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Trey Lyon
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soul - ache - ideas, sounds and images between the already and the not-yet

please just save me from this darkness (or "Anthony, Luther, and me")


When I was a kid my favorite movie was The Never-ending Story. The enemy in that movie wasn't a sadistic villain or a nefarious force. It was a brooding, stormy blackness simply called "the Nothing."

It's no secret that counselors and therapists are busier from Christmas through the winter months. There's all sorts of theories about the influences of the weather and seasons, not to mention the sobering reality of one less table setting at Christmas dinner, or the "multiple Christmases" to be celebrated amongst once-in-tact families. Somewhere between the trips to the mall and the tree-trimming, our emotions have a way of catching up to us. 

Last night I heard a friend speaking to a group of college students. He talked about the joy of Christmas, but shared stories from his childhood of how Christmas was a time of great emotional pain and darkness. I have to confess that hearing those words made me stare into the long, dark, night of my soul. It has a way of never leaving you--always lurking just beneath the surface. Even if you've gotten good counseling, moved on, put it behind you, it still comes back in cold, shadowy form, creeping up like a fog. If you've ever felt it, you know what I mean. It never completely leaves you.

I remember sitting in a church history class in seminary as we talked about St. Anthony, one of the "Desert Fathers" of the Church. He fled the vices of the city to live in the desert, alone and in communion with God, but he found the voices did not stop calling. His bouts with the demons were so famous that Athanasius, the fiery apologist who presided at the First Ecumenical Council, penned The Life of Anthony  making it one of the first Christian biographies. Anthony is immortalized by medieval artisans, from Schongauer's depiction above to the archetypal Hieronymus Bosch. These devils are the things of nightmares, but they represent the pain, the torture, the temptation, the seduction, the malaise, the miasma of darkness and isolation. 

Luther was afflicted with many of the same thoughts, frequently referring to the Anfechtung , a word that means (we think) trials or tribulations. The renowned poet and spiritual writer Kathleen Norris' latest work speaks to some of the same feelings, using the ancient Greek term acedia , which loosely translates as listlessness tending towards apathy. It is distinguishable from depression, though I think only in the way a blue-jay is from a cardinal--they are members of the same family and with generally the same role and purpose.

(There are clinical levels to all of these things and I am not meaning to suggest that those things should go unseen. If that's you, or someone comes to mind as you read this, please, get help now. Send me an e-mail, we'll track somebody down who can help-you can't do it alone.)

Make This Go On Forever by Snow Patrol  
(download)


I've always struggled with how to push back the darkness when it comes. There is a genuine sense that it would be best to just lay there and let the nothing-ness cover you. I think that's why the words of a Snow Patrol song always come back to me. It's not perfect, but it conveys a lot of the feelings that precede the acedic night of the soul. Even in the midst of the listlessness there's a sense that there was something real--"the final word of the final sentence you ever spoke to me was love"

And then, from the depths, a lilting piano with these words...

And I don't know where to look
 My words just break and melt
Please just save me from this darkness

I can't think of anything truer. We want to believe there's something that can pull us out. 

And that is when the Christ of presence comes. Not in deep existential tones or dramatic whirlwinds, but most often in the presence of another human being reaching out in love.

The writer Anne Lamott says "The most powerful sermon is two words, 'me too'." There is nothing in the world like another human being waiting with us in the darkness.

I was reminded of this yesterday as I read a poem a member of our church had written. I think her words more clearly articulate this idea than this whole post.

here
by Jonnia Smith

here
in your darkness
i will wait
with you

i will hold
your hand
and remind you
of the light
in reverent whispers

i will wipe
your tears
and softly sing
the lilting notes
of hope

here
in your darkness
i will wait
with you

it
does not
own you
it
never
did

 

 

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Filed under  //   anne lamott   church history   darkness   music  
Posted December 3, 2008
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on nostalgia and growth (after a hardcore screamo concert)

I was already having flashbacks.

It started with forgoing the adult bliss of the Starbucks four-dollar latte for the infinitely less expensive $1.29 Quik-Trip french vanilla cappuccino. I thought about it again when I crossed the crowded parking lot in a drizzling mist of rain, cappuccino in hand, my fleece pull-over keeping me warm on a cold post-Thanksgiving night. By the time I paid the admission fee, got my hand marked with the ubiquitous black Sharpie, it was down-right scary. 

The steel gym was slowly crowding with young teenagers, full of angst and bravado. You get the feeling looking at them that they think they could save the world, and for a minute you start to believe they could. The first band warmed up, and gave you the impression things might start on time. Those hopes were dashed when the waifish female singer said "I think that's good, thanks." to the flustered sound guy. The youth of America (or at least suburbia) kept filing in, each one with tighter jeans, snarkier t-shirts, more patterned neck wear than the last. 

One of our college students who showed up said "Dang, these kids are so much cooler than we were in high school. Every one of them looks like they just walked out of Urban Outfitters." I told him it reminded me of that Simpsons episode where Homer goes to Lollapalooza to get shot in the stomach with cannonballs. After the guest-star Smashing Pumpkins finish a song one guy says to another "Man, that song was good." His friend says "Seriously? or are you being ironic?" to which the friend replies "I don't even know anymore." Between the attempts at individuality, there was a sort of haze to this group, equal parts apathy, antipathy and purpose. Everyone seemed so existential. And that was the last straw.

I had been here before, and I was suddenly acutely aware of it. A flood of memories came back, mostly of traversing to tiny venues in old strip malls to see bands of a friend I knew, or a friend of a friend I knew, or the boyfriend of some girl I had once liked, but had asked me to come, so I did. Between the freezing gym, smell of french vanilla gas-station-a-chino, bad sound systems and screaming lead singers, I realized I had come full circle. I had done this same thing 14, 13, 12 years ago.

I, too, had been existential once. I had looked at the prospects of college, settling down, getting a job with benefits, starting a family. I had stared down the American dream and it looked like a great Abyss. My options were clear, either resign myself to malaise or commit to the reality of something much larger, much more significant.

I left memory lane when the keyboard player started talking. He said something like "We're all looking for something, for some purpose, something that says life is worth living. We've found that in the person of Jesus, and we'd be glad to talk to you about it." I was impressed. It was existential, appropriate, and above all, genuine. He kept talking about how heaven was good and hell was bad--really bad, in fact, and how he didn't want any of his friends to go there. He seemed to have a sense that he was saying too much, so he finished with a simple "If you're wondering about any of that, just come talk to one of us--we'd love to talk to you."

At light speed I was out of nostalgia mode, and back to minister mode--thinking how it started so good, but if he'd just left out the burning in eternal fire in the pit of hell stuff. I was thinking what I teach--that yes, eternity is indeed our divine exit strategy, but Jesus seemed far more concerned about the living of these days, and our faithfulness to him then. 

I said "Goodnight" to the parents of our youth who are in the band. She asked me how it sounded. "You couldn't really hear the vocals where we were standing." she said. I actually laughed. Out Loud. Because again I was instantly in the way back machine. I stopped laughing long enough to say "Yeah, you never hear vocals at these kinds of concerts!" I kept thinking about how familiar it all felt, but by the time we got to the Chinese restaurant, we were thinking and talking about what the guy had said--about what that message says about our faith and about our Jesus.

I got in the car with a belly full full of General Tso's and my mind still whirring. I put the iPod on shuffle, believing (as I want to think most people do) that God/Spirit/Fate/Destiny works through the "shuffle all songs" algorithm in the iPod.  I scrolled past more than a few songs until it lighted on this one.

The Freshmen by The Verve Pipe  
(download)

"When I was young I knew everything..." And instantly, I was back. My Ford Explorer felt mysteriously like my beloved 1985 Jeep Cherokee, the smell of French Vanilla still in the air. I would have sworn for a moment I could even smell the "Woods" cologne I once bathed in during my high school years.

I thought about the song, how it spoke to the vanity of youth, but also the hope and despair. I though about what I thought about back in those days--what the future would hold, who I would marry, and whether or not I had just met her at the concert. I thought about where I would go to seminary, how big of a church would I work at, how soon would I pastor a church. And they came back like a flood. I thought about how if I had played keyboard, I would have said something very similar to what that kid had said.

And then I thought about how far I'd come. How the me at 16 wouldn't recognize the me at 30. How the teenage me wouldn't allow the 30 year old me into his church. How we would vote differently, act differently, speak differently, believe differently, care differently. I wanted to think I'd made a bunch of progress, but by my 16-year old definitions of success, I am a miserable failure. 

The truth is, I don't feel like a miserable failure. I'm not saying I'm an unmitigated success either--there was no dance of joy for age and wisdom.

Maya Angelou uses small words to convey big ideas. She says something like "when you know better, you do better." I feel a lot of that. 

I feel like I'm doing better, loving better, learning more and more how to act like Jesus would really act.

Two weeks ago Jen and I were at my alma mater, the McAfee School of Theology (not where the 16 year-old me would have planned on going to seminary, I might add).

Loyd Allen is a professor with a painful habit of diagnosing and speaking truth, regardless of whether or not you find it to be comfortable. He relayed a simple message on growth that I had forgotten, or more likely, ignored (the 16 year-old me's bravado still shows up at points).

He said most folks send people to seminary to get "more of the same." "They expect you to come back and regurgitate things you've learned that are really just another level of depth of that which you already know". This is something like looking at an acorn, planting it and expecting to get a 20 pound acorn instead of the one pound acorn. The acorn can't stay an acorn, it has to grow to become a tree--and that means all kind of branching and stretching into new territories and ideas. "But the people who sent you here", said the bow-tied professor, "they don't understand that. You will come back and say I'm becoming a tree and they'll say (at which point he points severely and takes a dramatic step forward) 'We sent you to become a bigger acorn. That is not what we sent you there for--You have changed!'"

Somewhere between the Verve Pipe and Loyd Allen it all made some sense. This "growth" business we talk about in the life of faith has precious little to do with information and everything to do living the incarnation.

So I am learning I don't know everything, but I know some things.

I am learning that I can still grow and stretch and have the courage to tell people that is real growth, not girth.

I am learning that I can love and be loved (with or without "Woods" cologne).

I am learning the 45-year old me may not know what to make of the 30-year old me.

I am learning that I am not the same now as I was then, by the sheer grace of God alone.

And I am learning that it wasn't so bad to be there then, because even my most glaring moments of bad belief, thought and practice are part of the process.

I am learning that as long as I am breathing, I am growing, and as long as I am growing there is still hope.

Thanks be to God.

   
Click here to download:
on_nostalgia_and_growth_after_.zip (206 KB)

 

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Filed under  //   faith   growth   music   nostalgia   rock concerts  
Posted December 2, 2008
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like a broken record (or Beyonce, Sonseed and a Psalm)

I'm getting sick and while I'm still trying to get out from under the NyQuil hangover, my evening was bookended by a common theme--repetition.


Jen and I were catching up on our TiVo last night and finally got around to watching Saturday Night live from this past week.I'm tempted to talk about how Kenan Thompson for a split second reminded me of the great Chris Farley or how funny Justin Timberlake actually is, which thwarts my loathing of him for being so freakishly good at many things. Somewhere in between Beyonce "performed" songs from her new album, the curiously idiosyncratic "I am Sasha Fierce". ( I hope this identity crisis doesn't go down the way the whole Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines thing did, but now I'm rambling.)

She did one song that she half-sang, half-danced that was something along the lines of "ringtone pop" but it was so catchy that I went to bed with the melody firmly implanted in my brain. Like a broken record, it just kept repeating, on and on and on and on...

Then this morning, while checking my facebook (the 21st century equivalent to walking out and getting the paper) I find a friend has posted this video:


I had heard of this video and resisted watching it, but resistance is, as they say, futile. I DARE you to watch it and not have the infectious bass line in your head. Wait until you check e-mail after lunch and catch that pre-ska rhythm and curiously adorned back-up singers running through your head.

Repetition, supposedly, teaches us things. I can sing every word off the DC Talk "Free at Last" album (seriously, Jen and I quizzed each other on the way to church Sunday). I can do this because I listened to the tape (and CD, once I got my CD player) approximately 38 quadrillion times. Beyonce and "Sonseed" are memorable because the hook-i-ness of their songs repeat so often that you can't get it out of your head without replacing it with another, equally annoying song. (Poe got this--even if you kill "The Raven" there will always be something else)

All these things were running through my mind when I sat down to read my Daily Lectionary readings. I get them by e-mail, which is an awfully lazy way to do any kind of "spiritual discipline", but I like to think it's like having a home gym--it's there, but you still gotta do the work. Anyway, for some reason I don't understand, the Revised Common Lectionary loops through the latter half of the Psalms this year. I've been in Psalm 140-150 the whole year and I've almost got the dang thing memorized because I keep reading it. Today was Psalm 146 (again)

 

DAILY LECTIONARY

Morning: Psalm 146:1-10

[1] Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul!
[2] I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

[3] Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
[4] When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

[5] Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God,
[6] who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
[7] who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

[8] the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
[9] The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

[10] The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the LORD!

I find myself saying "Okay God, I get this one--can we move on? Some new material perhaps? I know--I bet this Habakkuk reading will have something good!!"
And today I noticed the repetition. not just of the Psalm in my inbox, but the phrase "the LORD". 

Truth be told, this has quickly become a "new favorite" passage for me but it was, after all, once a song. Maybe even one with an annoying tune that gets stuck in your head. And it reminds me that when I'm tempted to think I'm the one doing all these things--opening blind eyes, watching over strangers, widows, the oppressed and the down-trodden--well, I've seriously lost the plot. 

It's a holy thing to join God in the restoration of all things, but it can wear you down. The vicious cycle of use and abuse is enough repetition to drive anyone mad. 

Maybe we just need to be reminded that God is working it out with and without us.

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Filed under  //   culture   music   Psalms  
Posted November 18, 2008
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