Somewhere

Make a Joyful Noise

Five times in the Book of Psalms we're told to "make a joyful noise."

   Sing unto the Lord . . . .
   With trumpets
   and sound of cornet
   make a joyful noise
   before the Lord.

(Psalm 98:5-6)

Yes, I think we've got the "noise" part down.  There's a lot of noisiness in the news.  But not much of it is "joyful." 

What's there to be happy about?  The sounds we hear across the world are not chipper (more like, wood chipper).

During the past month, in the midst of writing drafts on the sacrament, the will of God, and the path of perdition (an eclectic bunch of topics, I know; I am whetting your appetite for what's in the pipeline), I wanted to pause and say a few things to uplift our spirits.  It's summertime, and the sun is shining, and we need to feel the sand between our toes, spiritually-speaking.

I am aware some of you recently have held the hand of loved ones in their final hours; others have watched their infant in the NICU hooked up to breathing tubes.  Some of you have wondered what to do about abusive relationships, or how to escape soul-crushing jobs.

Everywhere I turn, I sense bitter dregs and dark nights.  The world has become so heavy.

And so I write to apply a spiritual poultice to our aching hearts.  I share these things as someone who, like you, yearns for a better world.  We are made strong in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).

I love you and say: "For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold of me" (Jeremiah 8:21).

I feel your hurt and keep you in my prayers.  We are stronger together: our burdens shall not break our backs; God willing, let us square our spiritual shoulders.  God has sent us, His Red Cross, to tend to the wounded on the battlefield.

   Is there no balm in Gilead;
   is there no physician there?

(Jeremiah 8:22)

We have a Healer who has promised that all we've lost shall be found, and all our tears shall water the seeds of celestial fruit.

We have a "High Priest of good things to come" (Heb. 9:11).  I know things are tough, and I expect before the end they shall become tougher.

But tougher than any of them is Jehovah, our jasper, our Jesus.  And don't forget that we, too, are the Lord's onyx and obsidian.

Together we shall see things through.  And along the way, if you're willing to join me, let's make some noise.

   A joyful noise.

Wrong Side of the Tracks

In 1961, the Hollywood Reporter wrote in its review of the film West Side Story that the movie's ending (spoiler alert: Chino shoots Tony after Anita lies to him) was "almost a traumatic experience."

I felt it myself the first time I watched West Side Story in the mid-1980s when I was 8 or 9 years old.

Lying on the family room carpet in front of our old tube TV, I remember when Tony and Maria sang "One Hand, One Heart."  Something stirred within me.

   Make of our hands one hand,
   Make of our hearts one heart.

As a child, I didn't know what I was feeling.  It was bitter-sweet.  The closest thing I can compare it to was homesickness.

When they harmonized at the crescendo, "One hand," and then tenderly, "One heart" . . . the music awakened something in me, a door to a world I didn't know existed, but that I somehow sensed I belonged to.

A world of love.

[Note: I've learned how to share videos!  I am including music clips in this post.  I invite you to listen to these songs I've chosen with the volume turned up.  Put on your headphones; turn on your speakers and allow the Spirit to speak to you through the music.]

The Tongue of Angels

All my life I've sought the lingua franca of the Logos ― a universal language with which to commune with God and His creation.

​That language (the divine tongue) is, of course, love.

But what is love?  Sure, "God is love" ― but what does that really mean?

Love is lyrical: it is Spirit taking shape.  The scriptures compare God's nature to the wind and breath.  All was formless until the light of love entered the void, and spoke.

And that voice! ― the voice that pierced the darkness, even the Word that warmed life into Being, that melted matter in His image, in whose bosom burned the love of the Logos as a pulsar ― that Voice sang!

And what was His song?  How does one describe God's vibrato?  It was as the sound of the rushing of great waters.  His calling was music to our ears.  The Logos, with cupped hands-to-lips, called us to gather round.

And we heard!  And we, His lost lambs, His flickering stars, responded.  We came, bleating and bleeding.  We ran!  We flew; we leapt into His eternal embrace.

And thus we became part of God's Song.  We are part of the symphony sounding His everlasting kindness.  We became His heart-chords, the strings of heaven's harp spreading His love into the nethermost parts of the cosmos, extending His light so that the borders of Outer Darkness recede.

In His love we experience the harmony of heat and wholeness; such is the eternal flame we carry into the coldness of spacetime.  Our Shepherd, the Logos, bears the lodestone of redeeming love, in whose arms all are cradled and rocked and swaddled safely.

Can you hear it?  Can you feel His music wrapping around your spiritual cells?  We are bathed in its love; our DNA spirals towards its light.

God's voice bleeds from our every pore; our bodies resonate to His vocal chords.

What music are we creating with Him?

"A Grief That Can't Be Spoken"

​I will never forget the moment when, at the end of West Side Story, Tony falls into Maria's arms, mortally wounded.

As I watched that scene as a boy, it was if my young heart felt the gunshot itself, and I began to cry.

I was ashamed of my tears, afraid my older sisters would see and mock, so I slid under the coffee table to hide.

There, beneath the table, staring up at the unfinished wood of its underside, trying to conceal the sounds of my sobs, it was as if I had witnessed a side of the world I had not known: the ugly, hurtful, hateful part.

What kind of world was this I had fallen into?  What madness had driven me here, far from the safety of my heavenly home, into a world where people rage and ruin?  What had I gotten myself into?

I pulled my t-shirt over my face as the end credits played (the childlike equivalent, I suppose, of covering my head with ashes), tasting a glimpse of the grief that would grow into adulthood, where, as a pilgrim in this strange land, I sojourn stricken with the sorrow, the memory of Eden a fresh wound.

I long for God's kingdom come.  Where is Zion?  All my life I've wandered, seeking to flee to its peaceful shores, far away from this telestial traffic jam of guns and stock exchanges and human greed.

I often feel like King David who, at a low point in his life, after Nathan censored him for his sins, cried out:

   Deliver me from bloodguiltiness,
   O God, thou God of my salvation:
   and my tongue shall sing aloud
   of thy righteousness.

   O Lord, open thou my lips;
   and my mouth
   shall show forth thy praise.

(Psalm 51:14-15)

What praise have I, here, now ― when the world reeks of inequality and injustice?  What praise, now, when the wicked rule and the faithful mourn?  What praise can we possibly muster when the earth is filled to brim with the stink of mortal sweat staining the Lord's pure creation?

How could God allow it?

O God, I cannot hide my face!  Where is mercy?  Where is jubilee?  Whichever way I turn I behold suffering and heartbreak, poverty and pain.

But this is our lot, to stand as witnesses at the world's ending.

O dear God, how do You hold this pain in Your palms (Isa. 49:16) without clenching your fist?

This is Not a Rehearsal; It's Show Time

God may be the author of love and the giver of light, but it is up to us to articulate His music, to translate His Word, and give phrasing to His voice in sharing His light with those around us ― as we saw from Canadian national treasure, k.d. lang, in the above clip.

A Church without miracles is like a symphony without sound.  We need trombones who can prophesy, clarinets that speak in tongues, and harps with the gift of healing.  Most of all, we need flutes with soaring faith and band instruments to play charity's march.

Musical notation is just symbols on paper.  The scriptures contain words on a page.  We must breathe life into them.  No matter how brilliant the composer, or how great the song, until there is a performer it remains lifeless ink.  We may as well be illiterate if we do not embody the words we read.

God needs pure-hearted musicians; He needs artists who, like Christ, can translate for the Logos, instantiating His love into spacetime, here and now.

As any musician knows, it is far easier to play a piece of music after having heard it performed by another.  Christ gifted us with a masterclass on how to love like the Father.  Our heart has been 'tuned' by His example as the Firstchair.

I cannot overstate how important it was for us to see the Word made flesh, so that we, in the flesh, may become the Word.

Now imagine His voice being amplified by ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million singers in unison, all singing the glory of the Creator.

Christ was never meant to be a Soloist (John 14:12).  Even though He walked the winepress alone, He always intended to attract a company of musicians and singers, a folk band that, having heard Him begin the melody, would take it up on their guitars and play with Him in the greatest Concert this universe has ever seen.

Priesthood Keys as Musical Keys

I was a music major at BYU before I switched over to history; in the beginning I wanted to be a high school music teacher.

Music is a system of relationships and we can learn a lot about the Body of Christ through musical theory. 
​
An octave has 12 possible notes (the chromatic scale), but only seven of them are used in a given "key."​

Now, the important thing to understand is that keys can be transposed: keys unlock the fluidity of frequency.

One of the most exciting things, musically, is when, during a piece, the key changes.  It is exhilarating!  The way keys change is through chord progressions, like the way the earth is transitioning into a paradisiacal state.

Just because the hymn "Come, O Thou King of Kings" is written in the key of G Major, doesn't mean it has to always be played that way.  You could modulate the hymn to any key you wanted, making it higher or lower.

So it is with priesthood keys.  Changing the key changes the music, but it is still recognizable; the Composer's mark remains.  Dispensations are transpositions; any song can be transposed, spiritually-speaking.

We are not complete until we've played around with all the chords (for how else could we become co-composers with God, to create new music, until we've experimented with scales and intervals and rhythm in all their variety?).

The way we usually modulate into a new key is to find a common chord, a pivot chord, that is shared by both key signatures.  This pivot chord can be likened to Christ, who is the bridge between old and new, and the catalyst that prompts us to cross it.

Now watch: what does being a "new" creature really mean?  It means, simply, that we graduate from playing someone else's music to composing new music with God.  Instead of rehashing and recycling and repeating, we create something new: new arrangements and new styles and new possibilities.

Christ's ability to transpose from one glory to another is the essence of Intelligence.

The universe is alive, organic and asymmetrical.  This is illustrated by the "Pythagorean Comma."  The ancient Chinese masters discovered long ago that in 31 Octaves you achieve 53 perfect fifths (what they call Lṻ).  The first five fifths create what we call the Pentatonic Scale.
 
Isn’t it strange, that with all of the correspondences and synchronicities in the cosmos, the system is not wholly coherent?  The universe is comprised of broken symmetry and quantum uncertainty.  God did not design a clock; He birthed a living, growing, evolving creation.

And thus the Lord does not require us to swear allegiance to a single modality.  In fact, quite the contrary: the Lord seems to relish diversity of expression and being-ness.  The greater the differentiation, the broader the love grows; and yet, it never ceases to be part of Him.

For, every instrument has a unique voice.  Think of a trumpet versus a violin playing a High C ― as opposed to that same High C being hit by Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti at the climax of "Nessun Dorma" (as you watch the clip below, you will find he earns that standing ovation at the end). 

The mystery of God is found in the diversity of operations.  Creativity is at the heart of Creation.  Spiritual gifts and priesthood keys all stem from God, but in their application they evolve in nuanced and surprising ways, becoming infinitely new.

This is why spiritual discernment is paramount.

"To March Into Hell for a Heavenly Cause"

​When I was a senior in high school, the administration asked me to sing at graduation.

I knew what I wanted to perform: one of my favorite songs, "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha.

   To dream the impossible dream
   To fight the unbeatable foe
   To bear with unbearable sorrow
   To run where the brave dare not go

My grandmother flew in from Oregon to hear me perform at the graduation ceremony.

I was nervous; it was the biggest audience I had ever performed before.  And nothing destroys a singer's breath support quicker than butterflies in the belly.

   And the world will be better for this,
   That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
   Still strove, with his last ounce of courage
   To reach the unreachable star!

As I sang in that arena, looking over a crowd of several thousand people, I found myself singing to, and for, my grandma, as if it were just the two of us.  I knew she didn't care if my voice was perfect; she loved me no matter what I sounded like, regardless of how my performance went.

So it is with Christ.  We are on the stage.  But God is not watching us from the audience: He is next to us, in us.  In a way I do not comprehend, in Gethsemane when He saw His seed, as time stretched before Him, we became one.  We are Him; our suffering is His own.

I don't know how God does it, experiencing all the awful things happening on earth.  I can barely handle my own set of challenges, let alone what is happening in Gaza and Ukraine and Sudan.

At times it is overwhelming.  We yearn for resolution.  I try to remember what Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount.  He showed us the way.  The way we spiritually resolve tension is by:

   1. Acceptance

Jesus taught us to "resist not evil" (Matt. 5:39).  We cannot change things for the better until we've made peace with things as they are.

Acceptance is the precursor to change, paradoxically.  Only when we truly accept what is, are we able to love it fully.  Then, once love is bestowed unconditionally, can the thing we love grow into something more. 

   2.  Bless the tension

Pray for those who despiteful use us?  Love our enemies?  Yes.  This does not minimize the pain, but hallows it.  It does not erase the wrong, but sanctifies it.  Only from the perspective of blessing (as opposed to judgment and condemnation) can we effect eternal transformation.

   3.  Balance the opposition in oneself

This was Christ's gift, to hold tension in himself without breaking.  He was a healer, yes, but too often we focus on His physical healing ― which was less impressive, really, than the spiritual healing He performed.

We think of Christ curing leprosy as if giving us smooth skin was what mattered: but are we going to be models for Maybelline?

No, the real healing was taking broken minds and hearts and weaving them together with hope and wholeness.

But here's the important part to remember: Christ did not discard the brokenness, or cast aside our heartbreak; instead, He integrated our weakness and imperfection so that our scars become more sacred than unblemished skin.

"Tim," someone says.  "I can forgive them for what they did, but I cannot accept it.  I will not condone it.  I will never bless it."

Okay.  Or, we can try it Christ's way.  How did He reconcile evil?  How did He bring beauty from ashes?  How?  Therein is the solution we seek.

Jesus did not find everlasting peace through animal sacrifice; not by following carnal commandments; certainly not by sacrificing a million bulls or observing a million feasts.

Christ brought peace unlike the world by loving the Father and loving us.  Purely.  Infinitely.  Eternally.

​Zion will not come from converting people away from Islam or by legislating transgender policy or by getting everyone to attend the temple.  Zion will come when we learn to love like Christ.  Period.
​
So if you're crazy enough to love like God, then you just might be crazy enough to dream the impossible dream.

And if you dream the impossible dream with me, and with God, then maybe we just might find there is a place for us, somewhere a place for us, with peace and quiet and open air.

   Somewhere.