Style or substance- is it either or?

“Oh well…”, I say to myself, sometimes as an excuse, sometimes as a symptom of apathy or something similar.  Or giving up? No, rather a mild attack of cynicism, I think. Then something comes my way and everything changes. This is when, deep in the night, I start missing that old “oh well” of mine.  Ok, let’s start!  It was Sunday night; it was a night already prone to drive sleep away as Monday morning followed – usually a time when the previous week’s expectations prove to be wrong, a time when all the unexpected phone calls are meant to shatter your day and the mild blues grow to anxiety or whatever you call it.   But this was unexpectedly more than all of the above and many other Monday morning annoyances I failed to list.

What was it? Believe it or not, it was a hymn – a hymn that outlasted more than four generations, validated by the test of time as an artistic masterpiece, rewarded by the humility and joy of countless newborn Christians. This hymn was canonized by the universality of its message and tune beyond any boundaries and cherished by fond memories during crucial moments in the lives of so many.  Most of all, I believe, it has the eternal commendation of The Most High…  “Just as I am, I come to Thee…”, “So wie ich bin, so muse s sein”,  “Asa cum sunt la Tine vin… “,  “Takov kak est, bez del, bez slov”…  and so on…   Different languages, same tune, same harmony, same heavenly presence…  In the summer of 1992 we joined the worship of a reputable local body without even speaking or understanding much English.  It was that heavenly tune that brought our hearts together with our fellow Canadians’ hearts.  Oh, what a joy!…  And so it was, at other times, with “Amazing Grace”, “A mighty fortress is our God”, “What can wash away my sins…”, “It is well with my soul”…  That’s how we got across to each other as members of the same body when the language barrier could not be overcome.  It was the melody of the heart; it was the anointing of The Spirit, it was the breeze of heaven in the scorching heat of this always hostile environment for whosoever boldly acknowledges Christ’s lordship.  I apologize, my dear reader, I did not mean to digress and I beg you, stay with me for a while longer…  “Where are you, {“oh well”}”?  That was my loud inner shout that Sunday night.  Here it is:  if today’s Sunday morning happened 23 years ago, that summer of 1992, we would have missed the awesome touch of heaven that we felt back then.

Please understand me, this is what I am not trying to say:

1. I am not saying that only old hymns should be sung and that there is no divine anointing in contemporary worship music. I am actually fond of many new Christian songs and I joyfully sing along whenever the tunes and the rhythm and the anointing pull me in.
2. I am not saying that you must, despite your will, sing our old hymns, although it would be a good show of respect towards our Christian heritage if you did it once in a while.
3. I am not questioning anyone’s motives in the things that generated mine and many other people’s frustrations.
4. I am not aligning myself with anyone’s “religious correctness” in regards to what I am trying to say in this article.
5. I am not holding back anything that I believe is true and should be said.

I struggled after this sleepless Sunday night with the thought that some kind of churchy, pharisaic judgment spirit crept into my soul leading me to believe that I am a misfit, a cynical sour fellow…  Then I checked the world out there and, to my comfort, many voices of different ages, even millennials (!!!), share, in one way or another, my feelings about this business of taking these old hymns[1] from our treasure box and singing them in a “new” way.   Dear brother, couldn’t you just come up with a new song?   It would have been commendable, pleasing to God and pleasing to all the people who cherish the memories of what this hymn means to them. It is our treasure box, brother, do not touch it unless you want to dust it off and display it to the joy of all of us, including the millennials whom you’re trying so hard to reach. One of the millenials[2] speaking out his mind gives us an inside look about the issue I am speaking about: “I am one of those rascally millennials, by the way. One of those enigmatic, paradoxical, media-dependent, coffee-drinking young people swept together under this millennial umbrella.” ( See footnote 2 for the whole article).   Here is what else he says:

“I love the theology, but I hate the expectations of pseudo piety. Love the gospel, hate the patriotic moralism. Love the Bible, hate the way it’s used. Love Jesus, but hate what we’ve done with him. Love worship, but hate Jesusy entertainment.” (Bold, italics and underlining are mine). Oh, how I love this friend, as he calls himself, Jonathan Aigner[3]! Here is how he defines worship[4]:” Worship is not an evangelistic tool. We don’t worship together to attract unbelievers. We worship together because God is worthy. We worship together because this gracious God has called us into his story and grafted us together as covenant people. We worship together because we desperately need to tell and retell and hear and rehear that story. We worship together to be refocused, reshaped, renewed by God’s gifts. We need liturgy. We need Word and sacrament.” (Bold letter outlines are part of the original text. Italics are mine)

I would like to return to my dilemma. Here is what I believe comes out of the “extreme makeover” of the old Christian hymns according to the taste and the will of our CCM[5] worship leaders: they believe that an old hymn will become more attractive to the young generation.  Wrong!  As the above-mentioned brother stated, there is no proof of that this will be more than “Jesusy entertainment”.  There is better entertainment outside the church, if you will, and sustained by professionals. They know all the ins and outs of the marketplace and master the manipulations of mind and emotions in a considerably more efficient way.  I suggest you stay away from this.  Whatever is out there cannot outsmart or outperform the work inspired by the Holy Spirit.  This is the way you should go.

…And, please, do not bring that shallow argument around style and substance. “Listen to the words!”, they will say, but the words are buried in the fluff of noisy instruments, sophisticated lighting, rhythm that is out of step with the message.  You know, it is like saying, “Drink the water, brother, it is the same water!”  Wrong again!  I would rather drink the water from a clean crystal-clear glass than from a gasoline tank or toilet bowl.  Since when have “style and substance” become “either or”? I might come back with more thoughts on “style or substance” but right now I will continue to pour out my two-penny wrath (please, call it thoughts!) on what I originally intended. There are damages in modernizing – that’s too mild; maybe “disfiguring” will be more appropriate – the old masterpieces and these damages come in more than one way:

1. You are depriving the young generation of knowing and owning our rich Christian heritage. There is only one way to make it right: show them the original versions and let them judge and chose. That way they will, at least, know that we have a past and we have a history… They will probably experience the nostalgia of the times when a divinely inspired hymn of the 16th century is still beautiful today and there is nothing from stopping it from being sung today.  Not even the style!
2. You damage your call. Because all these hymns are in the public domain, yes, you are safe from being accused of plagiarism, but you can surely fall into the music vandalism category. That would be the assessment of whosoever loves and cherishes true music. That trend of yours would resemble a graffiti “work” over the original painting of Mona Lisa. It is ironic that Il Divo or Nana Mouskoury or many other secular singers and groups show more respect and consideration for our musical heritage that our CCM worship leaders. They also sing our hymns and enjoy considerable success in the world we try to reach. You go figure!
3. You damage the true meaning of worship. Worship is not meant to reach people for Christ, but rather to reach the heart of Christ.

There is more, a lot more that should be said along these lines.  As for me, I found rest in the serene atmosphere of old hymns after times when my soul was mercilessly hammered by whatever the world calls music and my mind was fogged by cheap alcohol and the blues.  I want God more than anything else, and what I sing or listen to must be in total harmony with His heart. I know, my dear CCM worship leader, that you have meant well.  I believe that out of your shattered alabaster box can flow the sweetest music, and through its tunes the glory of Christ will cover the earth.

[1][1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_As_I_Am_(hymn)

[2][2] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ponderanew/2015/05/13/dear-church-an-open-letter-from-one-of-those-millennials-you-cant-figure-out/?ref_widget=related&ref_blog=ponderanew&ref_post=modernized-hymns-are-you-singing-hymns-or-just-contemporary-songs-with-old-words

[3][3] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ponderanew/about-jonathan-aigner/

[4][4] http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/54085

[5] [5] Christian Contemporary Music

I am nowhere to be found, nowhere. A painful realization that there is no eye to look at me with the “natural” objective of seeing me descended to prolong my sleeplessness. If I were to plow through the minds of those whom my eyes and my mind perceive I would probably find no trace of me anywhere.  “Oh, what a blessing!” some would say,  “you just narrowed the search of self to one, only one plausible place where you can find yourself. The heart of God that is…” That would be an answer, a very easy one, but one with no resemblance to anyone’s reality – not even God’s. I remember a dream, rather a nightmare: in that dream I saw myself somewhere in a place. That’s all I can say: a place. I was horrified. I did not know who I was or what my name was. I remember running to every person I saw, desperately asking for help, help to find myself…

Now, under these current circumstances, this dream  started making some sense. Being an immigrant, I thought I knew the feeling of being uprooted. How wrong I was! I used to be a part of a culture that was, as I thought back then, a part of me and I was a part of it. But, you see, I left an empty place out there.  This void, together with my longing for completeness, not only did not wipe away my inner identity, but rather they accentuated that which defines me as a being with reasoning capacities.  Becoming socially compatible was a rather natural process of assimilating into a new culture.  My present situation, however, is a process I never experienced before, almost beyond my power of comprehension. Layers of emotions, conflicting thoughts and who knows what else surrounded and soaked me with a heavy garment of uncertainty.

The tension between what the Body is meant to be and the reality of how its members function is an abnormality, in my opinion.

This body of believers was a huge part of who I was and who my wife was.  We went together through the 22 years of life-journey, carrying a great regard for the God-given privilege, the grace to belong.  Our journey was a lot more than belonging.  We were living members of a living Body. “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly.  As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”(NLT Eph 4:16)  I refuse to take this statement of Paul the Apostle as being a mere metaphor. I can’t shy away from asking myself a multitude of questions in my attempt to reconcile the truth of the living Word with the situation we found ourselves in. Then an even more disturbing reality revealed itself to me. There are more than us, my wife and I, in the same or similar predicament. Empty seats once spoke to us of brothers and sisters we loved and saw no more.   These seats lay empty as witnesses of something that should have concerned us over time, but we chose not to lose a scintilla of sleep over that. They stood as symbols of identical or similar questions, emotions and who-knows-what-else that clothed them with heavy garments of uncertainty or peace-robbing questions. Why, Lord? Why? Can a living member of my own body depart from me without me even noticing? Wouldn’t I feel the pain of it being cut off, or even the sadness of the empty space left behind? Is my body already disjointed or taken over by leprosy? Is there a crutch for every missing member so that I would not even care for his loss?  How would the answers to such questions apply to the body, the local body of believers?

I somewhat found comfort in knowing that I am still a member of the universal Body of Christ, in the hope that Agape love will fully manifest itself in the revived state of the church. There is a love growing cold (oh, how I feel it!) but there is also a sense of searching for completeness that I see, growing more intense day by day. We will come to realize one day that one cannot find himself without true fellowship- fellowship driven not by agenda or human strategies but by the awesome restlessness the love of Christ plants in us.

 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35 NIV)

“By this everyone will know…”  By reading this, I understand that love for one another determines the power of our witness for Christ. No more identity crisis, no more heavy cloak of loneliness.  I know that, as we become aware of the destructing power of being alone, we will finally open ourselves to what God wants to speak to us in that regard. This is only the beginning of my testimony, a testimony of pain and hope, a testimony of identity still to be found.   As we know that “the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few”, could today be the day we find the treasure of power in loving one another?

Will continue…

Michal and I have been in our townhouse for over a year now, and our décor is still a work in progress.  After numerous trips to Home Sense, a hundred purchases and a hundred minus one returns, I am still looking.  For what?  For that perfect, flawless “thing” that will accentuate the square corners of my dining room table or the reflective surface of my mirrored dresser.  That structure that will fill my empty nook underneath the small living room window. That artwork that will dress the airy grey walls in hues of warmth and summer-eternal summer.  It is no secret in my circle that I am obsessed with all things sparkling.  My eyes light up when light shatters into rainbow as it pierces through a crystal chandelier.  I love the way diamonds explode with flames of color as the sun bursts through brilliant facets.  My cheeks and my hands tremble at the caress of soft and furry blankets.  And the pulse of all these likes is color- explosions of vibrant, deep tones of reds, blues and gold.

Perhaps my obsession with all things colored and shiny can be traced to the elements of summer.  This season of non-stop sunshine has always been my favorite.  In summer, the whole of creation is flooded and fed by consuming, fiery sunlight.  Seagulls and dolphins, ocean and sky roar their acoustics beneath the gallop of the sun.  Everything is full of life, everything glows…   I enjoy beyond words the thousand shades of green bursting toward the translucent skies.  My fingers delight in the soft texture of flower petals as they brazenly chase the knight of the firmaments.  My palate is continually stimulated  by soft, ripened fruit that will restore the nutrients winter stole.  All I want to do is be outside-cradled by warmth and infused by light until my every cell is nourished and restored by its healing rays.

My obsession with summer can in turn be traced to my desire for God.  God is light-at all times, in all seasons, everywhere.  Because of Him, the birds outside my window fill my ears with their continual chirp of joy.  He is the author of the resident splendor of roses, and dahlias, and linden.  It was His idea-and only His- to fill the oceans with creatures ornate with iridescent sheen.  It was His creative genius that endowed the tiger both his fur stripes and his predatory moan.  It was in His heart to fill the skies with wings and the air with aromas – to fill our ears and our lungs with transparent joy.

This parcel of the Milky Way which is our home-and the galaxies beyond- are an unveiling of Him.  We marvel before the wonders we taste and see and smell – and they are all a reflection of His limitless command.  He spoke that which was within Him-and it came: extravagant, overflowing, overwhelming majesty.  “The heavens declare the glory of God..”  -glory that every being made in the likeness of Adam can behold with unveiled faces.  He is beautiful, and our desire for all things lovely authenticates our origin in Him.

I am enjoying the last morsel of summer with the window open, the birds continually serenading me with their song.  Soon, the rains will start and the glow of summer will be a faint memory on my fading tan and my birdless tree.  My hunt for the perfect “thing” to dress up my living room will continue.  It’s okay, I have come to realize, to like all things sparkly and shiny, soft and velvety.  These small treasures remind me of Him – His awesome wonder, His brilliance, His joy.  I see the auburn maple and the lilac in my neighbor’s yard, I hear the chatter of the birds and I long for Him.  Summer will soon pass away and my heart is at rest-in all seasons, at all times, everywhere, He remains.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)

By DELIA ALMAJAN

This blue! It is so glassy, so unforgiving. It almost seems that all this heat and brightness are up to something, like desperately catching up with things previously under-performed. Really, it seems lately that some of these things never happened before, it never seemed like today that you badly want all this to go or to end. Too many fires to enjoy the summer, too many storms to enjoy the winter, too much noise to enjoy the day, too much insecurity to enjoy the night, too much of everything to enjoy anything. And, yes, this glassy and unforgiving blue of the sky, that was supposed to mean clearness, is just cruelly reminding me that perhaps somewhere, under it, a blaze is taking away somebody’s dreams and peace.

“-Hi, buddy, you look like you lost something big time. What’s up?”

It’s Dave. He catches you whenever you want to be really alone. It’s seems that I’ve known him for ages even though he’s been my friend for just over one year. We just happened to discover that both of us share similar needs. We just want to be known not only by name but for who we really are.

“-Oh, Dave! Would you, please, tell me what’s that blue of the sky saying to you?”

I knew as I spoke that I just opened a flow of new reasons for “concern” regarding my unorthodox way of looking at life. “You take it as it is!” he likes to say whenever I share some of my new “revelations”.

“-I am afraid, fella, that you exposed that upper end of yours to too much heat. This blue just doesn’t whisper to me. As a matter of fact there is no known history of skies speaking to anybody. Not that you’re hearing things or something, but I guess there’s a whole lot of solid reality that I can spend my time on…”

There is something in that “solid reality”, according to Dave, that clashes with my “unorthodox way of thinking”.  In fact there are dozens of orthodox-thinking Daves around me but this particular one is about the only one who bothers sharing his thoughts with me and is patient enough to listen to mine. As I said, my heated mind is quite openly in conflict with the “given reality” that surrounds us.

“- Your idealism”, he would say, “does not feed anyone; not even yourself. As a matter of fact, you can carry your glassy blue picture of the sky within yourself but try not to stain anyone’s soft skies, for your peace’s sake…”

Dave and I spent hours of talk around issues of nobody’s interest. His brisk intellectual processing of reality and my hair-splitting way of interaction with the same reality would be a perfect ground for misfits that would make two people to avoid each other’s presence. Yet it is totally the other way around with the two of us.  Most of the times we succeed in avoiding the “touchy subjects” in our conversations even though both of us were burning with desire to bring the other one in our own interest sphere. The greatest difference between Dave and I is that for me it is rather duty than desire.  Dave needs to get over his stubbornness and accept his need of salvation. This being said, I don’t mean that he is one of those wicked, untamed, burly individuals… Not at all! Dave is rather a clean cut person, polite and shy, despite his appearance as an outspoken and ruthless humorous guy… His “shock-and-awe” style of jumping in others’ conversation and my “turn-the-table” reaction to that was the starting point of our friendship. This Dave of mine, whether real or fictional, is still a friend I am looking for. As for the rough edges of our differences I am not sure… The above is a scenario of a possibility that I will be open to. “Shock and awe” and “turn the table” attitudes in less hypothetical conversations will probably be a great hinder in that desired by me, meeting of minds… But, as I said sometimes ago, if we were able to come to think together then a friendly handshake will be as normal as… What’s normal anyways?

SLAVOMIR ALMAJAN

Michal and I recently returned from a trip on Vancouver Island, specifically the rainforest of Pacific Rim National Park.  For three days, we walked the verdant trails colored in a thousand shades of green, breathing in the pulse of the forest.  We unplugged ourselves from the attachment of all things electronic and we planted our souls and our feet on the hallowed ground of the centuries-old sanctuary of giant evergreens, their branches embracing the sky.  Silvery cedars, weathered and stressed by time and rain, stretched their twisted trunks on our paths across several feet. Old Man’s beard lynches, appropriately named due to their hairy, silvery appearance, hung like tinsel from branches of fir and hemlock, their delicate strands supplying the machinery for photosynthesis.  Sometimes the canopy of branches was so thick and the foliage so dense that sunlight was off limits on these trails.  Above us, branches covered in moss and fungus contorted their silhouettes in intricate, asymmetrical shapes.  Below us, banana slugs unveiled their black-speckled contours as rain was falling gently on the ground.   And the ocean always in our ears…  We walked excitedly allured by the restless buffeting of the waves calling us to praise the One whose voice is like the sound of many waters.  Sometimes we would hear its billows from far away, unleashing their grand fury against the sentinel of rocks.  Ah, if we could hear the secrets of the great waters within the anger of their poundings!  If the ears of our hearts could decipher the agony of the billows…

Walking beneath the cupola of the luscious forest, the ocean beating against a nearby shore, our hearts were melting in thanksgiving to the One who created such grandeur for our delight.  The heavens declare the glory of God -and how vividly we saw His creative majesty in this unparalleled panorama of surreal beauty.  He reveals Himself in the firmament above, in the luxuriant shades of green around us, in the force of the ocean reverberating within us.  How awesome God must be to have authored such splendor!  How extravagant in beauty my God must be to have birthed such grandeur… how pregnant with creative energy is His word to have spoken such a world into existence!  Oh, that the whole world may praise Him for His wonderful works!

I can still smell the colors of the forest as it came alive under a gentle mist that afternoon of August.  I close my eyes and I see the ocean crashing with unstoppable might against the gentle sands of the shore.  I hear the seagulls in their dance across the waters, their delicate song a fit complement to the roar of the waves.  I see God’s heart pulsating with beauty and love in this extraordinary unfolding of color and sound.  Verily it is well with my soul…

“For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God”  (Romans 1:20)

“Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!” (Psalm 107:15)

DELIA ALMAJAN

Yes, We Are!

It is somehow excusable, I think, that someone should be driven to sleeplessness by his own mind… Forgive me, please, for making it sound like an excuse, but there is nothing more I want to do in the deep night, nothing but get rid of my previous day’s tensions, snore by snore, until that giddy sparrow wishes me good morning.  But yes (!), I do make excuses for my sleeplessness and for that tyrannical mind of mine!  How else would I justify the alleged possession of some thoughts if no one else loses a grain of sleep trying to unravel the (also alleged) debt of them? Hmm…  Did I say “debt”?  Here I am again hair-splitting my own hair splits. Let’s try it this way:  I imagine the work of an expressed thought as a hard sphere ricocheting from mind to mind, taking some unexpected routes and reaching some surprising destinations.  Hard spheres, right? Yes, but I also believe that the fluidity of thinking brings a flow. For a flow you need a unifying factor, right?  Something resembling a specific landscape of circumstances that will allow some banks and some velocity between the banks… You got it!  It is reasonable to conclude, I think, or even to postulate that one thought, despite the multitude of ricochets from mind to mind, can’t substantiate a flow.   “Dwell with yourself, and you will know how short your household stuff is.” (Persius, Satirae iv. 52). Okay, but I invite you to agree that “nonexistent” instead of “short” has better application to the idea of one thought, only one, set lose in a mindless tour to nevermore. Not even a genius’ thought can do better, I mean better than nothing, generously assuming that even the idea of a genius can exist in such isolation.

Since we already know from my previous posting that “I reason therefore I am” (Descartes – Part IV of Discourse on the Method) doesn’t make too much sense, we can instead, with a sound mind and sincere heart, shout: YES, WE ARE!  So much for philosophy!  Now let’s take a safer road, a road where we don’t risk stepping on someone else’s toes, a road of meditation that is. It means that via the avenue of this article I have absolute freedom to be different since I chose not to follow a preset system but rather daring to think for myself, as Voltaire would put it.  And yes, it is a dare quite close to folly to think for your own self and record it for others to read and perfectly fit in the flow I mentioned above.

“If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.”
― Benjamin Franklin

But here we are again wondering where in the world that unifying factor is? How come we see this unique, peculiar thought of an individual fitting in a flow that we humans are often so proud about?  Then something just hit me and my overheated mind got a hold of something…  Yes, this is it!  What I am seeing is not a flow of thoughts but a flow of thinking.  That’s how I came to terms with the fact that uniqueness without context is a contradiction in terms…  Yes, our thoughts can be absolutely unique, praise God for that, but the process of thinking happens in a totally non-discriminatory context.  This should automatically give as a set of definitions that we can use to even perceive the uniqueness of the unique.

We are equipped by our Creator with similar qualities yet we are so different.  Same bricks, different buildings, you see…  We fit differently in similar circumstances, react differently to similar events.  We are meant for greatness just because we are unique, but without the privilege of being complete in ourselves.  Seeking for completeness implies seeking for harmony, and that also means acknowledging your need for all the rest of us to really be yourself.  Here, we potentially run in to one of the most common and most painful crisis a human being can face:  identity crisis.  Here, I feel free to postulate something:  the more you try to be unique, to be unlike others, the more you lose your uniqueness and the more you suffer the consequences of being measured not by who you are, but by how others perceive you.  What a pitiful place to be!  You are unique by birth according to God’s divine purpose.  Don’t you ever forget that!  Make the best of who you are not of what others want you to be.  I believe there is a perfect place for you and for me.  We either fill it by being who we are or that place will stay forever empty.  Yes, as individuals, each one of us is the centre of the universe as each one of us is meant to be the face of God’s unlimited wisdom.  You and I are not merely entities in a crowd but rather tunes in a divine harmony.

There is no doubt that we grow, that we are influenced by each other, socially shaped by each other – yet never to become copies of one another.  We become, just because of that, uniquely written in bold letters.  And so are mine and your thoughts – unique, meant to fit perfectly in a context.  Sometimes they give birth to an idea, and then they grow into a doctrine or degenerate into a dogma.  They are alive.

Our thoughts are originated and ended in a perception process.  They are sure witnesses to the fact that, just as we are unique, so is our perception of reality.  For  harmony rather than chaos, we need a set of absolutes, which is given for our own benefit by the principle clearly stated by God:

 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord”… (Isaiah 1:18)

SLAVOMIR ALMAJAN