A Spirit Not Of Fear

Of Switchfoot:

To begin with, let me be perfectly honest with you. (It's a fair way to start, I suppose...)

It is a rare day that I listen to Switchfoot music. A very rare day. Misunderstand me not: I've nothing against such musical endeavors, nor those who may be involved as either production or audience. It is merely that the combination of electric guitars and drums tend to overstep the more sensitive side of me, which you can usually find lingering in some old washtub, delightedly testing the acoustics it provides for the more primative harmonica.

Still (being perfectly honest as we are), I have lately heard a song that has eased its way into my affections. And – as your irrepressibly bright noggin has probably already decided – it happens to be by Switchfoot.

Which song? It is likely you have guessed that is well. Yet worry not if you have not gotten ahead of me this time; you only make me feel somewhat better about my manner of rambling  (a feeling which, when given in moderation, is not such a very bad thing). Yet to shed a bit of light, the chorus is as follows: “Your love is a symphony; all around me, running through me. Your love is a melody; underneath me, running to me. Your love is a song.”

It is not the most complicated of songs; yet often, I think, the simplest responses to God’s love are the best and deepest ones that can be given. And perhaps, if not certainly, the same rings true for the love that we share between ourselves. But I fear that is something Ye Goode Olde Shakespeare (we arrive at last!) may or may not have realized…


Of Shakespeare:

Shakespeare was not particularly known for his simplicity. And as I did not attempt the reading of Love Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare with expectations to the contrary, I was fortunately spared any disappointment that may easily have occurred. Yet amid the rhyme and rhythm of such a flourishing lyrical greenhouse, there was one budding verse that stood out to me among all the other blooming things around it.

I found it in Sonnet LXXV (do not dare even attempt to ask me what number that is). And this is the verse's beginning: “So are you to my thoughts as food to life, or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground.”

I do not have enough hope for Shakespeare to imagine that he is attempting to describe anything but a humanly love. Yet when first I read it, the timbre and color of his words gave me pause. It seemed not so familiar as to make me think that I had read it before -- yet only that somehow, somewhere, I had heard something very much like it.

And at last, it dawned on me. There was a shepherd boy, you see, who used to write things very much like that. And though his heart has long been stilled, his voice was not kept silent; and still it rings clearly in the hearts and souls of many, urging them onward in the love of a greater Shepherd.

The Shepherd, who gathered His sheep in with love and in turn wrote the sweetest, dearest love song that shall ever be heard in the reaches of the universe-- the love song of the Ransomed.


Be grateful, my friends, that I did not attempt to write this post in Shakesperean. Not only would I have failed, in the utterest sense of the word, but I would likely have driven you moaning from your computer screens, groping away to find something more loving toward the delicate nature of the eyes.

Yet I hope that this post was simple enough. For it is that which I have learned, and that which I have come to treasure: the very simplicity of love. There is nothing of which I know that has the capacity to be so deep and yet so simple in a single stab of its essence: nothing can be so quietly piercing as love, nor dig as deep nor heal as gently. Love is the most simple complication of life: those who can complicate it, will. Yet those who see life simply will see love simply as well - the deepest expression of our human simplicity, all the sincerity of our faith reflected in that ever-living ember of our souls.

And in the end, it's not so very hard to see... that it's not such a complicated thing, as it is a wildly beautiful thing, this love song we echo.

No. It's not so very complicated at all.

-

We come now to the long-awaited explanation (or, as is more likely, the Not-Awaited-in-Any-Way-Shape-or-Form Explanation) for the undoubtedly strange title of these recent posts. You see, it is a little phrase that I heard, once. Or twice. Somewhere. Or perhaps, Somewhere Else... but it is not the Where that matters. It is the What, and this is it:
 

If you recall (and especially if you don't), these recent posts were spurred by the memory of a lady who did little more than secure me a place in front of her in a very ambiguously-located line. Yet in doing so, she offered me an entire world of thought; thoughts for which I could not be more grateful. I can guarantee her forgetfulness of me; and if questioned at the time, I'm certain she could have guaranteed my own forgetfulness of her. Yet such is not the case. Praise God, I did not merely allow a brief thought about the woes of subjectively located checkout lines, and then cease to dwell on the matter -- for though some people may argue that I dwell far too much on many things, I would argue in return that those who dwell too little on the little things are far more likely to undervalue those things most often seen as important.

For I have come to question myself. It is with the greatest ease that I might live out my actions in a blind state of obligation, even an obligation that has little to do with my God and far more to do with the expectations of those around me. But that is not what I long for. My longing, my yearning, is that all which comes from me might be planted not by selfish, gain-seeking hands--hands which I have known all too well--but by a heart whose very roots and soil are watered by Love.

For that was ever the promise: from that to which life is given, more life still shall come. I need only be faithful in sowing my seeds — and truly, the apples are best left to Him.

Two little things haunt my steps: their names are Service and Courtesy. And they are two little things which I question. Really, I don't question how often we follow them. I question the motive of our hearts when we do. The human heart, if I have learned nothing else, is very selfish and frail a thing -- and no one could argue that laying down one's self does not, in fact, hurt.
 
No service may be rendered to us by the rendering of our own service. We can hardly hold open a person's door out of the hope that it changes their lives. Nor can we even feed the hungry in the hopes that they might remember the face and name of the ones who offered them food. And no, we can't do anything because maybe, just maybe, we’ll get mentioned on someone’s blog (let’s face it: it probably won’t happen, and if it does, we’ll never know it).

But perhaps—just maybe—the question is not of why I serve another. Not even of why I should want to do it. Perhaps, first and foremost, the question is of how I serve my God.

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:14-17)

I said that How was important. But Jesus gave us something more. He gave us, precious gift that it is, a Why.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." – John 13:34-35

And so it is that, even in seeking to evade myself with a How and Why that comes from Him, it drives me ever back to... me. Yet in doing so, it drives me back to Him after all. For I am called to serve, no longer as a fragile reflection of myself; but instead, brighter and brighter,

(To be continued…)

A few weeks ago I went to the library. After spending a while camped out in my favorite section (seated on the floor, enduring the glances of fellow library patrons, mothers with toddlers clutching picture books, and library staff trying to figure out the kindest way to remove me from the aisle so they could finish organizing the bookshelves) I made my way to the checkout desk.

A few feet from the desk, I stepped past a woman standing with an armload of books to get into line. But as I stood there, it suddenly dawned on me that she, too, was “in line”. (The line is sort of a... er... subjective location at our library.) Apologizing, I stepped back and asked if she was already waiting.

She smiled and told me to go ahead. Thanking her, I stepped into line, and within three minutes my books had been checked out for me and I was on my way home.


So… a woman gave up her place in line for me. That’s it. End of story. Life goes on.

Right?

Well, it should have. Rather, it normally would have. But on the drive home, something about the encounter lingered with me. It didn't seem right, didn't seem normal anymore to ignore such little things. Do not ask me when it ceased to be my normal; I would not be able to answer you.

But something was special. And more than that...

I had the strangest feeling that all my life, I had been forgetting something.

(Continued in Part II.)