Tag: spirit

Through a Glass Darkly

jamieahughes4 Comments

It’s not in its final form yet by any means, but I wanted to get feedback from my baker’s dozen of readers about this piece. I’ve been slated to write an article for the February edition of In Touch Magazine, and this is what I pitched. The theme of the magazine is God’s beauty, and I said something that always struck me as beautiful is stained glass. Something about how the light shines through it and simply lights up a room has always had the ability to take my breath.

I visited a gorgeous episcopal cathedral in the area and took some photos. I also listened to the organist rehearse and sat in a pew taking notes and making observations. What you have below is the third draft of the article to date. I have also included the pictures you might like to see.

Please do not hesitate to leave me feedback here or via email. I am looking for any and all the help I can get!

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Through a Glass Darkly

At ten o’clock in the morning, the sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows fill the east side of the cathedral with kaleidoscopic brilliance. Everywhere I look, there are shades of scarlet, cobalt, gold, lavender, emerald, and aqua illuminating tiled floors and smoothly polished columns, gracing them with glittering embellishments. Standing in the midst of this radiance, the thought suddenly occurs to me that the sight I’m enjoying is what Jesus meant when He claimed the “stones will cry out” in worship should human lips ever fall silent (Luke 19:40).

I wander through the space, drinking it in and savoring the sights before me. Every windowpane in the expansive room tells a vivid story. In one, Jesus sits at the well speaking to the Samaritan woman, gesturing towards her earthen jar that cannot contain the living water He offers. In the next window, images of Christ as the Great Physician are featured. In one, the Messiah looks upward as three men lower a paralytic in need of healing through the roof, and in another He glances down with love at the woman suffering from hemorrhages whose faith assured her, “If I only touch His garment, I will get well” (Matt 9:21).

Nearby, Jesus works His many miracles. Standing in a boat with the waves curling around its bow, He rebukes the wind and tells the sea, “Hush, be still” (Mark 4:39) as His disciples look up, their mouths agape. The same disbelief is evident in those who watch as He overrules death itself, summoning Lazarus from his tomb with the words, “Come forth” (John 11:44). However, the same countenance of power and limitless pity is turned upwards in supplication in the panel depicting His evening of prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. The cup that cannot pass from Him floats above His head, rays light connecting them inextricably together. In a smaller portion of the frame, Judas Iscariot plots with Roman guards, as if the two moments are happening simultaneously. In each of the twenty panels that tell the story of His life and ministry, Christ is beautiful and otherworldly in turquoise robes and crimson sash, a golden nimbus encircling His head as a sign of divinity.

For some reason, however, I’m drawn to the image of the annunciation repeatedly, lingering before it longer than I do others. In this panel, Mary, clad in pale shades of rose and teal, is a picture of tenderness and vulnerability, especially when contrasted with the angel hovering above her, his angular wings aflame. One of his hands rests above her forehead in comfort while the other is raised in blessing, the words “blessed art thou among women” suspended on his lips (Luke 1:28). Mary’s hands also speak volumes, for one is open upwards, as if she is questioning the truth of the message she’s receiving, while the other hovers over her stomach, already having accepted the proclamation and protecting the womb that will shelter the long-awaited Savior.

This is the moment in which both Mary’s future and ours were forever changed by the Father’s ultimate act of love. It is framed by diamonds of royal blue, silver arches, and buds of every primary color—all manner of rococo embellishments—as securely bound as a book. There is no plaque posted nearby to describe the scene to onlookers, yet it speaks to me as clearly as if the narrative were written on the wall. It is a lesson meant to be experienced with the eyes as well as the soul.

This clarity and enlightenment was what Abbot Suger, the twelfth century clergyman, had in mind when he began the renovation of Saint Denis, his abbey church near Paris. Suger was an advocate of anagogicus mos, or “The Upward Leading Method,” and believed that light was a divine force that could compel a person to transcend the material world and better understand the very nature of God. As a result, he incorporated flying buttresses, arches supporting the church’s soaring rooftop, which allowed for taller, thinner walls with increased space for windows. The combination of high ceilings and boundless light filtering through the colored glass drew the eyes of parishioners heavenward and made it possible for everyone regardless of gender or rank to experience the spiritual in a tangible way. Also, the windows served another purpose—to communicate God’s Word to parishioners who were illiterate. That is why some refer to stained glass windows as “The Poor Man’s Bible.”

Even now, in our modern world where structures hundreds of stories tall dominate the skyline and light can be manufactured, stained glass still maintains the power to captivate. Perhaps it’s because these breathtaking works bear the indelible fingerprints of God. The artisans whose skills are themselves gifts from the Father create their works with fire and iron using only sand, soda, limestone, salts, and oxides, none of which are manmade. Therefore, glass attests to the truth of Revelation 4:11: “You are worthy, O LORD, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.”

However, no matter how intricate the designs are, how accurate the depictions in these fragile works might be, or how long they were lovingly labored over by craftsmen, without one essential factor, they remain dull and lifeless. Without light, the first creation of the Almighty God, our works are left as half formed as Quasimodo, the famous hunchback of Notre Dame. And only God can provide the light, the divine illumination that can release the colors within the glass.

For the Christian, they are even more compelling because we recognize them as kindred spirits. Unlike darkness and light, the sky and seas, and all moving creatures, each of which was created when God simply said, “Let there be. . . ,” man was “formed” from the dust by the very hands of the Creator (Gen. 2:7). Of all His accomplishments, only we are made in the image of God and according to His likeness (Gen 1:26), and for this reason, we are the most precious of all His handiwork. Because we received the breath of life and were made to commune with our Father, we see God most clearly in that which is lovely. Also, we desire to create beautiful things in order to obtain a deeper understanding of who He is.

Likewise, we understand that, just like the window is strengthened and perfected by heat and pressure, we too are purified through trials in order to be made more Christlike (see Mal. 3:2-3; 1 Pet. 1:6-9; Rom 5:1-5; James 1:2-4). And like that gorgeous glass, the light of Christ shines through us, compelling the lost in such a way that they can no longer turn aside from the truth of Christ. As the apostle Paul said of believers:

For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord. . . .For God who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. . . .For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh (2 Cor. 4: 5-7, 11).

One thing, however, is certain. As beautiful as stained glass might be, it also reveals just how poor our power to present the full glory of God is and how limited our ability to fully understand Him remains while we reside in the flesh. In truth, our many-hued masterpieces undoubtedly appear to God like a child’s finger painting does to an adoring parent, paltry when compared to the extent of His skill but all the more valuable for their sincerity.

Yet, praise be to God, there will come a day when we no longer need rely on crude tools and materials for understanding because we will be in the presence of the Master Craftsman. For now, “we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. . . .For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now [we] know in part; but then [we] shall know even as [we are] also known” (KJV, 1 Cor. 13: 9-10, 12).

The Voice of God

jamieahughes3 Comments

I want to begin this post by saying that I am not an expert in musical theory. I took two or so semesters of it in college, and struggled throughout every single moment of it. (I did, however, earn an A in both Theory I and Theory II, which is a testament to my scholastic work ethic!) I’m all ears if you have websites, videos, or books you know of that can help me learn terms to better explain what I’m about to say.

Ok, disclaimer over. Let the blog begin…

People are always saying, “The Lord told me” or “I heard the Lord say,” which strikes me odd. I’ve never sat down and had a conversation with the Almighty, but I can tell you that He does “speak” to those who are willing to listen. Some hear His voice when they look on a beautiful landscape; others find Him in the order of nature and its creatures and cycles. I have come to find that God speaks to me through music in two ways. The first is through the sheer beauty of song. Music used for worship lifts me up out of myself and connects me to Him in a way that words (my other great love) simply cannot. It reaches me on a more unvarnished, vulnerable level on which artifice and masks are unnecessary.

Take the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s masterwork, Messiah, for instance.

Everyone knows it, has maybe even sung it either for fun or for a performance, but not very many people know about the oratorio as a whole. Messiah is divided into three parts. The first tells of the prophecy of the Messiah in the book of Isaiah and extends through the annunciation of His birth to the shepherds. The second tells of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension as well as the spread of the Gospel around the world, and the third tells of the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s glorification in heaven. The “Hallelujah Chorus” occurs at the end of part two, and in the scene before it, the people of the world have rejected the Gospel and have instead chosen to battle it and one another. However, when this piece begins, the gates of heaven have opened where all can see Christ glorified.

The people you see standing up in the audience are doing so in keeping with the tradition supposedly begun when King George II first heard it performed in London. According to musical lore, the king was so moved by the revelation he heard that he stood up early in the chorus and remained on his feet throughout the piece. Whether or not it is true, folks who know their musical history stand from the moment the piece begins. It’s a great tradition, regardless of whether or not it’s totally accurate. If there was ever a moment worthy of getting to one’s feet, this is it, my friends!

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The other thing about music that reveals God’s voice to me is the undeniable logic of it. I’m not getting into major and minor, diminished or augmented here. There’s simply not enough space in the world to discuss all that. Suffice it to say there is a great deal to be garnered from learning about the Circle of Fifths and Pythagorean Tuning; both can teach you just how logically arranged sounds are. There is no happenstance with music. Pitches vibrate in harmony with one another to create pleasing sounds, and dissonance is all the more beautiful because it shows what can occur when God’s balance is not maintained. That relief you feel when a chord resolves into harmony is God revealing Himself to you!

Music is mathematical, and that is where my ability to explain it to you comes to a screeching halt. I am mathematically inept and can in no way explain mathematical relationships in music. If you are interested, try a book like Math and Music: Harmonious Connections or The Math Behind the Music. The basic point I’m trying to make is this–just because He isn’t using words, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t speak and present Himself to us. We only need to understand the language He’s choosing to employ.

Here are two videos that have made the rounds on YouTube and Facebook recently, both of which might better explain what I mean. The first is a musical presentation of the mathematical constant, ∏ (otherwise known as pi), or the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle.

However, tau, the circumference of a circle divided by the radius, can also be represented musically.

I find it interesting that both of these irrational numbers measure a circle, one of the greatest symbols of love and continuity I know of. By the way, for those of you who, like me, are absolute crap at math, here’s what an irrational number is according to Wikipedia.

An irrational number’s value cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction, the numerator and denominator of which are integers. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats.

Think of it! These numbers that measure a circle never end or repeat, just as everything God creates is unique and specially designed, and that includes you and me. None of us have the exact same fingerprints or retinal patterns, so, in a way, we are like these numbers in that we never repeat. I’m not even going to pretend I’m intelligent enough to understand the level of mathematics involved in this, but once I listen to the beautiful melodies contained within the decimal places of these two numbers, I cannot help but think that the same beauty is hidden in the construction of all living things, but because of our sin and fallen nature, we can only hear a fragment of what God is saying to us. Happily, that does not have to be the case eternally! Jesus Christ is returning, and all will be as He intended for those who have accepted Him as their Savior, the one who paid their sin debt.

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One of my favorite poems is John Dryden’s “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day.” It was written to celebrate St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music and speaks of the beauty of music, the creative power of God, and the Second Coming of Christ. It reads:

From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began.
When Nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head, 
The tuneful voice was heard from high:
“Arise, ye more than dead!”
Then cold and hot and moist and dry
In order to their stations leap,
And Music’s power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began;
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the corded shell,
His list’ning brethren stood around,
And, wond’ring, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound, 
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that shell
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

The trumpet’s loud clangor 
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum 
Cries, “Hark, the foes come!
Charge, charge, ‘t is too late to retreat!”

The soft complaining flute
In dying notes discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers, 
Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute.

Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains and height of passion, 
For the fair disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love, 
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees unrooted left their place,
Sequacious of the lyre; 
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher:
When to her organ vocal breath was given,
An angel heard, and straight appeared–
Mistaking earth for heaven.

GRAND CHORUS

As from the power of sacred lays 
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
To all the blest above:
So, when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour, 
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

In other words, when God created the heavens and the earth as it is told in Genesis, harmony, the “music of the spheres,” is what He used to do so. God spoke, and all things were created. One word from Him, and the “jarring heap of atoms” became ordered, and the greatest of all these orders is man. We are the perfection of God’s celestial symphony. That is why we respond to music as we do, be it from the rousing tones of the trumpet, the mournful sounds of the flute, or the powerful voice of the organ that fills a cathedral and draws our ears heavenward as surely as a vaulted ceiling draws our eyes. Music is anywhere and everywhere around us, and it will be there on Judgement Day when it “untune”s the sky when Christ returns to take His children home.

And with that glorious thought, I’ll leave you to listen to Bach’s “Cantata 140,” which was written for the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year when one’s mind is on the beginning of the new, particularly the second advent of Christ. You may read the libretto, which was taken from Matthew 25, here or simply listen to the beauty of the music itself.  Soli Deo Gloria!


The World Loves Its Own

jamieahughes2 Comments

I read a blog here on WordPress this morning about everyone’s favorite “Booty Shakin’ Believer,” Beyoncé. The author of said blog claimed the following:

…[I]f the goal is to touch the un-churched, I think Beyoncé has the right idea. Sending moral messages via the contemporary art form of the day is like sowing new seeds of life into a community void of a Judeo-Christian worldview. It is like a drink of fresh water in the scorching desert of life.

The statement got my gears to clicking much too quickly for a Monday morning, and the more I chewed on the thought, the more I felt it getting firmly lodged in my craw. Beyoncé apparently prays for her cast and crew before going on stage and did Bible studies when she was younger; however, in my mind, those could just as easily be meaningless gestures as they are meaningful acts of witness. After all, what game winning wide receiver or award winning actress hasn’t uttered the phrase, “First, I’d like to thank God for giving me the talent to…” when giving an acceptance speech?

I look at what someone does as well as the words of her mouth to ascertain her true beliefs. According to Beyoncé in an interview with The Son, a Christian newspaper:

I never mixed Christianity with how I felt [about God]. I am about faith and spirituality more so than religion. Doing right by others and not judging. The thing that keeps me grounded is knowing that I’m always protected and that God is in control of things. Even the name of our group, Destiny’s Child, we got out of the Bible. . . For me it is about the way I carry myself and the way I treat other people. My relationship and how I feel about God and what he does for me is something deeply personal. It’s where I came from. I was brought up in a religious household and that’s very important to me.

Something about this statement sets my teeth on edge. She seems to be saying the right things–God is in control, treat other people well, have a relationship with God. However, it’s the second sentence that sets the alarm bells to ringing. “I am about faith and spirituality more so than religion.”

She’s correct in one way; religion is not God. Being a Baptist doesn’t make me a child of God. My relationship with Him does, my acceptance of God as my Savior and Master of every single aspect of my life. However, she seems to be taking another tack with the idea. For her, it seems to mean that she’s accepted that there is a God and that, by and large, He means for her to live a happy and fulfilled life. Therefore, in return, she must be good to others and “carry herself” a certain way. That sounds closer to the concept of Karma, something associated with Hinduism, Buddhism, or even Sikhism rather than a tenet of Christianity.

The video that garnered the most flack and (in some Christian communities) praise was her hit “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Many Christians took issue with her attire, her dance moves, and the overall tone of the song. However, others saw it as a ringing (no pun intended) endorsement of marriage before sex and used it to teach their daughters about the value of chastity and the preservation of virginity. However, I’m not going to rehash this old territory.

While searching through her videos on YouTube, I came across one for one of her newest singles, “Run the World (Girls).” Like many of her other videos/songs, it gives me great pause.

In essence, the meaning behind the song is “Women run the world because they have what men want,” meaning, of course, sex. Women can work for their own money, not be dependent on a man, and still make demands of men because all the money in the world can’t replace this one thing men crave. The military/Mad Max overtones of the video coupled with the aggressive dancing and animals on chains reflects the rapacious nature of this new woman who asserts, “My persuasion can build a nation. Endless power, the love we can devour. You’ll do anything for me.”

What is a young girl supposed to think with images like this flashed before her on television and the Internet? She hears someone say, “Beyoncé, oh, she’s a Christian” and sees this same woman dancing seductively and using her sex rather than her mind to get what she wants. What are the two options the girl can assume? 1.) Beyoncé is a Christian and does this, so it must be okay or 2.) Christians say one thing and do another, so I don’t think I want to be one of them. Either assumption is going to send that child down the wrong path, the former a more slippery one to be sure because it has the trappings of righteousness and the mantle of Christianity attached to it.

Later in the interview with The Son, Beyoncé claimed that there’s no double standard regarding her faith and her performing style. She claimed:

I honestly believe [God] wants people to celebrate their bodies so long as you don’t compromise your Christianity in the process.

I am not a Bible thumper who believes all dancing and celebrating are immoral acts; however, I fail to see how videos like “Run the World (Girls)” don’t fall under the “compromising my Christianity” umbrella. I don’t see a Christian who is following the will of God when I watch this video. She is dancing not as David did, to celebrate God’s benevolence and majesty, but to attract fans both male and female who both want her and want to be her.

In James 4:4, James tells the Jewish Diaspora, “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” In short, you cannot sing about what the world sings about, dance the way the world dances, and lust after the trappings of the world and also be of God. It’s a classic case of trying to serve two masters, which cannot be done. This is why James continues in verse eight, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded!”

This double-mindedness is what is slowly killing the Christian church in the United States; we are sacrificing our standards in order to bring new Christians into the fold. But what we’re doing is not building up the faith of these new believers; rather, we are watering down our beliefs so as not to offend them. We should be worried less about who we offend and worried more about who we can bring to the Lord that they might be saved.

This is why, in I John 2:15-17, the apostle John warns Christians they must, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” because “[i]f any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

This is why I cannot say that Beyoncé is acceptable for young girls to admire. I can tolerate her behavior even less than someone like Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj, or P!nk. These women, as far as I know, were not raised in Christian households as Beyoncé claims to have been. Unlike her, they were not brought up hearing the Word of God, well aware of what is expected of a Christian. The fact that she is willing to completely eschew what she knows to be right and pleasing to God in favor of what pleases the world speaks volumes about her faith and her relationship with God. This is not a personal opinion or one formed according to my own tastes. I garnered it from scripture.

In 2 Peter , the apostle Peter warns against compromise and the tarnishing of Christian witness by being too closely aligned with the world and falling prey to what he calls “false teachers.” He writes:

For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire. [Emphasis mine]

If someone is truly saved, he or she has no desire to turn back to the same lifestyle he/she lived before. To know what true freedom from sin and death is only to turn back to its ways and trappings is worse than blind disobedience. The world doesn’t know any better, but a Christian should.

If the Christian church does not stand up to these double standards and tell the world, without hesitation, “This is NOT what it means to be a child of God” and then offer the truth, there’s no hope for us. We’re already so lukewarm and vapid in many congregations that we’re utterly indistinguishable from the “un-churched” so many are worried about.

Don’t believe me? Check out this article about Katy Perry, the performer responsible for “I Kissed a Girl.” Please note that it is posted on a so-called Christian website called “Beliefnet,” a repository of all kinds of “feel good” dogma. Honestly, it’s like a Golden Corral of religions—take what you want from this bar and this one until you find the belief that fits your worldview rather than you conforming to the will of God. The thing has a quiz you can take called the “Belief-O-Matic” if you’re having trouble deciding between faiths. This site makes it blatantly obvious that, to many, Christianity is a choice, one as easily wriggled out of and discarded as a wet bathing suit. And that is not the message we should be proclaiming to the nations.

So to those who think it’s acceptable to support artists who claim to be Christians just because they espouse the faith, I say you’re wrong. We are not meant to be like the world or liked by the world. To be of God means the world will despise you and try to tear you down, not fill your arms with Grammy Awards and platinum records. Jesus never claimed otherwise. Instead, he warned His followers:

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. — (John 15: 18-22)

Real Hope & Change

jamieahughes4 Comments

I have a love/hate relationship with change. The thrill of self-discovery comes with it, but more often than not, change brings uncertainty and difficulty. For me, the last two weeks have been a combination of the two extremes, both mentally and spiritually.

Several months ago, I began looking for a new place of employment, one where my talents could be put to use in a new field. I came across a posting for the Woodruff Arts Center titled “Director of Educational Outreach” or some such hyperbolic nonsense. Essentially, the job involved working with the Atlanta Youth Symphony Orchestra as a coordinator and public relations specialist. They needed someone with people skills, a good grasp of the English language and written/oral communication, experience working with professionals, parents, and students, and a background in instrumental music among other things. I looked down the laundry list of required qualifications muttering, Check, check, double check, double plus check, to myself, wrote a perfectly tailored cover letter to accompany my curriculum vitae, and sent it in.

For weeks, nothing happened. The job remained on the center’s page, and no one contacted me for further information or to set up an interview. To date, they still haven’t. In all likelihood, they never will.

Needless to say, I was more than a bit nonplussed by this. The only thing that could have put this job more firmly in the perfect category for me would have been if the phrases “must love baseball,” “must be willing to bring pets to work,” and “must be able to perfectly quote films old and new” were listed as preferred qualifications.  So why no call? Like the true resting place of Jimmy Hoffa, the depth of the Masons’ influence over the founding of the United States, or even the true name of the man who put the “bomp” in the “bomp-shoo-bomp-shoo-bomp,” it’s something I’ll never know.

Fast forward a month or so.

I get daily emails from job websites offering me part time blogging gigs for websites like the Examiner or technical writing gigs that I’m missing one qualification for, and I often delete them without exploring the full posting, wasting time that could be spent keeping my head above water in the job I currently have. However, one came through two weeks ago advertising for a copy writing position with In Touch Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. For those of you who don’t know the name, In Touch is the printing and publishing ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, the head pastor of First Baptist Church Atlanta. They manage a massive website, publish a monthly magazine, and, in essence, create all the printed matter needed to translate and transmit Dr. Stanley’s message to people around the world.

I read the qualifications for the position and knew that I had to apply. This was why the orchestra gig hadn’t panned out. I desired change, but my first attempt at it had been aimed in the wrong direction. I need to be using my talents not to enlarge myself, but rather to magnify Him. Well, unlike the symphony, In Touch did call, and an interview has taken place. It was a wonderful time for me, to be able to share my testimony and my desire to be used in a way that will allow me to fulfill my ministry, whatever it might be.

Now, I’m being tested. I’m being asked to be patient, something I don’t do very well. (Although, praise God, I’m markedly more patient than I was just a few years ago.) A week has passed, and the elation that came with the thought of moving into a new field in a place where my faith can be nourished and my talents used and honed has been tempered with a cold, hard week of silent days. I’ve carried my phone with me in hopes that I’ll receive the call that beings with the phrase, “Jamie, it’s my pleasure to tell you that….,” but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve prayed daily asking God that His will be done in this matter if this place is where He wishes me to go next. If not, I’ve also prayed for Him to help me understand why His perfect plan might not include it. The answer will come when He wills it, not a moment before, and as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers once sagaciously stated it, “The waiting is the hardest part.”

In past years, I would have been tempted to say “God is cruel” or “God doesn’t understand my problems,” but that is so far from the truth that I’m embarrassed to say that I actually once thought it. The truth is that God knows the desires of my heart; He knows me even better than I know myself. Seeking to understand the silence, I went to the book of Psalms.

David’s songs to the Chief Musician vary in subject matter—some praise His mighty works, others beseech him for deliverance from enemies both outside his kingdom and within it, and many celebrate His divine judgments, praising them for their righteousness, mercy, and grace. Portions of three of these divine songs speak peace to my situation and help to settle my soul.

The first is Psalm 144:3-10, which reads:

 LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that You are mindful of him? Man is like a breath;
His days are like a passing shadow. Bow down Your heavens, O LORD, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. Flash forth lightning and scatter them; shoot out Your arrows and destroy them. Stretch out Your hand from above; rescue me and deliver me out of great waters, from the hand of foreigners, whose mouth speaks lying words, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood. I will sing a new song to You, O God; On a harp of ten strings I will sing praises to You, the One who gives salvation to kings, who delivers David His servant from the deadly sword.

This has always been one of my favorite psalms because of verses three and four. David asks an often overlooked, but essential, question—Who is man that You even concern yourself with him and his piddly problems?  In the scope of His creation, we are tiny, a finite speck in the scope of God’s infinity. However, we are also the beings He came down to make. Unlike the heavens and the earth, the sky and sea, and the birds and beasts and creeping things He created, He came down to craft us with His own hands from a lump of lifeless clay and made us in His own image. It is His breath that fills us with life and makes us living souls. He created us for fellowship, and that is why He is mindful of us. It still amazes me that the God who created the universe and the beautiful planet we call home knows of my struggles and seeks to direct my life. I am hardly worthy of such attention, yet He loves me enough to give it. That alone is cause for celebration. This possible new job, so small in the scope of eternity, falls under His purview as well. There’s no cause for concern on my part. He will handle it as surely as He does the changing of the seasons or the conflicts between nations.

David then lists the mighty powers that are God’s, powers that know no limits. It is He who can move a mountain, separate waters, and scatter a seemingly insurmountable foe before His servant. It is God who “gives salvation to kings” and keeps them in His hand. No matter how great our power may be here on Earth, it pales in comparison to that of the Most High. David recognizes it and celebrates it because it frees him from worry, and this why he sings this new song to God.

Psalm 37: 3-8 is focused on trusting God in all things, not only with those things that seem impossible. It reads:

3 Trust in the LORD, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the LORD,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.
7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him;
Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
Do not fret—it only causes harm.

The message David seeks to transmit with this psalm is one of trust and patience. He asserts that we should dwell always in Him, speak to Him about the desires of our hearts, and maintain a constant fellowship with Him. If we give all that we are, our “way” to Him, He will “bring it to pass” in His time. We are not meant to worry or to compare ourselves with those who “profit in [their] way,” which is wicked. I may never be as wealthy or as powerful as those who scheme and who get ahead in this world under their own steam, and that, I’m coming to find, is the best way to be. After all, if I spend all my time and energy worrying about what others have or what I don’t, I run the risk of falling into anger, wrath, and worry—all of which damage my fellowship with Him. I must always delight in His judgments and His righteousness, even if I don’t yet understand them.

Also, if I worry and try to solve this problem on my own, that is as good as admitting my lack of trust in His power. It is me saying, “God, you aren’t strong enough or wise enough to manage this situation, so I’ll handle it.” This kind of change tests my faith, refines it in fire, and makes it all the stronger, but I have to be willing to undergo the forging. This is why I must always remember the words of the sacred song, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus” to keep my heart and mind focused on the right thing. After all, if I can “Look full in His wonderful face, …the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”

The same message is contained in Psalm 40: 1—5.

 1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
5 Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

However, unlike the previous psalm that claims the certainty of a future blessing, this one states the message in the past tense. “I waited patiently,” he begins. As a result, God “inclined” to him, “heard” his cry, and “brought” him up from the mire clay in which he was trapped. David is praising a blessing received in this song; he is not simply claiming “God will.” Instead, he is telling us “God does.” It is a song of a promise made manifest. He sings of the amazing blessings from God, and insists that the praise from his mouth, his testimony, will bring others to a lasting trust in God. And David asserts that his are not the only prayers answered or the only blessings given. Instead, David asserts, “Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works” and that “Your thoughts towards us Cannot be recounted to You in order” because “They are more than can be numbered.”

What do I learn from these three passages? Simply this—I matter to God. God promises. God delivers. It’s as simple as that. He does so in a way that is necessary for us and, more importantly, brings Him glory.

Change, as I asserted earlier, is hard. It requires us to step outside our comfort zone and trust in His will for our lives, knowing full well that His will may not coincide with our desires. However, His will is perfect and His judgments righteous. I will continue to pray for His will to be done in His time safe in the knowledge that I am His child and that He guides me rightly.

Fairy Tale Envy

jamieahughes3 Comments
Glass Slippers: Neither Necessary Nor Practical

This weekend, I had to do a little soul-searching regarding my reaction to another person’s joyous moment. I volunteered to play French horn in the pit orchestra for a local production of Cinderella, which was great fun and allowed me to make some new friends and grow as a musician. The young woman playing the lead role was playing opposite her real life boyfriend of several years. During the Saturday evening performance, he matched her with her missing shoe but then deviated from the script by pulling her center stage and asking her if he would be his “forever princess” and presenting her with a diamond engagement ring. The musical then continued on to the wedding sequence and ended as planned.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t like ostentatious displays of emotion. I’m not comfortable watching them or participating in them, and I am rarely motivated to cry. It isn’t that I don’t feel things very deeply; I am just distressingly uncomfortable with expressing my feelings. (Aside from anger that is…I’ve got that one down fairly well.) Therefore, my first reaction to this heartwarming little scene was not that of 99.9% of the women in the audience that evening. Unlike them, I did not tear up, scream with joy, or clap my hands. I might have smiled a little, but that’s all. It was the second performance of the day, and after eight performances of a fairy tale musical, it begins to grate on the nerves.

My nearly Vulcan reaction to the scene wasn’t what gave me great pause, but my thoughts on the matter afterwards did. The young lady in question, I’m told, is the picture of loveliness and kindness. She and I have spoken exactly three words together, and they happened the night of her engagement:

Me: “Congratulations.”

Her: “Thank you.”

That’s as far as our relationship goes, and barring our working together in another musical, I doubt it will develop to any further.

On the way home, I began to think about the difference in her life situation and mine, and in my writerly way, I began to cull details I had noticed and learned about her to create a story that would allow me to dislike her intensely. I began playing my own version of “He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not” with my memories and imaginings, alternating between what she (likely) has and what I have. For instance, she’s been the star of several well-received musicals. She’s young, beautiful, wealthy (from what I could see), and has very few limitations placed on her life. She is earning her doctoral degree from a prestigious university and, again I’m guessing here, has likely never known suffering or compromise. The version of her I created is every bit the princess she played on stage, and that was what began to stick in my craw the more I thought about it.

In contrast, I spent those nine shows dressed in black, stuck in a corner and playing what seemed to be an endless series of upbeats. The only time I was noticed was when I missed a note or a rhythm, and I’m sure few even took note of those mistakes (pun intended). Unlike the paper doll I’d envisioned in my mind, I am hardly princess material. I stand nearly six feet tall and boast few physical graces.  I know what William Faulkner described as “the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less,” my dreams of a Ph.D. and a university career grow more ephemeral with each passing year, and I’ve been beset by more health and personal troubles in the last half decade than I care to admit. In essence, while she was being waltzed around the stage, I was emptying spit out of my horn during a tacet number.

Envy, the “green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on,” was what was gnawing at me. That and nothing else. After all, from where I sat, she had just about everything I (and any other red-blooded American female) want, and I started ruminating on that and losing perspective on life. I was positively catty most of the next day because of it, but the more I pondered both that moment and my reaction to it, I realized that it was not justified.

It also wasn’t Christian. So I went in search of scripture to help me “get my mind right” as the Captain from Cool Hand Luke might say. A search through both the Old and New Testaments turned up several instructive passages, the most relevant of which were:

“For wrath kills a foolish man, And envy slays a simple one.”–(Job 5:2)

“A sound heart is life to the body, But envy is rottenness to the bones.”–(Proverbs 14:30)

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”–(1 Corinthians 13: 4-7)

“For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”– (James 3:16)

The truth of the matter is quite clear from these few scriptures. Envy is something everyone is prone to as it is a weakness of the flesh and is not of the spirit. Focusing on what she had and what I “lacked” only weakened me spiritually. I couldn’t take joy in the things that I do have–a loving family, a husband who adores me, good health despite my MS diagnosis, friends, a church home, and above all, a God who loves me and who has a plan for me that is right and just though I lack the power to discern it as of yet. To wish I had another’s life is fallacious as it would deny me all the good things I enjoy in my own, and wasting my time in envy is only harming my soul and sense of well-being. Unless the young lady in question ever reads this blog entry, she will never know my thoughts or what it took for me to see the error in them.

I may never get the “glass slipper,” and instead of spending my life “bemoan[ing] my outcast state” as Shakespeare put it in “Sonnet 29,” I am meant to trust and obey and to be content with my lot. Quite honestly, I have neither earned nor deserved the blessings that are already mine, and to wish them away for those of another is nothing but injurious to my own soul and detrimental to my fellowship with God.