Baxter Kruger says, “there are only two kinds of people in the world: those who are full of crap and know it, and those who are full of crap and don’t know it.” Maybe that explains why my life has felt so messy these past few years. I think I’m somewhere along the journey of owning up to it.

The Father’s love just won’t allow me to live in denial.

You ought to see deacon Jones
When he rattles the bones,
Old parson Brown dancin’ ‘roun like a clown,
Aunt Jemima who is past eighty three,
Shoutin’ “I’m full o’ pep!
Watch yo’ step!, watch yo’ step!
One legged Joe danced aroun’ on his toe,
Threw away his crutch and hollered, “hey let ‘er go!”
Oh, honey, hail! hail! the gang’s all here
For an Alabama jubilee.

George Cobb:
Alabama Jubilee

Last Sunday evening we Presbyterians experienced an extraordinary time of worship. Having been prepped in the morning service, the people returned in the evening toting musical instruments and expecting “something a little different.”

For me it was a risk: setting up a worship experience where people would be absolutely free to follow their heart. We put a few Psalms on the screen, and read together passages about singing new songs, dancing, clapping and praising God with cymbals and harps. And somewhere along the line the great Maestro stepped into the our unfettered mess of musicality, tapped his baton, and conducted a delicious symphony of freedom like I’ve seldom seen: Young and old alike entered the steps and strains, accompanied by flutes and violins, djembes and shakers. It was a chorus of joy that couldn’t be explained apart from the living God.

I’m in awe that our God is a Trinity, a three-personed Godhead pulsing with relationship between Father, Son and Spirit. I love the rhythms of life that pour from His throne, the eternal inclusion, the harmony and agreement of being Three – and yet – One.

It all goes back to the Trinity, the fountainhead of harmony, the root of relationship, the cradle of creativity, and the origin of the dance. How lonely and flat the universe would be, how quiet the jubilee, were it any other way.

Hmm… Even though I really do believe in what I wrote yesterday, the judgmental, know-it-all attitude is downright ugly. Railing against skewed ideas with an attitude of pride and judgment is so unlike Jesus. Please forgive me, and feel free to remind me when I start sounding so pompous.

Christian bookstores – once a haven of rest for my thirsty soul – have begun to irritate me like a splinter in the eye.  Here’s why:

Christian bookstores have become to me an awkward symbol of our artificially divided thinking:

• We have the “Lord’s” day, and then we have (other) days.
• We speak of the “Lord’s” work, and then our (secular) work.
• We refer to our “Christian” life, and – presumably  – our regular life
• We value “Christian” art, and devalue every other kind of art.
• And we bathe ourselves in “Spiritual” music while eschewing pop, classical, country, and jazz music.

It’s almost as if we live in two completely different worlds: The “Christian world”, and the actual world!

Which brings us to “Christian” bookstores: The ultimate expression of a divided world,  where each book is sanctified, certified and bona fide.  Our local stores in Florence offer Christianized teddy bears, scripturized school supplies, sanctified jewelry, religified trinkets, and  ultra-sanitized fiction.

But here’s the honest truth:  There is only one world. And there are only books. Some, written by believers, are rich with truth.  Others, written by non-believers, contain rich truths as well. Sometimes believers get things wrong, and sometimes unbelievers get things right, because believers do not own the copyright on truth.  Rather the Truth holds a copyright on us.  And the Truth, (who is a person), is well able to teach us along the way. At this point I’m becoming convinced that the drivel in our Christian bookshops can be as spiritually  damaging as the worst of Barnes and Nobel.

The answer is simple: strip away the arbitrary titles and embrace discernment.  Drink deeply from books, art, and music which reflect the glory of God regardless of categories. The important question is not “Did a Christian write this, paint this, sing this, but rather does this thing reflect the glory of our beautiful God?

They tore the old church building down this week, bulldozed it into a heap of rubble while I watched. No one should have to endure such a sight. The building was only about twenty years old, but when Sam’s Club offered to purchase the land for a tidy sum, the congregation couldn’t refuse. So the old property was left to the ghosts of dear memories while we moved to a newer, (some would say “improved”), setting.

I decided to watch for awhile, thinking it might be a good opportunity for God to speak to me. Or maybe it would be therapeutic in some odd way. Tons of tender memories were resurrected by the sight: dear friends I met within those walls, or who surrendered to Jesus there. Others were married, or buried from the old Trinity building. And now, blow by blow, it was being reduced to scrap.

I reassured myself that the church itself is still standing solidly in the embrace of the Father, Son and Spirit. Only the building has returned to the dust from whence it came.

“Let us be thankful, then, because we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe; our God is like a consuming fire!” -Hebrews 12:28-29