again

I have been blessed to enjoy Florida Christmas vacations with my wife’s family for almost 40 years.

For a Wisconsin native, these sunny weeks have been surreal. When the girls were young, I joked that even sharing half of the child-care load during the vacation week made me feel like I needed a subsequent real vacation.

Since the girls grew up, I often use the peaceful vacation time to plan logistics for the major arts series concert events I produce at our church, or to write creatively.

That was the case at Christmas of 2014. I began to envision a dramatic musical project about heaven.

It seems that everyone thinks about heaven, but few people talk about heaven. We all instinctively long for heaven, but we don’t know much about it. For Christians, we look to the Bible for guidance on how to know God and how to be rescued and how to become part of what Jesus called “the kingdom of heaven,” but we still find heaven to be a mystery. We are taught that every one of us needs to be forgiven when confronted by a perfect deity, and we learn that we can never earn this forgiveness. We learn that God offers forgiveness as a free gift – his rescue comes through his own goodness and sacrifice, not ours.

But what is heaven really about?

How will heaven address the great griefs of this life? Why do we long for a redemption and restoration that will undo the pain we now know only too well?

What about a child lost in an accident?

What about an innocent animal that enriches a life and teaches about death too soon?

What about the parent whose loss leaves a young woman empty before she has grown up?

I thought about the people in my life that have raised these pressing questions, and I thought about three stories I have written to honor them. If Christianity is true, if the rescue offered by Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead are real, if God will one day redeem and restore all of creation in this little particle of his universe, shouldn’t I address this unspoken longing?

Longing for heaven.

I guess I needed to be in my fifties before I could collect three of my stories about longing for heaven.

So I gathered them. Three stories about grief and longing for heaven. They all speak about the longing to experience the loved one again. Someday. Somehow. By God’s grace.

Again is a universal longing, so I named the collection Again.

One of the great joys in my life is being surrounded by creative friends who are willing to share my dreams and introduce me to more creative friends.

Four of those friends, Jeffry Swertfeger, Brian Dunbar, Tommy Rinkoski, and Evan Bonde, joined me for this creative project.

I envisioned a collection of original dramatic readings, music, and songs. These friends helped realize it. Jeffry wrote original songs for my friends to sing. Brian wrote and performed original musical scores to enhance the readings and he recorded the audio performances. Tommy edited my stories and created screenplays, and then recruited some of Rochester Minnesota’s finest actors. Evan patiently captured everything on camera.

We created a video of Again, saved for now as a template that could someday form the basis for a live performance. Live events carry amazing power, but they are so transient. So few people can attend. Since we are not certain of the prospects for the logistics needed for live performances of Again, I have chosen to preserve a simple video version here for now.

Besides the team that created these elements, superbly talented old and new friends read and sang their way through all of this original material for the recording.  Their creativity honors me beyond words. I am so thankful to Mollie Baker, Bria Carr, Jerry Casper, Tanner Fiek, Mariya Maragos, Nick Mezzacapa, Mick Nichols, Audrey Rinkoski, Cory Wentland, and Sue Zehasky for sharing their gifts for this project.

Who knows whether this work will ever be realized as a live performance? If you have 38 minutes and are curious, watch it here, and wonder with me why we each are wired to long for our own personal Again.

4.12.18

psalm 22

From our vantage point as western readers in 2018, it is difficult to remember that the biblical book of Psalms is a set of lyrics from a collection of worship songs whose music is long lost.

Removed from their original Hebrew context, we don’t sense them as poetry, let alone lyrics.

These were the ancient worship songs of Israel. Studying them teaches us something about worship songs. They are brutally honest expressions of every kind of human emotion.

Our modern worship songs are narrow in scope, telling God that he is good, telling God that we love him, reciting canonical truths about what he has accomplished for us. Those are not bad things, but the Psalms tell us that worship lyrics can be deeper.

Much deeper.

We can cry out in anger, fear, misery, frustration. We can express doubt and horror. We can blame and exaggerate and use sarcasm. The lyrics of the Psalms are often brutally honest and even confused. Reading these lyrics speaks permission for a deeper and more honest kind of singing in our worship of God.

I was reflecting on this as I read two contrasting psalms, both of them lyrics to songs whose melodies are long forgotten.

Psalm 23 is beloved. In The Message the translation is rendered:

God, my shepherd! I don't need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
you find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word,
you let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.

Even when the way goes through Death Valley,
I'm not afraid
when you walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd's crook
makes me feel secure.

You serve me a six-course dinner
right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing.

Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I'm back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life.

Many of us remember these lyrics in various other translations. The words are safe and comforting. These lyrics are what we expect in a reassuring worship song. We want to sing it over and over.

Yes, Psalm 23 is beautiful and it’s model for our own modern worship songs. That’s fine.

But what struck me, on reflection, were the lyrics to the song just before this one.

Psalm 22 starts like this:

God, God...my God! Why did you dump me
miles from nowhere?
Doubled up with pain, I call to God
all the day long. No answer. Nothing.
I keep at it all night, tossing and turning.

And you! Are you indifferent, above it all,
leaning back on the cushions of Israel's praise?
We know you were there for our parents:
they cried for your help and you gave it;
they trusted and lived a good life.

And here I am, a nothing-an earthworm,
something to step on, to squash.
Everyone pokes fun at me;
they make faces at me, they shake their heads:
"Let's see how God handles this one;
since God likes him so much, let him help him!”…

Not a conventional worship song? Too personal? Too depressing? Lyrics that accuse God of indifference in the midst of my suffering? Who would dare put that to music?

Who would remember lyrics like that in a time of despair?

I asked myself those questions.

Then I reflected on one of the most poignant truths in all of the Bible. 

Jesus Christ, my savior, hung suffering and dying on a Roman cross, the ultimate innocent lamb paying once and for all for your imperfections and shortcomings…paying once and for all for my imperfections and shortcomings. As he suffered there what came to his lips were lyrics from an ancient song he had known since childhood. Songs have a way of transcending logic and speaking when isolated words can’t. Jesus used lyrics to speak beyond time. We’re not told that he sung these words, but he might well have.

Jesus didn’t sing lyrics from the encouraging Psalm 23.

He chose the lyrics of Psalm 22.

Matthew 27 records the moment:

From noon to three, the whole earth was dark. Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"

At that moment he sang an ancient worship song to us.

We don’t need to be afraid of honest worship songs like that.

He wasn’t.


4.10.18