This past week my best friend and wife and co-worker
launched a sub-set of Ransom’s web site called Margie’s Stuff. You can find it
here.
On Margie’s Stuff there are essays, short pieces, recipes,
audio recordings, and a link to her blog, Toads Drink Coffee. She has an
uncanny ability to tell stories of ordinary life while showing the
extraordinary ways grace reveals itself in humor and suffering and bright
glimpses of glory. That is something we were taught by Francis Schaeffer back
in the Sixties—that faithfulness in the ordinary things of life is where true
significance is found—and Margie is better able to tease out the truth of that
better than anyone I know.
There is something refreshing about someone who publishes a
Bible reading program “for Slackers and Shirkers,” while insisting the title
refers to herself. Or who finds glimmers of grace in an infestation of moths in
her pantry, or who insists that cooking with cast iron can be glorifying to God
even if you aren’t doing it for a church potluck, or who finds simple
hospitality a chance to bring a measure of healing and rest into busy people’s
lives. The sort of person who can read the Christmas story and find this:
From the Advent story
one of the characters we don’t hear much about because she’s such a minor
player is Anna. What attracts me is that she’s old, like really old. Luke tells
us “she was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when
she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left
the temple worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day” (Luke 2: 35-37).
It seems she never forgot the memories of her young husband and his untimely
death which could have left her angry and bitter. Probably her joints ached,
her skin sucked, and her eyes got gunkier each morning. From a modern
perspective she didn’t have much of a life, although her contemporaries called
her a prophetess. One morning in walks this couple with a baby, one among
hundreds, maybe thousands she’s already seen, but she has the clarity of
truthfulness and purpose that helps her recognize something different about
this baby—he’s The Christ of God. She walks over to touch this child that all the
world is waiting for, and there in front of everyone she blesses him and thanks
God.
In the Gospel of Luke
in the chapter just before we hear about Anna, Zachariah, the father of John
the Baptist, says a profound thing, and I think it captures exactly what Anna
was doing with her life. He says that the Messiah is going “…to rescue us from
the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness
and righteousness before him all our days…” (Luke 1:74,75) Which is exactly
what Anna was doing, right there in the temple with corns on her toes and moles
on her neck.
If I am busy
considering either my body or time as enemies then I have succumbed to a
limited perspective which is informed by my senses and, more subtly, by
cultural pressures that determine whether we are good, successful, disciplined,
worthy people, thanks to iCalendar, diet, and proper exercise. Both body and
time are gifts that enable me to serve God in holiness and righteousness
“before him (embodied) all our days.” That means being contented with
twenty-four hour days where God says it’s good to live – from babyhood to end
the of life. If I understand Anna’s life correctly, this child she blessed has
the power to transform our fearful concentration on self (in whatever form),
forgive our complaints, and direct us in acts of service to others.
So, I commend Margie’s Stuff to you. Not because I have too,
but because on a world wide web crowded with nonsense and knowledge, it is a
space devoted to wisdom.
Several times over the past year a friend has commented that Christians he knows have asked him why I review “worldly music” in Critique and on Ransom’s web site. I wish they would have asked me directly, but they haven’t. So I thought I’d post an answer here in the hope they find it.
I appreciate your question. It represents a desire to be holy, to be set apart from what is sinful. It means you take seriously Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians to stay clear of inappropriate relationships in a fallen world. “‘Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them,’ says the Lord, ‘and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you.’” (6:17). John issues a similar warning. “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15).
Paul defines being separate for the Corinthians by identifying relationships with non-Christians that involve compromise. He asks how God and idols, light and darkness can possibly be mixed. And in his first letter to them Paul explicitly instructed them not to withdraw from non-Christians—he even insisted that it is wrong for us to judge them (1 Corinthians 5:9-13). And when John warns us to not love the world, he is careful to define what he means. “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 John 2:16). Notice he doesn’t list things like art, music and culture, but sinful desires. What is worldly is not that which is produced by non-Christians, but the seductive systems of thought and desire that a fallen world erect in rebellion to God’s proper reign as Sovereign. In other words, building something is not wrong; building the tower of Babel was.
In Creation, human beings were made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), given a mandate to care for and cultivate God’s world (1:28), and when our first parents exercised their creativity in poetry (2:23) and naming God’s creatures (2:20), God was pleased, including Adam’s poem in his Word and refraining from naming the animals himself (2:19). All of Scripture reveals the creativity of God’s people (see, for example, Exodus 35:30-35 and Psalms), and he has graciously told us that even after the Fall the creativity of unbelievers can be appreciated and celebrated because the image of God remains in them (Genesis 4:20-22).
At the Fall, a violent and fatal break occurred. Death and wickedness poured out of the human heart, perverting every relationship, bringing darkness as the sons of Adam and daughters of Eve preferred idols to the true God. How we understand the Fall and it’s relationship to the world we live in makes a great deal of difference. Misunderstand it, and we begin to believe a false gospel.
Think of it this way. Imagine that this list includes all of God’s creation when he called it into existence and declared it good—very good, in fact:
worship
spirituality
family
work
rest
gardening
art
animals
plants
matter
energy
Now we need to ask how the Fall effected that list. There are, by and large, two possible answers. One answer says that what’s wrong is rooted in the very structure of creation. That there is a break between what is secular or worldly on one side and what is spiritual or heavenly on the other. God is pleased with the first, but not the second. In this view, the list looks like this:
worship
spirituality
family
work
rest
gardening
art
animals
plants
matter
energy
In this view, gardening is on the physical not the spiritual side. It’s not exactly sinful to have a garden, but we can make it more pleasing to God if we share the produce with our non-Christian neighbors and use the chance to let them know how to be saved. The same would be true for all secular pursuits—they may not be sinful, per se, but they aren’t on the spiritual side, either.
Now, what I am going to say may surprise or even offend you, but I hope you will consider it carefully. The view I have just explained is not a biblical perspective, but is instead rooted in a neo-pagan Greek view of reality. It is a popular idea among Christians—and has been popular for 2000 years—but that doesn’t make it correct. In a biblical view of things, there is no division between spiritual and physical, between sacred and secular. The biblical perspective is this:
wors hip
spiri tuality
fam ily
wo rk
re st
garde ning
ar t
ani mals
pla nts
mat ter
ene rgy
The Bible teaches us that at the Fall a moral rupture occurred that runs through all of life. There is no sacred/secular division. What is spiritual is not more pleasing to God than what is physical. Evangelism is not more pleasing to God than farming, and reading my Bible is not more spiritual than reading fiction. In the biblical view, although I may desire to worship God in spirit and truth, my worship is always marred by my sinfulness, even if I can’t identify exactly how. And sometimes I can identify how—whether pride in doing it right, or impatience with those who I think pray poorly. All art is thus affected, both music produced by Christians and that produced by non-Christians. In fact, the music produced by Christians may, sadly, exhibit less truth and beauty that music produced by non-Christians.
So, we need to be discerning—about all of life and culture—which is why I review the music I do in Critique and on Ransom’s web site. Just as all truth is God’s truth, all beauty is God’s beauty. The scientist that discovers a cure for rheumatoid arthritis may not be a Christian, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t discovered real truth. Artists like Sigur Ros and Radiohead may not be Christians but that doesn’t mean that they don’t produce hauntingly beautiful music. And since the work of our hands and minds reveal what we really believe about the things that matter most, listening to the music of our culture can help us understand how to engage our neighbors and co-workers with the gospel in a way they might be able to understand.
I know that if you think I review worldly music, what I’ve written here may come as a shock. I am saying you have adopted a perspective—unsuspectingly and perhaps unconsciously—that causes you to misread the Scriptures you love. It’s a very serious matter. The notion that what’s wrong from the Fall is rooted in the structure of creation (a spiritual/physical, sacred/secular divide in life) is properly referred to as the Gnostic heresy. The biblical gospel, in sharp contrast, says that all of life across all of culture, lived to God’s glory and under Christ’s Lordship, is equally pleasing to God. This is really very important—a Gnostic faith is not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Much more needs to be said, to make a compelling case for what I am saying, but this is a post on a blog not a book. So let me recommend three books worth reading:
Being Human: The Nature of Spiritual Experience by Jerram Barrs and Ranald Macaulay (IVP). These two former L’Abri workers address the question of a sacred/secular dichotomy in detail, carefully moving through the Scriptures and showing how neo-pagan thought has sadly infiltrated Christian circles.
Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian (forthcoming from Multnomah). The grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham explores in careful detail what it means to be separate from the world, and the difference it makes.
Art and the Bible by Francis Schaeffer (IVP). A short booklet that introduces a distinctly biblical understanding of art and culture.
Please read them, and reflect on what I have written. It would be far better if we had a chance to talk, so I can be certain I know what you mean by your question. If I misunderstand what you meant, please let me know. But if behind your notion of “worldly music” is the idea that art is less important than, say, missions, that pursuing spiritual things like evangelism is more pleasing to God that doing something physical, like art, or that the music of non-Christians is intrinsically something of the world we must withdraw from, please hear me. Your entire understanding of Christian spirituality is less than biblical, and the gospel you profess is perverted with Gnostic elements.
It’s not, in the end, an issue of what music we like or happen to listen to. It’s a matter of what gospel we profess.
Our wedding anniversary actually came in June, but it was a busy time and a special enough milestone that we decided to wait to celebrate it until we took some time off in the fall. No big party, but the chance to be together for 2 weeks in a special place, in this case a beautiful townhouse loaned to us (more on that later) just outside the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.
We even enjoyed the 2-day drive in Pearl Blue from Rochester. It was a chance for quiet, looking at the changing landscape (from gently rolling farmland to open ranch land to mountains), listening to music, and talking.
We’ve gone on several hikes, each memorable. One took us through woods, through two lovely meadows, to a cold stream so clear we could see trout, if we looked hard enough, hovering motionless just off the bottom. The air was full of grasshoppers, so we caught several and tossed them in the water. They would float in the current, then move, and in a flash a trout would rise to the surface and the grasshopper disappeared in a splash.
The chef is extraordinary; the restaurant is the sort of place where in between courses a server appears with something we didn’t order, “complements of the chef.” I suspect Margie will be blogging about the meal too, so I’ll just mention 3 (!) of the courses I had. For a starter I had Warm Heirloom Tomato & Goat Cheese Tart (with peppery greens and caramel vinaigrette). It was presented so beautifully I forgot to take a picture. To die for. My entree was Pan Seared Millbrook Farm Venison (with sweet corn flan & ragout of summer vegetables). To die for.
The last 6 months have been difficult financially, and for a time we did not know if we could make this trip. Income to Ransom has been very low, though opportunities to write and speak have been expanding. We are here, and were able to celebrate so royally at Devil’s Thumb due the generosity of dear friends. You are a grace to us, Henry and Peggy, and we are more grateful than we can possibly express. Thank you.
1. It’s where my beloved Margie was born and raised.
2. Jesse Ventura.
3. Prairie Home Companion, where Garrison Keillor, one of America’s best storytellers, brings the grace of humor, faith, and hope each week on NPR.
4. The University of Minnesota, where I met my beloved.
5. Each spring, enjoying a piece of homemade fresh strawberry rhubarb pie, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
6. The thistle feeder hanging in the pine tree outside my office window in Toad Hall where gold finches gather each day to squabble and feed.
7. Firebrick Ale brewed at Schell Brewery, New Ulm, MN.
8. Brilliant fall colors on the trees—maple, birch, oak, mountain ash, poplar—reflected in the water of the Mississippi River.
9. Winter snowstorms after which people cross-country ski down the middle of city streets.
10. Northern lights.
11. Each autumn, enjoying a dish of homemade apple crisp, with a dollop of freshly whipped sweet cream.
12. Seeing “The Christmas Carol” performed at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
13. Bitterly cold evenings in winter when we light candles, brew Jasmine tea, turn on music, and read in the living room.
14. Being ordained a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.
15. Having the Minnesota Twins win the World Series without having fans riot. One sign was broken, true, when a fan head-butted it, but that’s about it. When a journalist asked the police chief why things were different than other large cities after winning the Series, he said simply, “Well, this is Minnesota.”
16. Winter nights so cold that the hot water circulating through the radiators in Toad Hall occasionally makes snapping sounds in the pipes.
17. Kirby Puckett.
18. The succession of Rochester L’Abri Fellowship Workers—Lloyd & Libby Davies, Ann Brown Ingraham, Greg & MaryJane Grooms, and Larry & Nancy Snyder—who have been dear friends, kindred spirits, and partners in the gospel.
19. Fishing with Greg Grooms in the lovely trout stream just outside Chatfield, MN.
20. Hearing Greg Brown perform live at Oak Center.
21. Toad Hall.
22. Family farms where we’re able to get to know the people who raise the organic, free range chickens, turkeys, beef, and pork which grace our table and fill our freezer.
23. Resting, hiking, and reading at a cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior.
24. Watching the lights of ore boats creep across the horizon at night from the cabin on Lake Superior.
25. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
26. Every Christmas is white.
27. It’s where I proposed to my beloved—and wonder of wonders, she said yes.
28. The rich black soil of southern MN farmland.
29. Three months spent studying with Francis Schaeffer in 1981 in Rochester.
30. Taking Community Ed classes with Margie to learn to waltz in preparation of my oldest daughter’s wedding reception.
31. Hearing wolves howl in the woods around our tents while camping as a family on a remote island in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
32. The gently rolling farmland—pasture land and fields of corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa, oats, barley—which stretches out as far as the eye can see.
33. Deer hunting on the Canadian border with my son.
34. Smoked Lake Superior whitefish from Russ Kendall’s Smokehouse on Scenic Highway 61 in Knife River, MN eaten with a dab of cream cheese on a cracker.
35. The wedding of my youngest daughter held in the home of a friend, the room transformed by flowers, candles, and friends.
36. The screened-in Toad Hall back porch.
37. Our Toad Hall back yard, enclosed by hedges, complete with flowers, bird feeders, and birdbath.
38. Bob Dylan’s birthplace.
39. Fireflies punctuating the dark with flashes on summer evenings.
40. The purple house finches who nest each year in the hanging plants on Toad Hall’s front porch.
41. Award winning maple syrup purchased from Wild Country Maple Syrup deep in the Superior National Forest outside Lutsen, MN.
42. Stopping to watch a huge bull moose look at us, and then slowly move through the brush as we drive out of Wild Country Maple Syrup.
43. Driving through the countryside so we can watch the changing seasons in the annual cycle of farming (plowed soil, growing crops, harvest, and the winter rest under frost and snow).
44. Football fans (Minnesota Vikings) are guaranteed to learn humility.
45. Freshly fallen snow glistening like a myriad diamonds in bright sunlight.
46. Pipestone National Monument with all its rich cultural, historical, and spiritual importance for Native American peoples.
47. Living in Toad Hall for long enough (since 1981) that I finally know what it meant to have roots.
48. Being from a part of the country where the Scandinavian heritage means that “Could have been worse,” or “Not too bad” are considered compliments.
49. Ransom Fellowship.
50. Having enough snow some winters years ago that our children could build a snow ramp from the tip of the garage roof down into the back yard.
51. Each spring civil defense sirens warn of possible tornados so we can dash out onto the front porch with a camera.
52. It’s the place where my beloved and I have grown older, hopefully wiser, becoming closer, dearer friends.
In a post (9/2/08) on her blog, Toads Drink Coffee, Margie told how on a recent trip the TSA agent at the airport confiscated the Swiss army knife she had in her purse. She had forgotten it was there, and though he was polite, he was firm—the knife couldn’t be allowed through. He had to dig for it, which may have suggested to him it was hidden there, but the truth is it was simply buried under all the stuff she carries. In any case, apparently even being a white haired grandmother from Minnesota was not enough to convince the authorities she would not use the wee blade in some nefarious manner.
She also told how a sweet family in Birmingham, on our last night there, kindly presented her with a new Swiss army knife. What she failed to mention, however—I’m not certain why—was that the same agent confiscated from me a 50” plasma flat screen TV.