Make a Joyful Noise

Saturday 6/23/18 4:05 AM

I have always enjoyed singing and have been in choirs since high school. Sometimes people will complement me on how the choir has sung and I will invite them to join the choir. They often deflect the invitation by saying something to the effect of, “I can’t sing very well, but I make a joyful noise.” Today I read Psalm 33, my psalm for the week. It begins, “Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.” That command covers everyone, those who can sing and those who can’t. Verse 3 of the same psalm reads, “Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy.” The implication is that playing skillfully is desirable along with the joy.

I am somewhat of a perfectionist. When I do something, I want to do it well. Today I plan to paint the doors and the door frames of the recently remodeled bathrooms in our house. I will do the best I can but I’m also certain that when I finish I will see blemishes in my work that will bother me. I have the same feeling in almost everything I undertake, from teaching my classes to caring for the lawn and flowerbeds at my house. The desire to do things skillfully sometimes can be crippling. I find that at times I will put off doing a task or I will refuse to do it entirely because I do not feel I can perform to a certain standard of excellence.

Over the course of the past year I feel like God is calling me to do something to address the injustices that are within our society. I am paralyzed because I don’t know what it is I can do, and I feel inadequate to do anything of substance that would make a meaningful difference. I wonder if part of the problem of overcoming the inertia of my inaction is my desire to do things skillfully. Maybe I’m afraid of trying something and not performing up to a certain standard so I simply refuse to even try.

 Part of my reading today were these words by Ernest Boyer, Jr. in his book, A Way in the World. “Life at the center lives the reality of the presence of God in the now of every moment of every act that is done. It is a life that sees the greatness of the smallest of tasks, since these, as all others, are of God’s work. Life lived at the center is an expression of God’s immediate presence. It is not a life of imitation; nor one of anticipation; it is instead a life of participation, participation in the truth of its own full reality. But in saying this, no one should think that life at the center seeks some special mode of existence, some level of being somehow above the mundane toil of day to day. Just the opposite – it is life at its most human. It is not a life that ignores or avoids the ordinary, but one that lives it fully, since it knows that in so doing it expresses the profoundest of the profound. It is a life that may know pain and trouble; it certainly knows routine. It lives this as it lives everything – moment to moment – and in doing so touches the eternal.”

I think I have an expectation that the work God calls me to has to be what Boyer calls a special mode of existence, a level above the mundane. Perhaps God’s desire is that I do exactly what I am doing now in my day to day teaching. Most of my students are people of color who experience the injustices that are so prevalent within our society. In many cases, my awareness of the injustices is due to having relationships with my students in which I see the things that they deal with on a daily basis. Maybe my simple listening ear, the writing of a letter of recommendation, the filling out of a scholarship application in their behalf, and the other mundane parts of my job in which I have the opportunity to share my life and my experiences with my students is my way of addressing the injustices, a way to give them a leg up in a world that wants to throw them down. I want to perform skillfully in addressing the injustices; perhaps God simply wants me to make a joyful noise.

Heightened Senses

Tuesday 5/1/18 5:12 AM

One thing I love about riding my motorcycle to and from work is the raw way in which I sense the things around me. My senses seemed heightened, perhaps because I am much more aware of other drivers around me because of the greater risk they pose to my safety.

I smell the roadkill, the flowers blooming in the median, the freshly mown grass, the marijuana smoke coming from two cars in front of me as I sit at a light, and so on. I notice the grandeur of the mountains, the angles at which branches grow from a tree, the similarity between a leaf-laden tree and a cloud, and the stark differences between agapanthus leaves and flowers. I hear the roar of an engine, the cawing of a crow and the fluttering of its wings, the laughter of two friends walking on the sidewalk, and the squeaking of an ungreased bicycle wheel as it crosses my path while I wait at a light.

This heightened awareness sends my mind into overdrive. I think about the marvel of the human body with its perfect mix of olfactory receptors, rods and cones, and hammer, stirrup, and anvil, along with the appropriate nerves that allow me to experience these phenomena and other things I experience as I move through this world.

I also see the moon floating in the sky, the sun with its warm brilliance, and stars twinkling like signal lamps. These inspire thoughts of the magnitude of the universe and the vastness of space. Billions of stars separated by unimaginable distances with planets orbiting them remind me of the miracle of my own existence and its seeming insignificance.

The combination of all of this makes me think about the probability it all happened by chance over the course of fourteen billion years. The odds of all of this happening are so miniscule that it might as well be zero. It is then my thoughts turn to God and my heart and mind begin to bleed gratitude. Thank you, God, for life. Thank you for the senses to experience this vast universe with its intricate complexities and indescribable beauty.

Doing the Dance

Monday 4/23/18 4:11 AM

Two nights ago, I had a dream in which I saw my gravestone with the epitaph, “Mark Hugen, Warrior for Justice and Integrity.” Saturday night I had a dream in which I was very awkwardly fighting against racial injustice. Last night I remember no dream about injustice, but I opened my devotional book to a new week this morning where the theme is commitment, and my assigned psalm is Psalm 101. Imagine my surprise when the first two verses I read from the psalm were, “I will sing of your love and justice; to you, Lord, I will sing praise. I will be careful to lead a blameless life – when will you come to me? I will conduct the affairs of my house with a blameless heart.” The two verses are about justice and integrity.

My other assigned scripture was Mark 10:17-31, the story of the rich young ruler who asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor, and follow him. It says the young man left with a downcast face, unwilling to pay that price. My readings also included and excerpt from Clinging – The Experience of Prayer, by Emilie Griffin. She writes about abandonment to God, that selling of everything to which Jesus was referring in his conversation with the rich young ruler. “This abandonment is the very heart and essence of Christian prayer, and it has nothing in common with strategy and second-guessing. It is the pray-to-win mentality turned inside out, and yet it is not a pray-to-lose mentality. It is the prayer that has moved beyond intending, directing, steering, second-guessing God it is the dancer moving completely in the rhythm of the partner, prayer that is utterly freeing because it is completely at one. Utterly beyond asking, beyond the anger that rattles heaven’s gate. Prayer that does not plead, wants nothing for itself but what God wants, … able to act with a semblance of coherence and freedom even when completely surrendered to and possessed by the loving will of God.”

This image of dancing with God, following his lead with no agenda for myself or strategy is what I want. The closest I’ve ever come to that is when I handed in my resignation to Valley Christian without having a job at Cerritos College yet. During that time, I had a great deal of peace and contentment even though I was jobless. I was literally waiting for God to show me where to go and what to do. I’m not exactly sure how to experience that same kind of contentment with this issue of righting injustice in the world. I feel like making plans for a specific ministry is the equivalent of trying to second-guess what God is doing or trying to direct or steer a ministry in the direction I want it to go. I need to become so attached to God and in tune with his will that, like a dancer, I feel the pressure of his hand on my back steering me in the direction he would have me go and then feel the leading of my hand in his and the gentle nudging of his shoulder against mine, so I can follow his choreography as we dance together bringing his kingdom to fruition.