broken hallelujah

The song by Leonard Cohen with this phrase in it, moves hearts and souls of people with all kinds of perspective on God.  I have done research on the writing of the song, read analysis of what the 16 verses are referring to and still can't understand the picture that he was trying to create as he wrote the words through bouts of insomnia.  But, what I can say is true of me is that the broken hallelujah is the kind I give.  At my best, my tokens of praise and thanksgiving are fractured with all that I fail to reflect of His image.

I was told the story of Rich Mullins and his love for going to small country churches.  He loved to hear the people singing out of tune.  He loved the vocal and musical form of the broken hallelujah.  I understand why. The sound of a broken hallelujah from a heart more true and sure of what it sings is worth a hundred cathedral choirs singing in perfect pitch and harmony with no truth of soul.

How is it that I can bring acceptable worship to the God of the Universe when every thought and motive of my heart is known to Him. Laid bare before His face.  He knows and yet He receives my broken hallelujah.  In the midst of worship He beckons me to the day when the Hallelujah will no longer be broken. When all the wrong of my heart will be set right, when in a moment and in the twinkling of an eye, I will be changed like unto Him.

But isn't it true that the unbroken praise of heaven will be all the more beautiful because of what was so broken in this life? Were I, or any of His children redeemed from unbroken lives, could the praise of heaven and the hallelujahs of eternity ring with the same clarity and perfection?  If we were able to live a day in perfection would the endless days of eternal bliss be as perfect?

Reflecting and praying with a friend last night, we spoke of the broken people dear to her heart.  We spoke of just how terribly broken some must become before they can be brought to the arms of the One whose hallelujahs never missed a chord but whose heart could never cast away the most shattered one who but takes one small step toward Him.

We know that Jesus sang a hymn with His disciples at least once.  What the praise of the perfect Son of God must have sounded like as it mixed with the broken hallelujahs of the disciples who had not even come close to grasping what He had come to do... I do not know... but I marvel at the thought that He sang His perfect hallelujah and allowed it to blend with the broken ones that fell so short of what the Son of God deserved to hear echoing in His perfect ears.

My Sabbath Journey

Sabbath in Hebrew literally means"time of rest" or "cessation"... Ask most Christians what "Sabbath" means and you'd hear "Sunday" "Church day"  ... if asked why Sunday, many may looked puzzled, a few may give an actual answer of "because that was the day of our Lord's resurrection"...

The Fourth Commandment (the one that tells us to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy) is one that brought great controversy in the home of my youth.  My mother, an avid football fan, and my father, who was never much concerned for football, did not see eye to eye on the subject.  The church I was a part of only made the matter more confusing to me.  I felt a sense of tension constantly. The Lord saved me when I was young.  I wanted to honor Him in all things, but the Sabbath I couldn't understand its meaning to a Christian.

I spent afternoons at times next to my mom watching her beloved Eagles play so that I could spend time with her.  Other times, I took a walk with my dad or spent time reading books about God and His word, but I felt no clarity as long as I lived with my parents.  I just felt tension.

When I was put on a secular campus during my college years with a handful of Christians only, I knew I had a chance to live apart from the Sabbath tension and search my heart and God's mind on the matter. As I awoke on Sundays and found a ride to church, I was struck by the quietness of the campus, not because of my classmates regard for the Sabbath but because of late nights partying and the ensuing recovery... Personally, I inconsistently kept the Sabbath and sought to rest and focus on my Lord.  The reason was usually based on the tyranny of the urgent and my lack of being able to organize my life and work load on other days, not because I had come to any strong conviction myself.

However, it was during my later college years that I came to an understanding that I was asking all of the wrong questions.  It was never about what I should or shouldn't do, but about a God who so infinitely loved His creation that He set aside a day for Himself and us to draw away and be in His presence.  To be able to be with Him and as much as is humanly possible to think upon Him, His kingdom,  His word and enjoy the fellowship of His people in a way that the normal demands of the other days of an ordinary work week does not allow.  I realized that if there ever was a commandment of the Lord that spoke of His love and desire for the good of His people, it was this one.  I was liberated.

For the rest of my days in college and the years after college as I was in church settings and among christian friends, I knew what I believed.  I sought to keep the Sabbath and knew great joy in doing so.   It was no burden to me or something to wrestle with but it became an incomparable gift to me.  As a single woman, I had the privilege of spending the time between worship services taking long walks, meditating on His Word, journaling, writing poems, reading good books and fellowship with and serving with His people.  I can't tell you of one other person that I knew and saw regularly on Sundays that followed the same pattern, but that didn't matter.  If someone asked about my choices, I would tell them of my journey to freedom to keep the Sabbath unto the Lord.

I will never forget the night that I sat in my church when it was Super Bowl Sunday and I was part of a church that eventually used this particular Sunday as an outreach to unbelievers, and the pastor shook his head in disbelief, pain and sorrow as he surveyed the thread-bare congregation that typically was packed to capacity for an evening service.  It cut his heart.  It wasn't a matter ever addressed from the pulpit in that place.  It wasn't a matter the church held any particular view on to my knowledge.  But here was a man standing to preach on the Sabbath and he felt the dying of a day meant for something far deeper than what it had become to so many Christians.

I invite you to see this day God made to draw us deeper and closer to Himself and to give us a taste of the glory of the age to come.  Rest on this day from much more than the demands and cares of this life and your striving to be what you never can be.  Rest from your attempts even as a Christian to be better and good enough apart from Christ. Rest knowing that the version you will obtain here on this earth is but a morsel of what it will one day be when eternal rest is yours.

Les Mis

Why does the story of Les Miserables grip so many? I was trying to explain to my husband what i love about the story that became the musical that became the movie. For the past 3 days since seeing the movie, i can't get the songs out of my head. i tear up thinking of the story. i find a strange sort of comfort as i sing. but what is it that makes the story grip the heart so as to not let it go? For one, the triumph of good over evil is seen through different eyes. Who of the main characters can we truly see as evil? Can we really think of Javert as a villian? He can't understand. He gropes. He struggles to find meaning. He believes with all his heart "once a thief always a thief"... but is he really harder on anyone else than he is on himself? Isn't he just in torment over what he set his life mission to be and simply cannot reconcile that with what he sees in Jean Valjean? He is to be pitied. He is not the "bad guy." So what then of the triumph of good over evil... where do we see it? it's in no other place than the human heart. how is it brought about but through the kindness of one soul? We see this in the life of our hero but also in life of the afflicted and pitiable Fantine. Is it just a simple "do good and good will come back to you?" in the way one might think of karma? I don't believe so. I think to show kindness to one destitute of any hope is to be like Jesus who "demonstrated His own love for us in this 'while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." He loved the unlovely. We see the picture of mercy and compassion and we marvel yet still at the One who most clearly demonstrated these things toward a lost and fallen humanity. But what else do we see? We see that hope's resilience. We look at the young Cosette sweeping and singing of her dreams and loving arms to embrace her. We see a child who looks for hope and believes it will come even if all around her speaks otherwise. Hope keeps us soft and that's why we love Cozette. Juxtaposed to Cosette is the sure "other worldliness" of Eponine? She has selfish crooks for parents and somehow becomes a woman who will live deep and sacrificially in the face of that. The tragedy of unrequited love looms clearly in her but what of these other passions and demonstrations of care for others that seem to come in the face of what would make most bitter? At the end of the story, what i find most compelling is Jean Valjean offering his feeble attempts at goodness as just what they are. He knows he's fallen short of what he hoped to be. He knows that he would not have been half of what he was had he not been taught to love. He knows that at best he's strained and fallen short. I see the shadow of the cross over this final scene. For it's only through the transforming grace of Divine love that any man can be set free. Not only free when death comes but free to live without fear of what men might do to the one whose life is not his own. Jean Valjean was changed for a purpose far greater than his own good and avoidance of prison. And he knows it. The story itself moves me and the songs do even more to wring the heart of its last attempts at goodness apart from grace; of judgment apart from mercy; of "rightness" apart from compassion. These are just some of the reasons i linger with this story and so now, i linger on.

my confession

i know so little. i am only one person who falls short. i move through life's tumultuous seas. i fail. alot. i grasp. i learn. i see it clear. i lose sight. i fall short. i lose my way. i clear my head. i clear my mind. i breath deep. i choose faith. i ask so many questions. i don't understand. i want to know. i don't know if i can. i linger. i wait to hear. i wait in vain. i choose to trust. i know so little. i know that doesn't matter. i am one of few who says it. i wish there were more. i live free.