As I was walking through a cemetery next to my brother’s house in New Hampshire I saw this inscription on the gravestone of a 14 year old girl.

“Stop youth as you pass by, remember you are born to die.”

It seemed to be a very dark final comment when surrounded by the hopeful quips of after life and new dawnings.

from. Youtube

“Enough,” said the judge.
There was utter silence all around me. And now for the first time I knew what I had been doing. While I was reading, it had, once and again, seemed strange to me that the reading took so long; for the book was a small one. Now I knew that I had been reading it over and over–perhaps a dozen times. I would have read it forever, quick as I could, starting the first word again almost before the last was out of my mouth, if the judge had not stopped me. And the voice I read it in was strange to my ears. There was given to me a certainty that this, at last, was my real voice.
There was silence in the dark assembly long enough for me to have read my book out yet again. At last the judge spoke.
“Are you answered?” he said.
“Yes,” said I.

– CS Lewis – ‘Til We Have Faces

4 Restore our fortunes, Lord,
as streams renew the desert.
5 Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
6 They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest.

You know you are down south when…..A guy drives by your jobsite and yells 3 times “You harn?” You realize minutes after he’s gone he was actually asking if you had any jobs available.

Sinead O’Connor released an album in 2007 named “Theology”.  It is an awesome album with great depth and insight.  There are several songs that stand out to me for their artistry and her incredible vocal talents.  But one, this week, is haunting me for its lyrical depth.

Out Of The Depths

Out of the depths I cry to you oh lord
don’t let my cries for mercy be ignored
If you keep account of sins  who would stand?
But you have forgiveness in your hands

And I’ve heard religion say you’re to be feared
But I don’t buy into everything I hear
And it seems to me you’re hostage to those rules
That were made by religion and not by you

And I’m wondering will you ever get yourself free
Is it bad to think you might like help from me?
Is there anything my little heart can do
To help religion share us with you?

For you’re like a ghost in your own home
Nobody hears you crying all alone
Oh you are the one true really voiceless one
They have their backs turned to you for worship of gold and stone

And to see you prisoner makes me weep
Nobody hears you screaming in the streets
And it’s sad but true how the old saying goes
If God lived on earth people would break his windows

I long for you as watchmen long for the end of night

There are a few things that stand out to me from these lines.  The first is probably heightened by the question asked of me by Gwen this past Sunday.  She asked,

Why are there denominations?

I was ready with an answer but I held it in check.  I could’ve answered with spite and anger,  “Denominations are sets of beliefs that define who you don’t fellowship with.”   I won’t deny that my opinion on denominations isn’t far from that.  But when asked by my 11 year old I did feel the need to temper it with a bit of a filter that would take the edge off the bile behind my teeth.  I quickly scrambled on a mental search for a better way to say it…..and came up with “Denominations are groups of people that believe the same.”  I thought I’d done my duty and gotten myself out of stirring the theological pot with my daughter…I thought.

Gwen followed with a retelling of a conversation with a friend of her’s who had explained to her that you HAD to be in a denomination.  You couldn’t just be a christian.  And there we were.  Right in the middle of the conversation I’d tried to avoid.

Think what you want about the subject or my opinion of the subject but I know this is true – Denominations weren’t Jesus’ idea and I’m sure he wouldn’t approve.

What does this have to do with the song above?  These lines –  “And it seems to me you’re hostage to those rules, that were made by religion and not by you.”

Sinead hits it on the head here.  I strongly suspect that every denomination thinks they have it the most right.  We all have our sets of ways to see, understand, have faith in God.  The truth, again, is that we all have it wrong.  There will not be a special seat in heaven for that one person among us who got it just right.  The one who understood God perfectly.  We all get it wrong.

All of us are wrong.

And even knowing that, we set up our particular collection of beliefs that describe, and limit, entrance into our club.

Instead of unity on our commonalities we choose separation on our differences.  The enemy laughs.  Have you ever heard “Divide and Conquer”?  A military tactic that has been known and used for centuries.

Sinead goes on, a few lines later, to reveal her desire to be a solution to this problem – “Is there anything my little heart can do to help religion share us with you?”.  Maybe, she ponders, her efforts can somehow overcome the divisions created by religion’s rules and connect people with God in spite of religion.

She goes on to describe her sorrow at seeing the travesty of religion as a barrier to God.  But, for me, it is the last line that resonates.

Religion has definitely been a barrier between God and I.  Critique away as to how this shouldn’t be or how it can be different, but it is.  And that is exactly why the last lines carry such import for me.

I long for you as watchmen long for the end of night

The watchman remembers what daylight was like.  When his shift began it was probably light.  Heck, he’d lived his whole life on this planet and he knew what the sun was and he knew its schedule.  But in the night, when there is no trace of the light that rules the day he finds himself longing for the moment when he would see it again.  Criticize him for his shortsightedness, his lack of faith, his downright stupidity but in the middle of the night the darkness seemed the most real and the light seemed a dream.

I remember times when there weren’t barriers (or at least fewer barriers) between God and I.  But right now it feels like night and, like the watchman, I wait for the morning and hope that the sun isn’t just a dream.

I’m not sure if Sinead intended the meaning I took from her song  but I suspect so.  Thanks Sinead for putting to words emotions I wrestle with.

And…to answer your question, Sinead, yes, there is something your heart can do to help.  You’ve already done it.

Remind us that our conversation is with God, not with religion.

I was driving around Baltimore yesterday in the course of my job.  While I do that, if I’m not on the phone, I tend to flip radio stations.  Most often, I spend less than 5 seconds on each station.  I will sometimes scan stations for my entire commute never once stopping to listen to anything I’ve heard.  Unless it really catches my ear I’m hitting that scan button again.  (Some of you are thinking ADD but that is an accusation I’ll have to defend in another post!)

Since nothing caught my ear on the FM dial I switched to the AM dial.  On the AM dial it is most unlikely that I’ll stop for anything.  Of course, that could be a result of me only giving 5 seconds for each talk show to impress me!

But yesterday I did stop on a station on the AM dial.  As I found out later, I had stopped to listen to a preacher that had passed away back in 1988.  He had a program that would go through the bible day by day.  I don’t remember what passage he was talking about.  What I do remember was this story he told….I paraphrase.

My wife had just had our first child.  It was first thing in the morning when I rushed to the hospital.  When I arrived a nurse met me and told me that the doctor would like to speak to me.  Based on how serious the nurse looked I was concerned.  I went immediately to the doctor who told me that the baby had died.

He hadn’t told my wife yet.  So I went in to her and told her.  We wept together and prayed together for hours.  When I finally left the room I went alone on to a nearby porch.  I looked straight up into the sky and asked one question.  “Why?!”

I have never stopped asking that question and I’ve never received an answer.

He went on to say that even though he asked and wondered how this could’ve happened and why this would’ve happened, he still stayed in that conversation with God.  He said that he never understood those who faced tragedy and immediately said they were fine with it…that they simply trusted.  He said it seemed to him as if they were simply trying to say the right things in order to look the part while all the anguish and confusion and anger was just covered over and hid away.  To him it seemed less hypocritical to say “God I don’t understand why you’ve done/allowed something so painful and damaging.” rather than saying “It’s all good.” while never expressing what we really think about it.

I think what impressed me about this story was the age of the man saying it.  It wasn’t said by one of my cultural peers but by someone who truly was “old school”.  He was probably in his 80′s when he said this.  He had spent many decades trying to follow after God.  But even that far in he hadn’t gained an air of superiority in his faith nor forgotten the lessons he learned when he was young.

I have had many friends tell me the same thing over the last few years and I appreciate every one of them.  But every time I hear it again from a different messenger it makes me feel that maybe I’m not on the wrong track.

This preacher went on to say that he would never understand why God took his child and he would never stop asking why.  He also wouldn’t stop thinking that someday he would get an answer.  That someday it would all be explained satisfactorily.

As I said, he passed away in ’88.  I wonder how he feels now that he has his answers.