamic between Ray and his mother sends him on a life long journey to find meaning, worth, and transcendence.

He also battles the inherent but prevailing deuhumanizing attitudes of racism in conjuction with the death of his brother, and ensuing blindness. Still, nothing can quench the life the stirs within this young boy.

Creating music, not a church or community of faith per se, becomes salvation. With the help of his inner circle (mother, and devoted wife) he overcomes the social stigma attached to blindness and drug addiction becoming one of the true great artists in modern America.

One biblical scholar, whose name I've forgotten, suggests that biography is the "purest of all theological reflection". Ray Charles' life is one of struggle, fame, deceit, forgiveness and redemtpion. If we will simply listen long enough to the cadence of culture we might hear the desperate cry for belonging, relationship, and transformation.

And we might recognize our own peculiar journey's in light of those around us.

JG