One of the most powerful opening lines in film is from the movie Crash:
It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In [our Modern World], nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.[1]
Here the narrator targets automobiles (metal and glass) as being to blame for the rift that has formed within human interaction. Nowadays people don’t walk they drive, and in doing so probable opportunities for genuine interaction are reduced to obligatory hand waves -general acknowledgments directed toward people that we don’t really know. Our capacity for Being Known ourselves is diminished by the walls we have constructed. Inside our metal chariots we focus only on our expectation of swift travel; sounds and fragrances from the outside world cannot reach inside our transparent encasements. In this same way our homes (brick and stone) are capable of the same kind of depravity. The seasons of the year are abolished. The early light of spring mornings is held off by our window shades, the quickened twilight of winter is circumvented by the flip of a light switch, and the climate within our little worlds are kept at very specific temperatures; held within a limited range of comfortable degrees.
Regardless of the amount sleep I get I am not what you would call a “morning person”. The only pleasant mornings that I can remember are from a time when my responsibilities were few and I could achieve a full ten hours of un-interrupted sleep. I would awaken when my eyelids became weightless and the early-afternoon sun remained hidden behind a thick curtain. I have always thought the alarm clock to be a cruel invention, it’s design is a blatantly specific one, providing an abrupt shove into the next day (breaking the threshold that separates the night from the morning.) I realize now that my sentiments toward alarm clocks have been a bit harsh, after all they are no longer to blame for my morning struggle. I am reminded that all things are indeed relative!
These days early morning cries frighten me awake, stealing my last breath of sleep. The cries come from two different sources, either from my son who is confined to his room at the end of the hall or from my daughter who remains ensnared in her crib in the room just adjacent to mine. The thresholds of their mornings have also been shattered. They have woken with realizations that a new day has already begun without them and their longings for human contact cascade down a short hallway at an unknown hour. I sleep deeply in the hours leading up to dawn, it is rare that I even stir when my wife makes her way down the stairs and off to work. I remain in my slumber until suddenly I do not. Often the shriek of my daughter wakes my son, then my eyes dart open and I gasp (a futile effort to catch the breath that had escaped me.) Through the fog in my eyes I examine the red, digital sequence of numbers that alert me to the labor of a new day. I receive my children as delicately as I am able… making my way toward the door of the one wailing loudest.
Today was a rare occurrence however. My transition between sleep and wakefulness remained a graceful threshold. My day appeared as a welcome gift as my alarm clock chimed in my ear, and I was able to reach over and silence it and then lay there three to four minutes instead of reactively leaping out of bed to investigate the source of a cry. It is strange to me that the sound of this unnatural electronic device now rings blessing into my ear, alerting me to the gift of a couple extra minutes to make the voyage to the light side of my soul. This morning I became aware that within a few minutes sunlight would slowly gather around the edges of the window shades, shades that were pulled down tight.
I have considered at times leaving the window shades up. Perhaps if my nights were not extended by extra hours of work or the inability to reach sleep I would let the light in. After all, Light Is Generous – as John O’Donohue states in the opening pages of Anam Cara:
If you ever had the occasion to be out early in the morning before the dawn breaks, you will have noticed that the darkest time of night is immediately before dawn. The darkness deepens and becomes more anonymous. If you had never been to the world and never known what a day was, you couldn’t possibly imagine how the darkness breaks, how the mystery and color of a new day arrive. Light is incredibly generous, but also gentle. When you attend to the way the dawn comes, you learn how light can coax the dark. The first fingers of light appear on the horizon, and ever so deftly and gradually, they pull the mantle of darkness away from the world. Quietly before you is the mystery of a new dawn, the new day.[2]
On the one or two days a year when I make the time to go camping the walls and shades have been removed from the scene and a splendid alternative is revealed. I feel like a morning person; I awaken gradually… just as a soft light graces the horizon. The chirping of song birds embroiders a natural threshold that offers me deep restoration. I think there is peace to be found in “natural thresholds” such as the dawn. These thresholds allow the shape of our day to become smooth, for each portion to move fluently into the next and fit together seamlessly (like the scenes of a movie). Integrating our thoughts at the end of such days is rendered an effortless task in the presence of such gentle transitions. I have recently begun to wonder if I am to blame for the daily collisions that occur at the onset of my mornings. That is: “Perhaps it is not the responsibility of the morning to suit my life, but rather it should be the desire of my life to suit the morning.”
The film Crash does a profound job of illustrating the hurt and pain that we cause to one another by building up barriers of prejudice. The walls that we construct only hinder us from experiencing the potential beauty that lays dormant within our daily interactions. Through our hard shells we lose the ability to be touched/to feel. Just as the people that we encounter have the capacity to touch us if we allow them to… so do the elements of the natural world. We as a culture have strong-armed the natural world into serving our agendas and have forgotten how to just ‘be’. Realizing that this next statement will sound a bit “earthy”, the technological advancements that serve our lives of luxury have the keen ability to subdue the voice that lies deep within us. We have forgotten that the experience of raw natural beauty is essential to understanding the clay that forms us.
John O’Donohue continues:
It is one of the tragedies of modern culture that we have lost touch with these primal thresholds of nature. The urbanization of modern life has succeeded in exiling us from this fecund kinship with our mother earth. Fashioned from the earth, we are souls in clay form. We need to remain in rhythm with our inner clay voice and longing. Yet this voice is no longer audible in the modern would. We are not even aware of our loss, consequently, the pain of our spiritual exile is more intense in being largely unintelligible.[3]
At night the lights of our houses come on. Lights that do not arrive gracefully. At the flip of a switch a smoke stack somewhere feeds a harnessed electric fire that throws our world out of balance. The darkness and soft flickering flames that used to embrace us so warmly have been drenched in a harsh, artificial glare of light. We sit alone, with our thoughts crowded out. The noise and images that emerge from our electronic devices drown-out the words that the day has spoken to us. And after the lights have been turned out our walls and window shades keep us hidden from the natural light of dawn… until we rush through the door (back into the Modern World) at a time of our own choosing. In attempt to put lyrical expression to the issues that plague our Modern World: Buildings continue to stretch higher-and-higher, how long and large are the shadows they create and how is the light ever to reach our human-clay?
How are we to rediscover the natural rhythm that lives deep within us? The solution is one. Our Modern World is in a hurry. Slow down… everyone. Receive the natural world.
[1] Crash, Written and Directed By Paul Haggis, 2004 (Film), braces: Mine
[2] Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, Written By John O’Donohue, 1997
[3] (quote continued) Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom, Written By John O’Donohue, 1997
I experienced a “REVOLUTION” on this spring morning during my daily commute into the Big City. I encountered a woman driving one of the greener (non gas-gusling) vehicles on the highway. As my vehicle neared the back of hers the hand painted letters R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N came into view, and as I moved to pass the woman on the left I noticed that her car was covered in a brilliantly painted abstract with items of nature flowing one into the other. On the driver’s side fender the text “Question Everything?” appeared in curvy white letters surrounded in a bright reddish-orange flare of color. As I steered back into the right lane I saw in my rearview mirror a large off-white spiraling flower (on the hood of her car) and on the front bumper a suggestion that “We are all mad here :(“. Whether the statement being made was that we are all angry or altogether crazy, I believed it to be an accurate assessment of the drivers that I had met on the roadway each day. Minutes later as traffic slowed in my lane the colorful, flat paint came back into view as the mobile mural passed on my left. Our paths had moved full-circle which presented me the opportunity to behold the other side of this imaginative display of beauty. Words on the back bumper of her car that I had not noticed before disappeared into the distance. “Be Happy ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Be Free”. And so the woman continued on to her destination, apart from, but offering influence into my own.
While this vehicle exhibited an act of voluntary vandalism, I realized that I had recently begun to welcome most all graffiti as a means of prompting thought about my personal human experience. I am in NO WAY encouraging you as a reader to deface the property of someone else -your own perhaps. I am simply asking that you not discount these images and messages as eye sores. Within even the vilest of graffiti there is often expressive artwork that longs to be appreciated. There are exceptions!! But I consider transfiguring a cage of metal and glass into a driving-daisy to be an act of compassion for others that remain trapped in the daily grind -a point of beauty capable of influencing the perspectives of others.
“U R All Robots”. This was a message spray painted on some construction materials along the very same interstate. A couple years ago a road project was underway; I had also been working on an intensive two-year project and there were times that I felt like a gear in The Big Machine. At the time I would drive into the Big City five days a week and work long hours before my return trip; upon returning home there would be only a few short hours until I would encounter the same scenery again the following morning. Out of the miles-and-miles of familiar highway and construction a fresh message grabbed my attention. I pondered the idea, admired the skill of the artist, and the medium of the image (a stack of concrete roadway dividers) I thought to be a conservative placement for such a deep notion. Questions began to swirl in my head: Am I a robot? Had my culture programmed me to become what it had required me to be? Was the course of my life void of imagination and creativity? Or, in contrast, had I chosen my own unique path guided by my imaginings? In spite of the motivation of the artist behind that red and blue paint, I was driven to consider my perspective and position… rather than being taunted into feeling insignificant.
These “Graffiti Epiphanies” exist all around us. We must open our eyes to receive them. Just a few weeks ago I realized that beauty is most visible when it is viewed against the mundane; six left turns, one right, a vacant space on the right. I typically try and park in a spot just to the left of the numerous lights (which are mounted to the low ceilings in measured intervals). The plastic shrouds that encase each lamp give release to a variable, yellowed ambiance. A yellow-orange glow darkened by the brown circles burnt into each covering where the lights come closest to their shields. The dim manila lighting is a hue I have come to prefer because it is relaxing yet still provides enough light by which to read. A couple pages of a book, a chapter on some days, serves to relax me after the shorter of my commutes. Mondays and Fridays I arrive in the Little City, and am grateful that I do not have to endure the hour and fifteen minute commute (into the Big City) every day of the week. These days offer me a very welcome rest. Staring between the twined metal wires that act as a barrier between the levels of the structure I can see another message written directly in front of me and especially for me… I just have to figure out what it means. W-H-E-N. “WHEN” written in sidewalk chalk inside of a parking garage, just a short walk from my work. The structure is a solemn labyrinth of concrete and steel. When what? Neon-orange block letters (color that has been added to an otherwise dismal and bleak landscape) provoke me to thought.
Today offers us a beautiful opportunity that will never exist again. The way we interpret the messages that sit before us today will not be possible tomorrow… because we are ever-changing. The element of WHEN far too often exists as the smaller part of a larger question, an inquiry that bends us toward the future. WHEN has the power to dissolve the possibility of NOW, but we must not let it.
My older brother’s re-birth as a Texas Boy occurred at the age of 23. When I tell the story I usually spice things up by mentioning that Dave chased a girl down to Texas. And if you know my big brother you would know that he would not have gone chasing just any ole gal. Up here in the beautiful State of Kentucky, is the only place we Hudsons ever called home. “The Bluegrass State” of horse farms, tobacco, straight bourbon whiskey and Wildcat basketball! When you ask someone in Kentucky “Where are you from?” you are typically expecting them to respond with the name of one of the other 120 counties that patchwork the Kentucky frontier. Here we sit just south of the Ohio River, just east of the Mississippi River, just west of the Appalachian Mountains, and on the rocky top of Tennessee. True home-grown Kentucky folks may shuffle from county to county, but seldom do we make the jump from state to state, and if we do… we usually come back real quick like.
The couple years prior to my brother’s move to Texas the three of us Hudson brothers met up for a time in college just as young people from other counties and states migrate to city centers to attend universities. My twin brother and I were only two years behind David in school, and upon our graduation Dave had the bright idea that we should gather a group of guys to rent an apartment. A group of five guys in a three bedroom town house is a good way to save money; Hudsons are thrifty that way, saving money where we can. We lived together in a town house with two other friends from Anderson County. The five of us guys that I refer to as “The Sugarcreek Boys” lived on Sugarcreek Road, just off the beaten path of Tates Creek Road; Tates Creek being one of the spokes that runs through the City of Lexington.
Learning to navigate a new city is a lot like learning to explore the possibilities of what you wish to do with your life. Most students may have a major or degree selected they plan to work toward, but the deeper they delve into their college texts the more they become aware that they truly are undecided. “Undecided” was the actual major with which Dave had started college with and had I known myself better, that would have been the non-major I selected as well. It is true that a lot of young people do not know what they want to do with their lives and my brother would agree that there should be no pressure to declare such a thing. Learning your way around a new city or a new period of life is not a very straightforward thing… and it is only through experience that we become comfortable with foreign surroundings.
Looking at a map of Lexington the image of a bicycle wheel becomes apparent. The spokes of the wheel are the avenues of antiquity most of which existed at the conception of the city. Then there is New Circle Road, a more modern addition that encompasses the city with a circular route providing access to each of the spokes. When you first move to Lexington the pathways between each spoke are unclear, you can however always lean on New Circle Road… it may take you miles off the most efficient course, but it will eventually get you to where you need to go! The year before living on Sugarcreek my twin and I made a weekend trip to visit Dave at Kirwan Tower (the dormitory where Dave had lived during his first years of college). There is nothing quite like ordering-in pizza and soda-pop, and sleeping on the hard dorm floor. That night I remember a witty banter going back and forth between Dave’s roommate and himself. Jeremiah had been folding and ironing laundry for his girlfriend at the time and Dave took a jab at him, saying that his girlfriend had him “whipped”. He proceeded to kid Jeremiah about him being the woman in the relationship and finished by telling him that he could start on his (Dave’s) laundry when he had finished. Perhaps it was the fact that two younger males were looking on, but this initiated a friendly roast that worked back and forth ending with Jeremiah’s comment that New Circle Road was Dave’s “crutch”. To this day the comment still breaks me into a laugh! There is something about insulting a man’s sense of direction that will cut him to his very core… I do not remember specific statements made after that but I do remember the gloves had come off!! The two roommates argued as well as we brothers ever had. Still, no punches were thrown only jabs at one another’s adolescent pride.
Now, a few things you must understand about David is that he has always been a very hard worker, and a bright student, but when it came to the close relationships in his life he preferred to be served rather than to serve. You would not catch David doing your laundry or cooking your food… he was the one requesting favors. I am not sure exactly when we began to refer to David as “Dave” but “Dave was Dave”; there were not many surprises. Funny thing was people often found themselves wanting to earn Dave’s approval and would accommodate him in various ways in order to acquire it. You don’t go butting heads with Dave Hudson and walk away without being a bit disoriented. If you did not wish to serve the purpose which Dave had in mind, he found a way to convince, coax, or barter until he got exactly what he wanted. It was a mystery to me growing up (as his younger brother) how David somehow achieved this without creating a single enemy.
So, we always said it would take a special girl to please Dave. A small number of suitors came and went… it usually only took Dave a couple dates to send the girls packing. He made no compromises, and he was not about to lower his standards. If you had asked me I would have said Dave was going to be a bachelor forever. My twin brother Brett was the first “Fallen Soldier”. This is what we called our friends as they succumbed to the powers of the female race. Brett was engaged to be married the next summer, and his presence around the town house was fleeting at best. Dave was next; he fell fast, and he fell hard. I did not see Lori Loesch coming… she caught all of the Sugarcreek Boys off guard. The first I heard of Lori was when she did not yet have a name, she was referred to as “this girl” that Jason (a.k.a. Weez) and Dave had been introduced to at a friend’s house. On the way home that night “this same girl” in a big green truck had pulled up next to Weez’s Jeep and said “Nice Tires!”. Weez’s Jeep had been lifted-up and he had replaced the original wheels with tires about three feet in diameter. A female that could appreciate this type of thing, no-less from the driver’s seat of a Dodge Ram truck, was truly a gem… in the eyes of the Sugarcreek Boys at least. Dave and Weez had wondered which of the two of them Lori might have been interested in. Dave was excited and further impressed when Lori had sent her phone number through the grapevine (via a mutual friend) with orders to give her a call. Dave was hook, line, and sinker when Lori suggested that they go see an area football game for their first date. That was the first time I had set eyes on Lori. A real Texas beauty, tall and blonde, with a smile that warmed our hearts.
We all learned more about Lori as the weeks went on. She had been accepted to UK on a gymnastics scholarship, and that was her main reason for coming to Kentucky. After only a couple months both Dave and Lori’s spring graduations were fast approaching and we were all curious what would happen when Lori returned to Texas. Dave was a bit unsure about what he wanted to do following graduation, but he was certainly not unsure of how Lori would fit into his life. This was not just any girl! Dave recruited Weez and I for a summer trip to Texas; Dave had planned to visit Lori for one week that summer and then come home to tie up loose ends. Dave was moving to Texas, “after the first of the year” he had said. I will admit that a trip to Texas changes a man. I came home with a new pair of boots on my feet, a cowboy hat on my head, and a goatee on my face. Dave (sporting a goatee as well) had also been changed, but deep within. He now knew where he belonged. With Lori… in Texas. It was the tears in his eyes on the plane ride home that assured me that Dave could not go on living without Lori. I had only seen tears staining my brother’s checks two other times that I could recollect.
My face was shaven within a week of our return from the summer trip. After three weeks Dave’s whiskers remained. He had packed up most of his belongings and abandoned the rest. When I said goodbye to my brother he was standing with only two bags in hand, ready for his trip to the south. My parents accompanied Dave to Louisville where he would catch a flight to Texas. Before heading to the airport Dave wanted to pay a visit to Ma and Pa Hudson, our grandparents, the meekest of folks you could ever meet. So it was that David’s departure was blessed by all his family, and he was soon to be missed by all in Kentucky. A Texas boy was born.
A Texas Wedding
After the move I had fun telling the story of Dave’s abrupt departure. “Do you miss him?” people would ask. “Nope.” I would reply, explaining that it was hard to miss him when I knew how happy he was with Lori and that I could not help but be excited for them both. Lori had softened Dave’s heart in some way. With Lori, Dave was willing to compromise. The first time I saw Dave serving Lori I knew I was watching Dave cater to his future wife. When you find a “good catch” you will all but fall out of the boat to make sure you keep it on the line. All Kentucky men love using that analogy, though it is not until later in life that we realize that we men are actually the ones on the line. When a beautiful woman sets a hook in the heart of a man there is no option of turning lose, and the line remains much too strong to be broken. The love of a man’s true match is a love that cannot be severed.
After Dave moved I often thought of him down in Texas. I imagined him working on the land of Lori’s parents; enough land to be considered a ranch, complete with plank fences just like we have in Kentucky, even a couple horses. Dave loved working the piece of property that I had visited only the summer before. The visit made it easier for me to picture him in his new element. The quality of Lori’s family and memories of time spent with them always brings a feeling of peace to my soul. Lori’s father fixed up an old blue pick-up truck for Dave, “Old Blue” they called it and images in my mind of my brother driving that truck around Texas erased the distance that separated us from him. As time passed the distance would open up a little, but Dave would always diminish the gap with his random phone calls.
As often as I thought of Dave, I would never follow through by picking up the phone and dialing him. Dave was always the one that called. He was good that way, always bringing thought to action. The best way David had of making a person feel loved was in the gifts that he gave, gifts that he no doubt had put much thought into. Each trip he made back to Kentucky he would bear these gifts in hand, gifts that always touched the heart. All of us Hudsons love to be together as a family, and an occasion for togetherness approached as Brett and Cindy’s wedding date neared. Sitting at a poker table at the Sugarcreek house, on the weekend prior Brett’s wedding, we got a phone call from Dave. Apparently Lori had considered Dave a good catch as well, she had accepted his proposal of marriage. In the nightlights of downtown Houston, there beneath a wall of water, my brother offered a diamond to a rare Texas gem, and he rose from bended knee one of the richest men in the world.
Less than a year later, three of the Sugarcreek Boys stood as groomsman while the Texas Boy stood hand-in-hand with his Texas Gal beneath the black oak trees that intertwined over the plains of Sugarland Texas. Dave honored our father with the role of best man. There was a surreal feeling standing under the trees in late April as sunlight trickled through the leaves; it felt like God’s blessing on two lives, all felt blessed to have been a part of that day! Most of the Kentucky folks arrived a few days prior to the wedding… the more days the better, soaking up as much of the Texas experience as we could, the daily landscape of things that Dave had come to love. An easy task when we arrived at the Loesch’s ranch offering to help prepare for the wedding festivities.
Reinhardt, Lori’s father, has about the most generous heart of anyone you will ever meet. He owns and operates his own business. He is the man that works from dawn till dusk and often “does without”, without a long lunch break (sometimes eating standing up), without nightly entertainment, hitting the sack early so that he can beat even the earliest bird. Yes, from what I had observed from my few prior trips to Texas the man was the hardest of workers, making sacrifices to get things done. During our visits Reinhardt worked his weekdays away but would show up throughout the day to make sure that all of the guests were well taken care of. Not to mention footing the bill for every meal that we sat down to. He would even suggest ideas via the sweet Mama Loesch for daily and nightly entertainment, things that we may not have thought of. He reminded me a lot of Dave in that way; at each meeting you could tell that his thoughts had been with you as he had toiled. Lori’s parents have a way of making friends feel like family.
As we all pitched in around the ranch to detail the place which would become the backdrop of Dave and Lori’s wedding, Reinhardt spear-headed the effort, effectively ordering us this way and that; much work was done in very little time! Working the land that my brother had worked daily gave me yet even more insight, brushstrokes that would fill the frame of my imagination after I had returned to Kentucky and when my thoughts of longing turned to my brother. These memories proved to strengthen all of our hearts for our trip back home.
Not long after the wedding and then finishing school, Dave felt drawn to return to Kentucky. He and Lori wanted to try their hands at starting a chiropractic business in Wilmore. And while the business did well, it did not do well enough. It now seems to me that the Lord above had other plans about where in this world Dave and Lori belonged, and the purposes that they were both meant for. The events that unfolded following Dave and Lori’s return back to Texas (about a year later) remind me that “[His] ways are higher than [our] ways…” (Isaiah 55:9)
A Texas Funeral and a Kentucky Burial
The last conversation I had with my big brother was on his 5th wedding anniversary the night before he passed. Another member of my family had called to remind me to give Dave a shout and tell him “Happy Anniversary”. While I did not often call him, I did usually remember to call him on his birthday and anniversary. “Ole Bill, he never forgets anything,” Dave had said after I let him off the line. Such a short conversation it was. I had caught him in the middle of dinner with his wife, oops! Dave picked up anyway. I congratulated them both, but immediately said I did not want to keep them and that I would talk to him later. How we all wish that we had spoken to him one more time or for just a few seconds longer. Dave laid down for an afternoon nap the following day and never woke up.
Amazing how God works, though. There were a string of events that would have appeared to be coincidences but which became quite non-coincidental when viewed in light of one another. These happenings which I will attempt to detail, pave a path of higher purpose, a purpose for which my pen cannot fully account.
We were all so grateful for Dave and Lori’s year in Wilmore Kentucky. It seems that God had split the time that Dave and Lori had spent together between Kentucky and Texas, between the Hudsons and the Loeschs. We were all equally blessed to enjoy the time we had with Dave Hudson. When Dave and Lori had packed the contents of their Wilmore chiropractic office into that moving truck and again left for Texas, we had expected not to see Dave and Lori until the following Christmas. The Lord again had other plans when in late December my parent’s car hit a sheet of black ice, rolled over, and came to rest on the opposite side of the Bluegrass Parkway. My mother was air-lifted to UK Medical Center. She had a head injury but was still with us. Our family pulled together, closer even than we had always been. My younger sister, Sarah, having just graduated nursing school, became essential to taking care of our mother, and Sarah’s boyfriend (soon-to-be fiance) Dan became intertwined in the fabric of the Hudson family almost overnight. Dave and Lori dropped everything and came to Kentucky for a week to watch over my mother as she continued her recovery. She was scared but the same Mama Hudson that we all loved. As it would turn out, that was the last trip David would make to Kentucky.
How grateful we were for that week… in spite of the reason for their visit. The morning before Dave and Lori flew back to Texas most of the Hudson family had gathered for breakfast at my parent’s home in Lawrenceburg. There in the front bedroom we all gathered around the bed. Propped up in bed was my mother with a bandage around her forehead. My wife Mel and I thought we would have some news that would put my mother in good spirits and we announced the new addition we would be expecting in August. My father’s eyes lit up with joy as he broke the secret news that Dave and Lori had entrusted to him just hours before. As it turned out Dave and Lori were expecting an addition to their family as well! It seems August was going to be quite a month!! In the front room of our childhood home, with hands held, my father prayed for the blessings that God had given to the Hudson family and for the protection God had provided over himself and my mother. God had smiled on our family.
When Dave and Lori had moved back to Texas from Wilmore a few months earlier, they had no place to hang their hats. They had sold off their Pasadena town home once they arrived in Wilmore. So, Mama and Daddy Loesch had taken them in upon their return. It was good that their daughter was so close to them; she would need that closeness, all too soon and all too suddenly. Mama Hudson just happened to be en route to Texas when she got a phone call from Lori detailing how Dave’s breath had given out. It was good that Mom would be there to embrace her daughter and that the two of them would have each other to lean on. In my mind the Lord had set many intricate details into place, gracious provisions for us that would fit into his higher plan, from the extra time that we got to spend with Dave in Kentucky to the immediate web of support that God had woven into place for Lori in Texas. My father had made the comment that even the photographs of David which we held as precious before were pure gold now, but how much more valuable would be the gift of that little baby. What great plans the Lord would have in store for Lori and that little babe… the Lord above only knows.
The Hudsons arrived in Texas in a steady wave, all planning to be there to console Lori. What we had not anticipated was that Lori would actually become our refuge. Mom arrived only minutes after Dave’s passing, my father was accompanied on a flight by my sister the next day, and Brett and I hopped on an early flight the following morning. As each of us arrived I am sure we all had the same question in mind. “What can I say to her to help make this alright?” As it turned out words were not needed, as we entered the room she was able to offer a smile to each of us. A smile and an embrace from Lori is all we needed to feel better ourselves, a bit of warmth from the person who had grown closer to my brother than anyone. She had become the extra support that we were not aware that we needed. Having the whole family there in the Loesch’s home together created the presence of “Dave”.
Lori was strong through this difficult time. So many decisions to make, she stood firm through each of them. We were all there to offer our input, but all the final decisions rested with her. Perhaps the most heavily weighted question was, “Where should Dave be laid to rest?” Deep down the Hudsons may have believed that David’s body belonged in Kentucky, but I found myself telling Lori that ultimately the decision was hers and that Dave loved Texas in his heart… that he belonged here with her. The pain of losing him being so fresh, I thought it did not really matter to me. I broke into tears when she decided that he would be buried in Kentucky -beneath the ground of his youth. Looking over photos of our growing up years the happy memories were too many to count. I began to shed happy tears, tears that I did not know I possessed.
A funeral in Texas was followed by a funeral and burial in Kentucky. It was at the funeral in Texas when most of us saw Dave, Dave’s body, for the first time since his death. While the funeral home did a wonderful job creating a likeness of Dave, that is all that was there -a likeness. I remember the moment of fright and panic as I looked at the body lying in front of me. I was terrified as I tried to construct the memory of Dave’s spirit. Staring down at his empty shell, I feared that I was already beginning to forget him, and a panic began to creep over me. It was only by turning my eyes towards the ceiling and trusting in the fibers of my own being that this memory became known to me.
Dave and Lori’s belief holds that the Father and Son exist within one another and that the same Holy Spirit that exists within the Father and Son also binds us together in faith. It was this Spirit that allowed me to feel and to know that my brother was alive in Christ. The body that can be seen is only temporary, but the unseen Spirit is eternal. It is this eternal Spirit that allowed my family to endure this sudden loss.
The impact of lives touched by David Hudson were widespread. Both funerals in Texas and in Kentucky were packed houses. It was amazing to me the number of people David had influenced in the short time he lived in Texas. The turnout of the people from Kentucky that arrived in Texas, and the Texas folks that made the journey back up to Kentucky spoke volumes of the man that David Hudson had become. I found it a strange irony that the one hundred year old Edgar McKenny happened to be in Texas visiting his son and attended the funeral of my thirty year old brother. This gentleman gave David his first job cutting his grass over on Park Lane in Lawrenceburg. Ed must have seen many funerals in his years, but I could sense that he had a solemn empathy for what he knew our world had lost. Yet as a brother in Christ, Mr. McKenny had a glint of hope in his eyes, wondering I am sure, when at last he and Dave would be reunited. This is something that all of us Hudsons await… when our family chain will reform again, link-by-link, as we each join Dave in the next realm of being.
Lori asked my brother Brett to speak at both funerals. Brett has such a bold personality and such a charismatic quality about him; his words gave comfort to many in Texas and in Kentucky. Brett started his talk in Texas by taking off his suit jacket, then ripping off his tie and unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt… stating that Dave would not have had it any other way. Brett wanted to speak plainly to the crowd about “What Dave would have wanted to tell them”. Dave was a simple guy, everything he did was done in an efficient manner in order to create more time to enjoy the things he loved. God. Family. Friends. Sports. Food. Games. Fun.
One of the few verses Dave underlined in his Bible is also one of the most well-known passages. And while it takes only a few seconds to read, you can spend a lifetime trying to understand it. This one verse holds in itself the greatest story ever told. “For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)
A series of questions will arise as each individual piece of this verse is considered. Why did God love this world so? Why am I worth such a sacrifice as this? What does it mean to believe in Jesus? How should a person awarded a gift of eternal life be altered in response? Seeking the answers to each question and how that answer relates to your own person is the key to becoming one in spirit with the One that created you.
My mother has a beautiful idea. “Children are not unlike flowers. Each of us are created with the essence of who we are already existing deep within us”. She says, “All that each of us needs is to be showered with love and grace and we will grow and bloom into the people that God intends for us to become”. I will go as far as to say that under the right conditions we can become full grown in a relatively short period of time. With a supportive family providing us a firm place to plant our roots, with the shower of blessings that are rained down upon us from a glorious heavenly Father, and by turning our faces towards the radiant love of Jesus Christ our Savior… David Joseph Hudson was a flower in full bloom. Perhaps Dave had become all that God had intended him to be. If we can each learn to listen to the voice within us, we will succeed in becoming what we already are -the beautiful creations of a loving God!
Here is a picture that has sat upon a shelf in my Grandparents home for many years. A picture of David as a child dressed up for Halloween. Note the sparkle in his eye!
Twenty-some years later upon the announcement of his engagement with that same sparkle in his eyes… Dave was well on his way to becoming all that God had meant for him to become.
Here is the headstone that Lori and my father collaborated to design. A beautiful yet modest monument commemorating the amazing life of David Joseph Hudson.
On the other side of the stone HUDSON appears across the top, a name strengthened by the grace of God. Just below David is acknowledged as a loving husband by his wife Lori, and David, the son, is lifted up as Dave would have declared in his own breath…”A GIFT FROM GOD / HIS HERITAGE AND JOY”.
A Texas Family
This Christmas season as I consider what words and images to leave you with, I can only say that I am blessed to have been a part of the family that God has built around me. Under the same mighty hand, God the Father has established a new family. Just two years after my brother passed the Lord has brought a new companion to Lori, a man of God that will guide Lori and Little David Jr. along the paths of life. The Hudsons give thanks to the Lord above for Chad Westen Bertrand. We look forward to the beacon of light that his family will become. There is strength in the Bertrand family as Chad and his father are both pastors, and I have no doubt that the true love of God is being revealed as part of our Lord’s higher plan. Here is the Christmas card my parents sent this year, a framed photograph of a new and growing family. A family that I pray will continue to be showered by the provisions of a loving God.
A Warm Texas Wind
How true are the song lyrics “New life makes losing life easier to understand”. (Jack Johnson)
An acquaintance to the Hudson family, and a beloved member of the Loesch family (Jeremy Rodriguez) had this to say: “It is possible to have met someone only once and be affected by their absence. Some people’s light shines too bright to ignore the fact that it is no longer there.” Dave’s light has indeed vanished from the face of this earth, but a new light has been lit… and how bright will that light grow to be?
It is my personal belief that there is a “Divine Spark” within each of us. The divine signature of a divine Creator who has designed each of us to play a specific role in the revealing of His sublime goodness. At the moment that we open our souls to the Will of God (our Author and Creator) that spark is fanned into flame. The story of such a life becomes a guiding light, a beacon of hope, and a warm rushing wind of spirit that will kindle the spark within another. I hope the story of David Hudson becomes the warm rushing wind of spirit that reaches you.
Lapierre, Dominique. The City of Joy. Trans. Kathryn Spink. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
One day in Calcutta a rickshaw puller took internationally bestselling author Dominique Lapierre to one of the poorest and most over populated areas of this haunting city, where five million people live out their lives on the streets. The district was Anand Nagar – the City of Joy – and being there would change the writer’s life forever. At the heart of this extremely poor community, Lapierre found more heroism, more love, more sharing, and ultimately, more happiness than in many a city of the affluent West. Above all, he was overwhelmed to discover that this seemingly inhuman place had the magical power to produce heroes and heroines of all ages and from all walks of life. For Calcutta is the home not only of such saints as Mother Teresa, but also of countless other inspiring people who are ordinary and completely unknown. Lapierre discovered Stephen Kovalski, the Polish priest who came to the City of Joy to share and ease the plight of of the most underprivileged; Max, the young American doctor who came to treat people who were without any medical resources; Bandona, the beautiful Assamese nurse who became an Angel of Mercy for the afflicted; and the thousands of men, women, and children who rose above harsh destinies to conquer life with a smile…(Dust Jacket)
Last Saturday morning my wife had to run some errands, so she dropped me and my four month old son off at a locally owned coffee shop. My son, Locke Edward, needed to nap, and I was nearing the end of Lapierre’s book and hoped to make some considerable progress before she picked us back up. A few minutes later, however, I was taking a break from the text and pulling the brim of my hat down a little lower over my face so people wouldn’t see me cry. I don’t remember what particular chapter of The City of Joy I had reached at that point, but it doesn’t matter because that wasn’t the first time the book had reduced me to tears. The same thing happened in Starbucks a couple weeks earlier and multiple times since then at home. Lapierre’s writing is simple enough, but emotionally and psychologically it’s just not the sort of book a person can rush through, especially not in a public place. As a matter of fact, I personally believe it would not have been respectful of the inhabitants of the City of Joy to do so.
From the beginning I should point out that this book moved me more than most other books I have read. Suffering and religion are two central themes throughout the entire story, and though I don’t want to minimize the significance of other books and films that make us sad or leave us impassioned, I can honestly say that I have read very few books and seen very few films that force me to consider these themes and my personal responsibility the way this one did.
Experiences of suffering in The City of Joy are rough, but most of them are not a result of hate. In this sense the book differs from other material with similar themes such as Holocaust literature, which typically leaves me considering the question of suffering as it relates to hatred, war, violence, and the general lack of humanity exhibited by human beings. Instead, The City of Joy showed me what happens to poor farmers in India when the monsoon season arrives too late. It also showed me what happens to the poorest of the poor living in Calcutta’s shantytowns when the monsoon season arrives on time but then proceeds to flood the city, leaving thousands of people without homes and many others floating dead in alleys and gutters. It left me frustrated by a disorganized Indian government whose bureaucracy is not necessarily hateful, but such a mess that pregnant women die while they are waiting for the postal service to deliver medical aid. As a father, it broke my heart to read about children who completely surrendered their childhoods, their health, and their dignity to put a bowl of rice on their family’s table once a day.
But The City of Joy has no bad guy. There are questionable characters, but no evil dictators, no single person or group of people I could accuse when I became sad or angry about the pain the characters in the book experienced. There is no scapegoat to blame for the suffering, not even human nature. Too often we Christians use human nature as an excuse to dismiss the profound suffering we see in the world around us. We shrug our shoulders at the problems, and with solemn faces that actually help no one, we suggest that the problems are simply a result of sin and God will fix them all in the end. On the contrary, Lapierre seems to think that human nature is actually quite wonderful, or at least has the potential to be wonderful, though it is often corrupted by the brokenness of the world. So, without someone or something else to blame, I could only reflect on my own choices – my own possibilities. The City of Joy forced me to consider where I stood in relation to the brokenness in the world and what I was willing and able to do about it.
Compassion is probably a typical response when people encounter scenes of suffering in the book, but the religious theme might be more challenging for some readers to appreciate. In particular, very theologically conservative Christian readers may have some difficulty with the fact that Lapierre tends to approach religion functionally. This means that he doesn’t seem interested in debates about the truth of the beliefs or doctrines of the three major religions in the story -Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. He doesn’t really attempt to elevate one religion over the others. Instead, the value of religion lies in what it accomplishes, how people respond in certain situations.
There is almost never a dull moment in The City of Joy because the story line swings back and forth like a pendulum between situations of extreme crisis and extreme celebration. Each crisis is an opportunity for a Hindu, a Christian, or a Muslim to do the right thing. Sometimes they shine as each of them are supposed to, like the light of the world, but sometimes they fail. Stephen Kovalski, the Christian priest, is so noble and compassionate, but he can be naive and short sighted. He can be timid and fail to accomplish important tasks in a culture that requires a loud voice to be heard above the chaotic noise of Calcutta’s culture. His neighbors in the shantytown, the Islamic family, are so faithful and austere, but they are suspicious, don’t communicate well, and some of their decisions lead to disaster. The story, of course, is dominated by the presence of Hinduism. Hasari Pal, his family, his fellow rickshaw pullers, and all the political powers in the story are deeply religious Hindus. They can be so generous and oriented toward authentic relationships, especially those who are poor. No one who reads The City of Joy will ever forget the power of tea and hospitality. But Lapierre does not romanticize Hinduism either. The ancient caste system is powerful in the social and theological system of the Hindus, and it often discourages self improvement, social advancement, and positive change.
In spite of religion’s failures, the overall picture is positive. When there are great needs the Christians, Muslims, and Hindus frequently set aside their theological differences in order to save lives and relieve suffering. In addition, the descriptions of rituals and celebrations described throughout the story are beautiful and testify to the positive influence of beliefs and traditions of all kinds. Stephen Kovalski, for instance, celebrates the Eucharist in the slums with the the poor in several touching scenes. As a Christian, however, I was particularly intrigued by the Hindu marriage and burial rituals. In my entire life, I have never once even come close to wondering what it would be like to observe an Indian wedding in a leper colony! But the great Hindu festivals were the dominant religious features in The City of Joy. There are many of them, and with Stephen Kovalski, I at first found myself questioning whether Calcutta’s impoverished and dying people should be spending what extremely small amounts of money they have on clothing and food for a single day of festivities, but with Kovalski, I soon realized that there was more life in those festivals than in any amount of food.
The City of Joy is simply a challenging read. Although I have not responded to all of those challenges adequately in my own life, I have started the process. For the reader who becomes immediately suspicious that this is socially liberal and theologically pluralistic, I might agree with you. But I would also suggest that if we never open ourselves up to anything different, especially real experiences as profound as the ones described in this book, we will never actually grow in any significant way.
It’s 6:32. The sky on the other side of the sliding glass doors is still dark. I left one of the doors open so the dogs could come and go. They were stuck inside all night, and the small one, Sparta, has a tiny bladder. People mistake her for a Jack Russell all the time, but she’s actually a miniature rat terrier.
The rest of the house is quiet and dark. The soft, yellow light from the kitchen track lights high up in the vaulted ceiling doesn’t turn the corner and creep down the short hallway very far. It certainly doesn’t reach the three small bedrooms and single bathroom at the end. There are five egg whites sizzling in a skillet on the stove. They have to be cooked slowly or they’ll stick to the pan; it’s time to start thinking about replacing some of our cheaper pieces of kitchenware.
There’s a decorative mirror hanging on the beige wall in the kitchen. The mirror is useful because I can get breakfast ready and work on the length of my tie at the same time. I’ve been wearing ties to work for over two years, but professional attire still doesn’t come natural.
My wife would love to get up and fix my omelet for me, but I can’t seem to make myself wake her up. She’ll get up on her own before I leave anyway. When she does she’ll complain with honest but mild irritation that I should get her up to help out in the early mornings. She loves to feel needed, but she works evenings at Starbucks. She’s also eight months pregnant. She needs to rest, and I’m not in a hurry.
When the eggs are finished and my tie looks right I sit down at the kitchen table to eat. I’ve stuffed the omelet with green peppers and mushrooms, and I have a piece of whole wheat toast with local honey smeared across it on the side. The coffee is black, pressed, and steaming.
Our table seats four. It’s a modern style – dark imitation wood, straight edges, rectangular, smooth. It might look expensive if the finish wasn’t so splotchy and chipped. Most of that is my fault. I can be absent minded about the objects I set directly on the tabletop. For instance, there are several faded spots exactly the size of our French press, but my wife is incredibly gracious about those sorts of things. She’s told me more than once I’m the dumbest smart person she knows, and she shakes her head and grins slightly out of the corner of her mouth when she says it. Some mutual friends of ours introduced us at a Super Bowl party, and the first remark she ever made to me was a sarcastic comment about how sparse my facial hair was. I knew immediately that I was going to marry her.
Of the four chairs at the table, I choose the spot that faces the sliding glass doors. The sun is beginning to rise on the front side of the house, so the backyard is lighting up gradually. There are large, overgrown knockout rose bushes just off the deck. Thistly branches with dark green foliage are twisting and curling around the railing. I know they need to be pruned, but even this late in the summer they are full of huge, blush colored blooms. I suppose I cannot trim back beauty anymore than I can wake it up.
Although I love the scenery, there is a much better reason to sit with my back to the large opening that leads out of the kitchen and into the rest of our home. A game is about to begin. It begins on time almost every morning, just a few minutes before I have to leave the house, and it will be one of the best moments of my entire day. So, I am patient and fully attentive.
As I work quietly on my omelet and coffee, I listen to a steady shhhhhhhhh coming across the baby monitor in the living room behind me. The other end of that monitor sits in our daughter’s room. She sleeps with a sound machine which creates a constant imitation of the wind. I continue listening. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh – – – it stops abruptly, and there is complete silence. The silence, however, is not empty. I know the room is actually full of activity, and I continue to wait.
By now, our larger dog has returned from the outdoors and is lying beside the table at my feet. He’s always patient, and he’s affectionate in the mornings. Tobie is a seven year old black lab mix. I notice his tail beginning to thump lightly against the laminate flooring. I glance down. His ears have perked up a bit, and his attention has been directed from my plate of food to something behind me. I turn slowly, like whatever is back there should be discovered gently, but before I am completely in position to follow his gaze there is a rapid pitter-patter down the hall and a short, choked off squeal of laughter.
I return to my breakfast, but only a moment later Tobie is alert again. Now his tale is in full swing, thwack, thwack, thwack. I rotate quickly this time and catch a pair of blue eyes peeking at me from around the hallway corner. They sit above a tiny little, flat nose and round cheeks with deep dimples. My daughter is grinning broadly, and this time she charges across the few feet between the two of us with unconcealed laughter, and I catch her up so she can’t escape back down the hallway again.
When I finally set her down she brushes long wisps of blond hair out of her face and holds out a package of baby wipes and a pair of clean underwear with girly cartoon figures on them. She loves getting into her dresser drawers to find a change of clothes for the day. She’s so proud to be three years old.
My little girl loves to eat too. She sits on my right knee while I finish breakfast, snacking on my eggs and vegetables. She loves mushrooms and green peppers. We chat about how pretty the backyard is and how we will exercise in the garage together when I get home from work. She asks if she can go outside on the back porch to see the pink sky and to look for the birds that are singing, and I encourage her to do so. On the way out she takes some time to embrace the dogs with overly aggressive hugs. She’s especially attached to Sparta, who looks like she’s going to pop when she’s squeezed too tightly. Our three year old may be a bit eccentric for such a small kid, but for me that’s such a relief.
I’m pouring the last of the French press into a travel mug and cleaning up the table when my wife wanders into the kitchen. Tobie beats me to the greeting, hopping up, swinging his tale back and forth, nestling his nose and face into the side of her leg. She walks straight to me, and I wrap my arms around her neck. She’s several inches shorter than I am, and normally she would stand on her tip toes to get her arms above my shoulders. Lately, though, she has also had to turn to the side to reach me since our son is in the way. She’s thin with elegant features, and pregnancy hasn’t changed that. Our son has created quite a bump, but it’s only obvious when someone sees her profile. I kiss her, and when she buries her head in my chest her hair tickles my nose. It’s wispy and blond like our daughter’s. The blue eyes are also hers, but the dimples are mine. She asks if there is anything I need her to do to help me finish getting ready. There isn’t. She makes a few comments about that, but lets it go quickly, as I knew she would.
Our daughter notices her mother has entered the kitchen and she comes in from outside to greet her as well. I finish up the morning routine while they sit and talk at the table. Some teachers are so organized and streamlined, but I’m not. I have a variety of bags slung over both shoulders: computer case, satchel for lesson plans and grade book, lunch bag, gym bag for Advanced P.E., and my left hand is clinging desperately to the travel mug of hot coffee, leaving my right hand free to operate door knobs and make it out to the truck. I look like I’m leaving for a two day trip. It’s a good thing I teach older students and my school promotes a lot of college level discussion. The younger grades would eat me for breakfast.
When I’m finally ready, I kiss my wife one more time and squat down awkwardly to hug my daughter, careful not to disrupt the chaos I’m carrying around. I scratch Tobie lightly with my foot, and head out the front door, banging all sorts of things against the wall and the door frame on the way out.
My 93 Ford Ranger is parked in front of the house on the street because it leaks oil. It was given to my brother in law, who eventually gave it to me when my wife and I needed a second vehicle. Its light green paint is faded, and the corner behind the driver’s side door is rusted away. It sits up a bit higher than other small trucks because the tires are slightly larger. I notice for the twentieth time the brake dust building up on the front wheels and make another mental note to repair them soon.
I hoist all my baggage into the passenger side and walk around to the driver side. Neither the heat nor the air works, but it doesn’t matter because the morning isn’t too warm. The radio also went out a few days ago when I hit a bump at my sister in law’s house; that does irritate me a little. I settle in and slam my door shut, brushing insulation off my dress shirt. There’s no upholstery in the roof, so bits and pieces of yellow fiberglass drift down from the ceiling every time the truck shakes.
I pull up to the red light just outside my neighborhood. I’ll be turning left onto the main road that will take me to work. The morning traffic is already beginning to pick up. Vehicles are whizzing through the intersection. I notice that there is relatively little variation in color, shape, and size. The blur ahead of me is mostly brown, tan, silver, white, and black, though I do see an occasional dark red or blue. There are cars and trucks, but little else, and most all of them still have their factory shine, reflecting the warm morning light off precise edges and darkened windows.
The sight induces the day’s agenda. There are still handouts to be printed because the computer wouldn’t cooperate with the copier yesterday; the network was a mess. There will be a faculty devotion at 7:45, and I’ve wandered in at the end too many times already. I glance down at my phone to check the time and then back at the light anxiously.
By 8:15 students will be asking about their paper grades in my first class. They aren’t finished yet, even though the mid quarter ends in a couple days and grades are due. I’ll lecture for two periods until chapel at 9:45. Then I’ll lecture in four more periods between 10 and 3. The faculty meeting will start at 3:20. Traffic will be heavy on the way home, and church starts at 7. My wife has worship team practice after the service, so she won’t be home until 9:30.
My right leg begins to twitch and bounce nervously. The monotony of the traffic is broken when a couple of semis with large advertisements stamped to their sides roll by, shaking the ground and filling the little cab of my truck with the noisy clamor of rushing wind. It’s the most empty thing I’ve ever heard.
The light turns green, and as I’m turning left the sunrise comes into full view directly ahead of me. It would be beautiful if I didn’t have to look directly at it. The sun has risen to the exact height of the next light, blinding me, and I’m struggling to see its color, nervous that I will be the cause of some serious collision, but I pass through that intersection and several others with no actual complications.
I sigh a bit. Once I’m clear of our small city the drive will be so much more enjoyable. I’ll take the back road so I can enjoy the scenery and mentally prepare myself for my classes. The road will be lined on both sides with large, old trees, curving and weaving around enormous horse farms.
Commuters are piling up at the last light heading out of town. The parkway ramp coming up on my right is full and it’s spilling into my lane. I notice that all those vehicles are shoving, muscling their way in and moving too fast. I look over my left shoulder so I can get over, but that lane is even more crowded and unyielding. I glance with a little desperation in my rear view mirror; all I can see is the front bumper and tinted windshield of something large, and it’s so close. In a moment I glance back to the ramp on my right, fully aware.
My world is turning, and the sun has blinded me again, but I still see blond hair and blue eyes squinting above broad smiles, quietly convincing me that I have never needed anything more.
Thomas Merton, one of the greatest spiritual writers of the twentieth century, put out a strong warning about authentic community. He believed that it is extremely common for individuals to be false, to live behind a facade. He even believed that this condition can be passed along from one person to another like a highly contagious disease. If the disease spreads unrestrained, he warned, it is like a terminal illness. It will ultimately result in nothing less than “the falsification of the whole religious life of the community.”[1]
Merton’s warning may feel a bit dramatic. We might think it is simply the rhetoric of a writer and poet, but it should not be dismissed. After all, what should community focused individuals, even secular individuals, fear more deeply than falsification? And the weight of the question increases significantly for Christians, for those of us who have had some sort of personal experience with the Cornerstone of our faith who said, “I am the truth” (John 14). For us, Merton’s point simply cannot be overstated. Very little threatens Christian vitality and passion as severely as relationships based on facades.
We should be aware that religious facades have been problematic for folks as long as there have been religious folks, Christian or otherwise, but the fact that the disease is common in our history hardly diminishes its threat. The following symptoms are everywhere in plain sight, and they demonstrate that churches ought to suspect and fear the presence of falsification: (1) enormous amounts of material published on the topic (2) a plethora of leadership meetings to discuss the problem (3) a general sentiment among many folks that church is more life-draining than life-giving (4) extreme boredom in the congregation (5) extreme apathy in the congregation (6) lots of church advertisements boasting friendly environments and authentic community (to convince the public), and (7) constant discussion about the need to return to an “Acts 2” experience. Admittedly, the disease is hard to nail down, but the detrimental effects, the mind numbing symptoms of false relationships can be seen running rampant in local churches and seem to point to the existence of a tremendous amount of infected individuals.
Many Christians who suffer from an advanced version of the disease have simply given up, succumbing to what they consider to be a monotonous church life. Their attendance is consistent, but mentally they have checked out. This, of course, frustrates pastors and teachers to no end, so they commit themselves to the search for a magical remedy. Unfortunately, most of their attempts to pull the congregants out of comatose end in failure, and the leaders go on wondering if anything can be done to cure the dull stares in their congregations.
Feeling defeated, the leadership finally tethers the poor souls to religious life support, repetitively drip feeding them Christianity in the smallest doses possible, and praying for the best. Sermons are watered down with political ideology and then sweetened with an intriguing historical concept here and a comical story there. Attendance at social gatherings is bribed with food, and the whole package is slapped with a label: “Fellowship.” Apparently, authenticity can be mass produced. Leaders are then baffled and distraught when they finally notice that attendance at these gatherings correlates directly with the number of courses they decide to serve. Still, if they were flies on the wall it might bless their tired ears to hear that honest, open conversations do in fact occur at these gatherings. But they don’t hear them because authentic discussions typically occur aside from the main group in hushed whispers, lest the daring conversationalists be judged and turned into pet projects by the arrogant who have unknowingly already been taken by the disease and buried in white-washed sepulchers.
There are, of course, Christians in the community who are not yet directly infected but highly affected by the onslaught of spreading symptoms. For these folks, religious survival is a continual struggle. Often, their health is maintained because circumstances allow them to discover like minded people. There is strength in numbers, and they may produce some sort of creative way to band together and keep the infection at a distance, a sort of self imposed religious quarantine. In these instances, life is more than a drip feed, but it is often still desperate, and it is mostly nourished by sources outside the local church. Religious food is dropped in by humanitarians and benevolent forces. Crates of medical supplies arrive in various forms: rogue small groups, reading material, media, entertainment, and ironically, even doctrines and practices from other religions.
Although these struggling Christians are vital enough to refuse the drip feed treatment, they still suffer from the tragic task of watching the disease run its course with the infected members of the congregation. Like an intensive care unit, the church works to keep the injured alive, meanwhile the healthy wait up all night in uncomfortable chairs and live on bags of trail mix and other random snacks visitors drop off. A midnight coffee run, an irritatingly generic magazine subscription set out by the office staff, or an occasional outburst from an annoying soap star on the outdated television in the corner of the room might be the only thing that keeps their blurry, red eyes from much needed rest. Yet they remain with the community because they hope that sometime in the near future a doctor will burst through the door and announce that a miracle has occurred. The sick have been made well! There is life and passion in the community again.
Infected or not, we evangelicals tend to reject the unsavory truth about the condition of our local churches. By the time we are finished attending the prescribed quota of services, fellowships, activities, discussions, meetings, conferences, Sunday school sessions, camps, and holiday picnics, the Truth goes down like an artificially flavored fruit juice. We have invested a tremendous amount of time, but the Gospel’s lasting positive effects are minimal. The sweet concoction may occasionally produce some temporary, hyper activity – a “mountain top experience” – but how many of us despair when the sugar high ends and we begin to crash? We are like spoiled children who stubbornly keep our mouths shut tight unless our medicine is presented in the preferable brand and mixed with strawberry syrup. Who would have guessed two millennia ago that a steady drip feed of politics, comedy, and history would be sustaining the life of so many churches today?
It would be a very serious mistake, however, for us to lay responsibility for a cure squarely on the shoulders of our church leaders. Most pastors and teachers are well intentioned, capable individuals. But falsification is like cancer, it is often too subtle to catch in the beginning and too large to manage once it has spread. Pastors, even the mature ones, are simply unable to perform enough preventative operations to ensure that everyone is guaranteed a healthy, long life. They are not dermatologists with quiet, suburban offices, carving out little religious moles before they become large problems. Congregational issues are usually already desperate. Church leaders are more like surgeons on a battle field using leftover bourbon to sterilize wounds and boot laces to sow up lacerations while bullets whiz by overhead. Their wisdom is real, but mostly defensive, and sometimes their best efforts are simply inadequate for the task.
Pastoral healing skills may also be inadequate if the pastors themselves are infected. Typically, leaders are oblivious to the presence of the disease in their own bodies. Their symptoms may be as subtle as persistent naggings from the Spirit in their contemplative moments, but they repeatedly swat those away for administrative responsibilities and the much louder naggings of irritable congregants. Solitude and inner peace seem more like luxuries than the necessities of a thriving Christian life. So, they really end up with nothing to offer their flocks but well organized services, nice power point videos, and a polite atmosphere. Meanwhile, all the passionate sheep are being torn to pieces by wolves so a couple stubborn, belligerent sheep can be wrestled back into the fold, bleating the whole time about how green the pasture used to be and how unhappy they are with Sunday’s worship set.
No, we simply cannot expect leaders to single handedly rid the world of our religious obesity. We have only the circumstances of history and our ownindividualefforts to blame for the differences between the New Testament community and our own local churches. When we are open and humble, leaders may guide us, but they cannot force change. Pastors and teachers are in the divine profession of healing, but they are not shamans. They do not heal by spells and incantations and certainly not by sheer act of will. Leaders simply cannot program, plan, organize, or magically create authenticity on our behalf.
For theological good or bad, there is a distinction being made these days between religion and spirituality, and the gap is widening as more and more Christians become frustrated with the former. It is becoming increasingly popular for all sorts of folks to claim that they are spiritual but not religious. The differences between the two terms are often vague and ambiguous, but can be incredibly useful nonetheless. We should think of religion as form, structure, repetition, organization, and tradition. It is appropriate that the term literally means “to bind.” Spirituality, on the other hand, is often understood as content, experience, a personal sense of something transcendent. It is often associated with other terms such as “intimacy,” “awareness,” and “vitality.” From this perspective life is not simply a beating heart, and religious life is certainly not church attendance. Life is not quantitative but qualitative, and our religious lives ought to be characterized by passion, hope, discovery, inner peace, personal progress, and meaning.
Merton’s use of the phrase “religious life” should be taken in this sense, and if his warning seems dramatic it is precisely because he understood that falsification is a subtle, sneaky disease that attacks the most fragile elements of that life. Unless attendance and tithes fall to economically intolerable lows, leadership can and will ensure that religion – services and traditions – continue, barely keeping everyone alive. Other issues like authentic community and intimate relationships, however, will suffer to no foreseeable end, and no amount of five step self-help books or Acts 2 campaigns will successfully stand in the gap and heal the diseased community. The cure must be developed and administered by individuals, by leaders and congregants alike. The mythical potion evangelical pop culture has been searching for is very much like the Gospel itself, intellectually simple but a difficult, humbling pursuit. The remedy is transparency in our congregations and responsibility in our pastoral leadership.
Transparency is difficult because we are frequently fooled by our own facades. Some of us have been living off the drip feed system so long we possess only vague memories of what a healthy, vibrant spiritual life feels like. What we actually need to do is pull out our Church’s feeding tubes, come to grips with our own ideas and behavior, and find out who we really are. And if, after some reflection, we need to admit that we are not sure who we are or whether we really line up with the rest of the saints in our denominations, then we are one step closer to a cure. The Kingdom of Heaven is for humbly confused children like us. We may just have to dodge some dogmatic disciples to get to our Healer.
It might be useful to point out two general forms of falsification that tend to threaten our transparency. Self-righteousness, a particularly vile disease, conceals our reality by making us look like an exact replica of our church’s culture. It’s the perfect camouflage. When we are self-righteous everyone thinks we are the picture perfect evangelicals, the enforcers of all things distinctive in our denominations, the living traditions or frightfully, the living dead – depending on the perspective. Some symptoms are quite obvious. When self-righteousness takes hold of us, honest advice and criticism makes us defensive, and we are certainly not open to theologically diverse conversations. Diversity threatens self-righteousness. We like to think of ourselves as the examples of spiritual health, the most holy cities set on the highest hills for all the unconverted and unconvinced to follow. Indeed, a self-righteous man is all of this and more – at least for the less perceptive members of the congregation.
False humility is another dangerous facade. This disease creates an obsession with the worst aspects of our human nature. For those of us who have contracted false humility our relationships are an emotional theme park full of group confession and a public invitation for everyone to stroll through the haunted house of our own souls. When we pray we stand on the street corner and cry out, “Blessed are those who mourn!” We shout with the Apostle, “All have sinned!” and “I boast only in my wickedness!” But no matter how many of these scriptures we quote, they never seem to culminate in the comfort and peace promised by the original Author of the sermon. We plagiarize and proof text in the worst way, and we fool ourselves into thinking the moral life is impossible. Like the self-righteous, we cannot take advice, but in this case it is because we think our souls are too dark to change. Improvement is simply not a practical goal. For the man suffering from false humility, grace is not a necessary aid or a redemptive shove. It’s a theological ventilation machine. We insist that our Teacher had no interest in personal responsibility, so we stand by and watch creation drown in its suffering, arguing that there is no point in effort. The whole thing will be burned and built anew one day anyway.
Of course, most of us don’t actually suffer from such extreme cases of these diseases, but we often do suffer from at least a mild version of one type or the other. Transparency is rare in religious communities. Whether Baptist, Pentecostal, or Methodist, the honest truth is most of us are not really perfect examples of our church’s culture. I know very few legitimate Pentecostal saints. On the other hand, most of us are also not as morally filthy and pitiful as we could be. I know even fewer wicked Lutherans.
I do know, however, a whole lot of evangelical Christians who show up at church and switch their relationship controls to auto pilot. They share their authentic friendships with folks from fishing trips, exercise facilities, work places, and athletic events. Those are the folks they really want to play cards with or meet at the mall. Those are the folks that don’t care what beverage wets the Christian whistle or whether Netflix has sent the latest rated R film to a Christian mailbox. They don’t care whether the Christian household is immaculate and smells like hazelnut every time they visit or whether the creation account in Genesis is completely literal. Our hazelnut candles are appropriate symbols for our Christian facades. They cover up the fact that most of us really do not live in an immaculate environment, spiritually or physically. But then again, we are not complete religious slobs either. Many of us do watch R rated movies selectively, drink beer safely, and play poker for entertainment, and our consciences remain clean.
On the theological side of things, many Presbyterians can’t really articulate their view of predestination, and most members of the Assembly of God have never even bothered to read 1 Corinthians. (Otherwise, we might rethink our lofty view of speaking in tongues.) Many Methodists don’t know what their method is, and a lot of Baptists are unaware that there are thousands of years of history between them and the New Testament. Still, our gray behavior and our intellectual failures have not yet resulted in deadly thunderbolts from the heavens. The Lord must know that we evangelicals heap plenty of torment and punishment onto one another!
The point here is not to excuse or debate what some folks might view as spiritual shortcomings; the point is that our real lives and thoughts consistently remain hidden. We refuse to be transparent, and this deprives other Christians of the opportunity to live out their calling to the Gospel in authentic fellowship with us. How can they love us as they love themselves if they don’t know who we are? How great is our sin if we steal their freedom to decide whether they want to love us or not? We continually live life with our left foot in the church and our right foot in the world. And it is extremely unfortunate for the spiritual health of our communities that it’s the life on the right foot that we really enjoy.
If authentic community is really important, maybe it’s time we practiced a little honesty. Perhaps we should put away the scented candles and leave the vacuum cleaner in the closet when it’s our turn to host a community group. There’s nothing wrong with scented candles, but it’s not how we typically live. Maybe we should invite more of our church acquaintances to our poker games, not because we want to bicker about gambling in the scripture, but because that is where they will really get to know us. Perhaps we should not frantically run and hide the fruit of the vine every time someone from the church stops by for a visit. After all, our visitors might be closet drinkers as well, afraid of what the church will say. Perhaps we should all stop abusing the Apostle’s advice to avoid offenses or to “be everything to everyone” just so we can maintain control over folks we disagree with. If we bring who we are to the Table we might be rejected, but at least we will have given our congregations the opportunity to follow the Savior into true humility, sacrifice, and service. Merton was right. Facades are highly contagious, but so is transparency. A little honesty would begin to heal this rampant disease.
Leaders do have their responsibilities as well, and they are heavy burdens to bear. If we begin dropping our facades all sorts of things will seep up to the surface. Leaders have to be prepared to shepherd their flocks and use relational leadership to guide individuals in the midst of their messes. They must be prepared to distinguish between wholesome behavior and legitimate pollution, the Spirit and the traditions of men. If authenticity is really a high priority -more than just lip service from the pulpit – pastors must be committed to its defense and preservation. They should be prepared to gird up their loins, provide some loud instructions, and protect the living from the dead, the healthy from the infected. The self righteous might need to be fought off tooth and nail, culture might have to shift, people may have to get upset, and the monthly tithes may have to suffer. Pastors will have to go looking for the homemade whip they put away in storage after the years in seminary and ministry killed all their enthusiasm. Moneylenders will definitely have to be run from the temple. But in spite of all this responsibility, leaders cannot even begin to shepherd, guard, and grow their people until their people show them who they really are. Iron does indeed sharpen iron, but not when it’s draped in velvet.
[1] Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation, The Liturgical Press 1960, 37.
Psalm 139 is a beautiful psalm, and it begins, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me” (NASB). The psalmist goes on to suggest that his entire life is intimately known to God, that he is, in some way, enveloped by God. Although the language of the entire psalm is poetic and the content is deep, what is most striking about this passage is that the very experience of being intimately known was an incredibly encouraging experience for this individual. Surely the psalmist, like the rest of us, had all sorts of vulnerabilities, sins to hide and gifts to stash away, yet the simple awareness that his creator could see right through him brought him a tremendous amount of comfort. I think there is something incredibly special and spiritually healthy about being transparent -that is to say, being open to being known.
It’s no secret that people find it difficult to be open with others. Phrases such as “intimacy issues” get thrown around a lot in our culture, and professionals have connected these types of issues with all sorts of other problems in society. Science, however, is not the only facet of our culture that is aware of the problem. This issue is repetitively used in the entertainment industry. Sitcoms and other comedies often place their characters in uncomfortable social situations where transparency, often between men, is a humorous theme. We laugh because we understand exactly how awkward those experiences can be. Sadly, what modern entertainment does not communicate very well is that they are in fact missed spiritual opportunities.
Religion has always had something to say about our natural tendency to be closed off. For 2500 years the Buddhists and the Hindus have philosophically and psychologically been trying to point humanity to the notion that humans are interconnected, and the healthiest way to live is aware of and open to that fact. For this reason, compassion for all other living things has always been a central religious tenant in the East. Compassion, of course, literally means “to suffer with,” and is an activity that requires a certain amount of intimacy, even if that intimacy is felt more than it is intellectually grasped. The religions of the Middle East also address the issue. Judaism, in particular, has maintained an intense focus on family, social life, and the theological notion of covenant that may be at least three to four thousand years old. Jewish theology and historical experience compels individuals to see themselves as part of an intimate community traveling through human history together. Generally speaking, open relationships with God and man, is one of the greatest goals of most all of the world’s religions.
For those of us who claim to be Christian there is a very clear calling to intimacy and openness. Jesus prayed to his father, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word; that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20-21). There are at least three very clear points in Jesus’ prayer: 1) Christians are called to be one with each other, 2) Christians are called to be one with the Father and Son, and 3) the Father’s chosen method of convincing the world of Jesus’ validity rests in the human demonstration of these relationships. It would seem that Christians who are generally closed off are hardly “Christian” at all.
A central question is: “What sorts of things would a spiritually healthy Christian open himself up to?” What does Jesus’ prayer look like in every day life? I believe that the scriptures point to several general types of intimate relationships that are the substance of spiritual health. I further believe that these relationships are frequently seen in individuals who have acquired deep spiritual lives which are evident throughout history.
Psalm 19 illustrates two of these relationships quite clearly. The entire psalm has two dominant themes. The first is the natural world, and the second is the “Law of the Lord.” In his introduction the psalmist claims, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” As the psalmist continues he points out that nature, the weather patterns, the seasonal cycles, the heat and the cold, truly does reveal God to human beings. Although most Christians would agree with this, the pace of modern culture has so distracted the majority of the population that people have almost no real experience of nature itself. In an intellectual way Christians are happy to point out that there must be a God because of the complexity of the created order, yet the closest these individuals will get to that complexity is observing it in a documentary. But this simply cannot be the type of knowledge the psalmist is talking about. He suggests that for such intimate knowledge, “There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard.” Relationship with nature is not an intellectual pursuit that can be described audibly or intellectually. It is an intimacy that comes from direct experience.
The second theme of Psalm 19 points us toward a relationship with the “Law of the Lord.” The psalmist states, “The Law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart” (7-8). What could be spiritually more healthy than a rejoicing heart and a restored soul? But there is a difficulty for many of us in this passage. For the psalmist, certainly an ancient Hebrew, the “Law of the Lord” must imply the whole religion of his day. It was not simply the sacred texts (Law of Moses) and the scrolls they were written on as modern people imagine the “Law of the Lord” to be. It included the practice of the ethical laws as they related to other people, the sacrificial laws that governed correct behavior at the temple, and purification laws that governed personal behavior and rituals. What the psalmist is pointing to is the fact that his “religion” restored his soul.
Many people today are weary of the term “religion,” and seem to prefer the pursuit of “spirituality” alone. The term “religion,” however, simply comes from a Latin root word that means “to tie, fasten, or restrain,” and it means this in a conscientious sense. The idea is that “religion” is repetitive behavior that is supposed to make people meticulously aware of their conscience, which in turn allows them to live in a proper way. This is why the psalmist is so content with his religion. Most people who believe they are living in the proper way are, in a spiritual sense, happier people. The challenge for modern Christians is to be open to religious environments. For those of us who would complain that Church is boring, theologically confused, or scientifically ignorant, it still remains a workhorse for spirituality and can truly be an incredible framework for the restoration of our souls.
Returning to John 17 and Jesus’ prayer, the most obvious relationships that create a healthy spiritual life are human relationships and relationship with God. As far as the former is concerned, on the surface it would appear as if most people are in a tremendous amount of relationships with other people. The majority of modern individuals are busy at work or school anywhere from forty to sixty hours a week, roughly at least one third of their lifetime. But those two places are hardly enriched with openness and intimate knowledge, which require a tremendous amount of qualitative communication.
One of my favorite statements about the nature of qualitative communication was made by an Irish poet who was asked what it was like to experience the beauty of God in daily life. He replied,
“One way, and I think this is a really lovely way, [is to ask yourself a question]. And the question is: ‘When is the last time that you had a great conversation?’ a conversation which wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation a lot in this culture. But when did you have a great conversation in which you overheard yourself saying things that you never knew you knew. That you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you thought you had lost and a sense of an event of a conversation that brought the two of you on to a different plane…. a conversation that continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards … I’ve had some of them recently, and it’s just absolutely amazing, as we would say at home, they are food and drink for the soul, you know?”[1]
If I were honest, I would admit that I am not sure if I have had a conversation recently that was “food and drink for the soul.” Culture has become inundated with social networks, cell phones, and emails, all intended to connect individuals, but instead has created a sort of watered down version of friendship. Current communication is industrial, fast, efficient, and cheap, and most folks would be hard pressed to remember even one conversation that served their soul in this way.
Our communication problem renders Jesus’ commandment to his disciples, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39), a nearly impossible task. We refuse to spend more energy communicating, and the forth coming generations will not even know how. Even if they want to love someone the way they know they would desire to be loved, they will not be equipped with enough experience to do so, or a long enough attention span to begin to touch the issues in a deep, personal way. Honest, open communication, whatever it may look like in the moment, must be safeguarded by modern Christians.
Finally, a brief word about intimacy with God: “O Lord you have searched me and known me.” All the other relationships in my life, nature, religion, and friendship, must culminate in and serve as indicators of knowing and being known by God. Depending on who is asked the question, the process of knowing God can seem complex, practically and intellectually, but it is most simply understood when it is viewed in light of the other three. An intimate relationship with God can spring from the awe and inspiration experienced in nature, the restraint and self control preached by religion, and the deep affection and selfless relationship of true friendship. In all three cases the famous statement made by John the Baptist before he was executed applies, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Nature, religion, and friendship should, in a positive sense, make us feel small. They are excellent preparation and paths for the experience of a God that is infinite love. Our ego must begin to shrink in order for us to experience Him. That is certainly why the psalmist’s experience of God was not just deep, but so enveloping that it seemed as if he was transparent before God, completely seen and known. He had the distinct feeling of being “closed in behind and before” (5), like a drop of water in the ocean.
There are many reasons why humans remain closed off to the most significant experiences in life, why they refuse to be transparent. Among those reasons pride always stands at the front, followed closely by time limitations. Transparency, however, dissolves pride and allows frailty and fault to be seen, and our time must simply be reprioritized. Whether we are aware of it or not, I think we all crave the peace and satisfaction that follow from intimacy with God. In our worst moments, we would love to be able to join the psalmist and proclaim with confidence, “If I say surely the darkness will overtake me, and the light around me will be night, even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to you… lead me in [this] everlasting way” (11-23).
