As former Beatle George Harrison asked decades ago, "What is life?"
     To this, Russian poet Arseny Tarkovsky has an answer.  "Life is a wonder of wonders," he writes, "and to wonder I dedicate myself."  This of course leads us to another question: what is wonder?
     Wonder can be an experience, or it can be a question.  We all marvel at things we experience, we all ponder what we cannot know or understand.  Such is intrinsic to our humanness.  This in turn leads to yet another question:  why are we this way?  Was it evolutionarily advantageous?  Or is it the work of a greater intelligence in us?  Or both?
     We are surely better off to be able to wonder.  Yet if we ascribe our penchant solely to evolutionary advantage, we still do not know what caused our ancestors to grab onto wonder; what prior structures would have had to be in our brains?  On the other hand, if we plant our sense of wonder in the work of God, we still are left with "wondering" why God so designed us.  What was working in him to do so?
     Maybe God is more like us than we think.  Maybe we are how we are because God, in his way, is like us.  We see this in our history, we see this in the creation.  And we see it in the person of Jesus.
     And this makes all the difference.

     A few weekends ago, I had opportunity to visit the Art Institute of Chicago.  Though I've been to the Institute many times, I never tire of it.  On this day, I spent time in the Institute's world famous collection of Impressionism paintings.  Long a lover of all things Monet, I dallied many extra minutes in the sections reserved for his strikingly colorful and luminous work.
     I looked a long time at Monet's paintings of wheat stacks.  I saw one painted of a wheat stack at summer's end, its strands light and dark brown; one of a wheat stack at autumn's end, its tendrils now a haunting pale emptiness; and one of a wheat stack during winter, slumbering, covered in an early snow.

        

     Three paintings, three seasons, three takes, three impressions of the world Monet saw. Not all of his fellow artists would have seen the wheat stacks as he did, and that's the point.  "I wish," Monet once wrote, "to render what is."  Monet wanted to take what he saw and make it his own, to find himself in it, then take it into his own mental and emotional landscape.  He wanted to embrace its possibilities.
     As do we.  Like the Impressionists, the world may well be before us, as real as any of us, but how we experience it is a reality all our own.
     Similarly, although God is entirely real, he is also big enough to ensure that every one of us can experience him as we are, no more, no less.  Jesus is the way to God, yes, but how we find him rests completely in who we are. 
     Open your heart and find yourself in God.

     As May and June approach, many of us about looking at transitions.  Perhaps we are graduating from an educational institution, perhaps we are hoping for a change of pace over the summer, perhaps we are expecting a baby, perhaps we are looking to begin a new job or, conversely, maybe we are looking at loss, the death of a spouse, parent, or other loved one.  Or maybe we are simply contemplating a new day.


     Yet as Albert Einstein pointed out over a century ago, ultimately, time, and space, are relative.  And as quantum mechanics has established, we cannot measure position and velocity at the same time. Even though we live through countless transitions in the course of our lives, we never really know, physically and theologically speaking, where precisely we are--and where, precisely, we are going.
     But that's OK.  We're here, God's here and, despite our ignorance and life's unpredictability, we keep going, trucking through a meaningful and purposeful universe.
     Wherever we are, whatever we encounter, we are walking in the love of God.

     Dissent?  In many ways, the history of the world is a history of dissent.  History is driven by people who decide or dare to think differently, who take issue with what is obvious and apparent, who challenge what is, who refuse to accept the ways things are at a given moment.
     Dissent, however, is wide ranging.  It can come in the form of new invention, new political structure, even a new religion.  Though in itself, the word "dissent" stirs up connotations of disorder, as many a historian has noted, sometimes disorder is constructive, even necessary to advance the human adventure.
     Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a Russian poet who died a few weeks ago in his Soviet homeland, was well known for his dissent. Decade after decade Yevtushenko used his poetry to challenge the mores of the prevailing power structures, to question the legitimacy of how the leaders of Russia were running the government.  He was brave, he was strong, he was clear and precise in his words about the powers that be.  For this, those of us who live in the relatively free West, can admire Yevtushenko greatly.  While dissent is generally available to us, for too many people around the world it is not.  For them, to dissent is to incur the wrath of powerful authorities, people who think little about assigning lengthy prison terms or even execution to those who dare contest their hegemony.  It is a thoroughly audacious and frequently dangerous enterprise.
     Such dissent therefore deserves our support.  Although we can debate for many hours about what exactly constitutes a "right," we can surely agree that no government ought to restrict the ability of people to speak and live freely as they choose.  God did not make us in his image for fun; he made us in his image so that we could be, like he forever is, free.
     Thanks, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and thanks to all who dare dissent.  God loves us all.

     Easter has come, and we can never be the same.  In the wonder of Easter, we see light as it was most meant to be:  the total and absolute witness of God's love for what he made.

"Resurrection" by El Greco

     Out of the absolute darkness and nothingness of Good Friday, Easter's light, the greatest light of all, rises.  Easter's light is a light that eclipses and encompasses all others, a light that changes history, bends space, and permanently alters all our notions of meaning and time.  Easter's light is the light of resurrection.
     Nonsensical, unbelievable, unfathomable, yet entirely true, Easter's light, the light of supernality and new life, tells us that though we will one day die, we will live again, forever.
     How can life ever be the same?
     
     
     

Many of us, regardless of how we see God, like to think that when we and our loved ones die, we will one day, in another life, see each other again.  Who would not?  It's a wonderful thought, that you will one day see those you love most again.

Yet consider this:  if Jesus did not rise, if Jesus did not conquer death and enable all of us to find new life, we, of all people, as Paul notes in this letter to the Corinthian church, are most to be pitied . . . we are hoping for and believing in something that will never happen.

But Jesus did indeed rise.  And all of us, if we want, if we trust in him and the fact of his resurrection, will one day live rise, too.  One day, we will all live again.

Happy Easter!

     Do you believe in magic?  So sang the Lovin' Spoonful in the American Sixties.  It was a paean to wonder, a call to explore, an encouragement to dance outside of what seems apparent and true.
     As a band, the Lovin' Spoonful are long gone.  Magic, however, is with us still.  Even in the crucifixion of Jesus.  In British author C. S. Lewis's much loved the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we read that, as the plot unfolds, it seems that in order to rescue one of the "Earth" children who have fallen under the spell of the "White Witch," Aslan, the lion whose outsized presence is felt throughout the story, must die at the hands of the White Witch.  Aslan must give up his life for Edmund's freedom.
    And Aslan does.  Shortly thereafter, however, Lucy sees Aslan again.  Somehow, he has risen from death.  When Lucy asks how this is possible, Aslan tells her that, "though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know."
     So it is that in the cross, the cross of Christ, on this Good Friday, we see the fullness of the magic of God.  It is a magic of eternal wonder--new life, new life for you, new life for me--overcoming eternal darkness--separation and loneliness from God.  It is a magic without end.
     Do you believe in magic?

     Today is Maundy Thursday.  As we enter into the final days of Lent, the climatic days of Holy Week, we think about service.  Throughot his earthly life, Jesus told people that he had come as a servant.  He had not come to judge, he had not come to condemn; he had come to serve and save.  Jesus had come to serve his creation.  At the Last Supper (the event which Maundy Thursday commemorates), Jesus made clear that he was readying himself to give himself, to give his body, heart, and soul for the good of those whom he had made.  Even as the final hours of his life loomed, Jesus emphasized that he had come to serve.  His welfare was the last thing on his mind.

     Whether we believe in Jesus or not, we can learn from his example.  The world hardly needs more arrogant leaders.  The planet will do just fine without its people constantly striving to dominate one another.  When we, literally or metaphorically, wash one another's feet, as Jesus did at the Last Supper, we affirm our fellow human beings.  We tell our fellow travelers that we regard them as more important than ourselves.  We state to the world that working to sustain everyone is greater than working to sustain oneself only.
     We let go of what we want for the good of others.
     Consider what you have, ponder what you have been given.  And sacrifice.  Give up . your wonder, let go of your grace in order to create more of them for your neighbor. Make him/her more important than you.
     And see how you--and the world--changes.
     As Paul writes of Jesus to the church at Philippi, he "gave up his privileges" to become one of us, to live--and die--for creation.

     If you have read any of the biblical narratives about the trial and death of Jesus, you are likely familiar with the pericope (story) of the thief on the cross.  As Luke tells it, both of the two men crucified with Jesus were hurling insults at him.  After a time, however, one of them came to see things differently.
     "This man," he tells the other thief, "has done nothing wrong.  He is suffering unjustly.  But we are not.  We deserve our punishment."
     Turning to Jesus, this thief then says, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
     "Today," Jesus replies, "you shall be with me in Paradise."
     


     It's a glorious promise.  The thief's present pain, body as well as soul, will this day, this very day, be totally vanquished.  He can look forward to a profoundly marvelous future.
     Though the thief's destination is central to this passage, I want to think more about his faith.  He knew about Jesus, he knew about Jesus' deeds.  He knew that Jesus had told his audiences that he was bringing a kingdom to earth.  It was not until the thief hung on the cross, however, that he came to realize, fully, the nature of this kingdom.  He saw that Jesus' promised kingdom is not one of material gain, but one of spirit and soul.  He knew that he would therefore need to trust in what he could not see in order to grasp what he knew he most needed:  forgiveness and new life.  He knew he needed internal change.
     And that, as we move toward Good Friday, is the point.  We trust in Jesus whom we cannot see because we know that in our deepest hearts, tangled as they are in the vexations of humanness and sin, we need more than ourselves to be eternally whole.

     Long, long ago, there was a band, a seminal rock band called Cream.  Composed of Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and Eric Clapton, Cream turned out a series of highly memorable songs.  One of them was called "World of Pain."  It tells a tale about people living in a world of pain, a world without remorse, care, or pity.  In language reminiscent of prophet Jeremiah’s lament over Jerusalem in the wake of its destruction at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE, its lyrics bewail the fate of a land, a land that although it was once grand, one of the great epochs of history, is now a land that is irrecoverably gone, a kingdom that will never return.  Its demise is permanent.  All who lived in it now mean nothing.



     In similar fashion, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road tells the story of a boy and his father who wander through a land devastated by what appears to be some form of nuclear holocaust.  It is a barbarous land, one torn by disorder and lawlessness, a world with no rules, structure, forgiveness, or commiseration.  It is every person for him or herself.  No one cares about anyone else.  Vigilantes and gangs control the roads, dealing brutally and harshly with anyone who dares use them, and killing and abuse are reduced to triviality and banality.  All human glory is gone.  Any memory of the world which has been lost is gone, too.  It’s no more than a nuance of the cortex.  It is a world which God never knew.
     So, apart from the person of Jesus and his life and death, is our world.  Whether you believe in Jesus or not, consider that without his life--and the fact of God behind it--we have no way, absolutely no way, to claim, independently of our random and finite selves, that this world means anything.  Should it?
     Yet we all want it to.  Otherwise, we are born, have fun and joy, then die.  The moments were grand, the years wondrous.  But now they're gone, forever.
     The truth that God made and died for the world, however, means that it is loved by more than itself and those in it:  it is loved by God.  Its worth is forever.

     Don't look too closely:  it's a disaster, a picture of suffering, helplessness, and pain. Part of a series of paintings by the American artist Donald Sutherland which he called, aptly enough, "Disaster Paintings," this painting represents the artist's view of how we respond to catastrophes in the experiences of our fellow human beings.

     As the Modern Museum of Art's description of this series notes, "the Disaster Paintings eternalize the real-life modern events we are faced with daily in contemporary society yet quickly forget when the next catastrophe occurs."
     Quite.  Sure, life isn't all about disasters and pain, but most of us live as if it were. In every possible way, we try to arrange our affairs to avoid tragedy.  We crave security; we cringe at the loss of control.  And when we see our fellow humans in pain, we weep. We weep over the suffering, we weep over the events that led to it.  Yet so prolific is the flow of "disasters" today that we rarely have time to ponder each in full.
     We frequently forget that we live in a broken world.  It's a glorious and wondrous world, yes, but it's a flawed system which, try as we might, we will never fully set right. Sadly, disaster is inevitable.
     Nowhere is this more true as we consider the week before us:  Holy Week.  Many consider it a disaster.  After all, Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the long awaited king, died.  And he died the cruelest of deaths:  crucifixion.  In every way, Jesus' death represents the nature of a world oriented towards disaster.
     Yet in every other way, Jesus' death presents a God who is bigger than disaster, a God who can redeem even the very horrific of disaster, even the very darkest of nights.  Jesus died, yes, the Messiah slain, but God lives.  And Jesus rose.  God is God over even death. 
     Though disaster fills this world, God's power fills it even more.

     Many years ago, Neil Young composed a song called "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." Anyone who has loved, or who has been loved, can relate. Not that love is the only thing that can break our heart, just that love, with its often overwhelming swirls of emotion and passion, tends to stir up feelings in us that nothing else can.  Whether we love deeply, or are loved deeply, or both, we will eventually encounter heartbreak. Experienced and gained, love inflames with joy; lost and gone, love can torment horribly.
     As we continue our Lenten journey, whether you believe in its foundations or not, consider the weight of love.  We cannot live without love, yet in a ironic and even tragic sense, we cannot live with it, either.  Love is one of the paradoxes of being human, part of being made in the image of a God who loves.  It's wonderful, it's exasperating and confusing.
     It is therefore good to remind ourselves that, love, God is no different.  So much does God love us, his human creation, he indeed broke his heart:  he watched his son Jesus die on a Roman cross. Because he loved us, God lost everything. 
     Yet it is in this horrific paradox, ours and God's, that we see what love, ours and God's, is most about:  a heart that must break to find love's deepest part.

     A old Ukrainian folktale tells about two brothers, one rich, the other poor.  Whenever the poor one is beset by misfortune, his brother never wants to help him.  One day, however, the poor brother learns that his troubles are actually due to the actions of some "Imps of Misfortune."  He proceeds to capture these Imps, buries them in a coffin and, subsequently, prospers.
     But when his rich brother finds out about this, he seethes.  He goes to the Imps and promises to set them free so as to bother his brother once more.  The Imps, however, tell him something he didn't expect to hear.
     Because you are offering to free us, they say, we conclude that you, unlike your brother, are good.  So we will bother you instead.
     Does not this seem backwards?  Of course it does.  Normally, we would think the meaner person would suffer more misfortune.
     I tell this story to make a larger point.  It's about grace.  Grace confutes reality; it overturns what is normal and predictable, undermines what what we might think is true. Yet grace cannot be any other way.  The way that an infinite personal God works in our reality will always be a surprise to us, we finite beings who know very little beyond our immediate perception.
     It is God's unpredictability, his wild and, most important, loving, unpredictability, that makes him a God worth believing.
     Ultimately, it's all about God's love, the most vexing and yet most wonderful mystery of all.

     What's grace?  In its purest form, grace is something undeserved, something freely given apart from the recipient’s standing, ability, or merit, something the recipient often didn’t expect to receive.  Anyone who has read Victor Hugo's Les Miserables knows one example of grace.  Even though the priest in whose house Jean Valjean spent the previous night is aware that Valjean is taking the household silver, he lets him leave, anyway, without retribution.  We don’t deserve grace, but without grace the world would not be.
     In its richest sense, grace connotes dependency, a dependency on beings with greater power than oneself.  Though we independent human beings may loathe dependency, we really cannot live without it.  We really cannot live with grace.
     Charlie Fowler was a star mountaineer who put up numerous first ascents across the world, including Alaska, the Himalayas, and Antarctica.  His power was monstrous.  In November of 2006, however, while climbing a new route in the Pakistani Himalayas (with a fellow mountaineer), he was trapped in an avalanche and died.  Some might have said that despite any personal failings Charlie may have had, the mountains had been good and gracious to him, that the mountains had shone upon him for many years, that he was blessed with constitution and circumstance to make astoundingly spectacular ascents.
     All this was definitely true.  In the bigger picture, however, Charlie was dependent upon grace.  He was dependent on his genetic heritage, he was dependent on his abilities, he was dependent on the gracious "behavior" of the mountain.
     In the bigger picture, grace must come from beyond this world, from beyond what we think or see, from beyond what we can know, from beyond what we might think.  It must come from a personality greater than the present, for genuine grace must be able to overpower the present—and the future as well.
     Only then can we, and Charlie Fowler, live in it.
     Rest in peace, Charlie.  We miss you.

     William Browder, an American businessman who made an immense fortune in the early days of modern Russia's rush into capitalism, recently wrote in a column in Business Week that, "My relationship with the world used to be about how much money I made or lost.  Now, it's more about humanity."
     How did Browder come to this conclusion?  Along the way to achieving his financial success, he worked with a Russian named Sergei Magnitsky who helped Mr. Browder ferret out an massive fraud which a number of people perpetuated on his company.  Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, all unjustified, Mr. Magnitsky later earned the ire of the Russian authorities and was arrested, tortured, and eventually died in prison, broken and forgotten by most of the country.  Mr. Browder has devoted his time since Magnitsky's death to bringing justice to his situation.
     Immense wealth, as Mr. Browder possesses, enables us to do many things.  We can use it to enrich our lives materially or we can dedicate it to helping others.  Though this is a cliché that has been oft repeated, we do well to mention it again:  in the end, it won't matter how much money we had.  What matters is what we did with it.
     After all, everything is a gift:  did we have anything to do with our being here?  Whatever you have, hold it loosely; you never know what God will ask you to do with it.

     We missed, last week, April 1, to be precise, the birthday of one of the greatest of the Romantic pianists:  Sergei Rachmaninoff.  Born in Russia, eventually emigrating to America and, shortly before his death in 1943, becoming an American citizen, Rachmaninoff (my wife's favorite musician) composed some of the richest music ever written for the piano. His work blends intense and mournful melody with powerful and intricate chords and keyboard movements, beautifully capturing the deepest spirit of the Romantics.  Rachmaninoff's musician gives us a window, a poignant window into our perennial struggle with the vast and unyielding import of sentient existence.  It shows us that  however intellectual we may suppose ourselves to be, we are, in the end, creatures of heart and imagination.  We live as sensual beings.
     Rachmaninoff helps us realize that although reason is an essential part of who we are, we make our biggest decisions with our heart.  To put this in theological terms, although we may believe, as a matter of intellectual assent, that Jesus died and rose again, we can only trust its truth for our lives with our heart.  Trust is the wellspring of rational belief.
     Long live the Romantics.  And thanks for reading!