The Mondays, Transposition, and Dads

The Psalm for this weeks worship is Psalm 100. If I'm honest, as I first read the passage, I made absolutely no connection to it. Shout to the Lord? Worship Him? Give Him thanks? I really was not excited about Him. Yes, I had just returned from the North Shore of Minnesota and saw great crashing waves dash igneous rocks with superior power. Id seen sunsets, taken naps, eaten plenty, hung out with my brother, biked cross-country ski trails and hiked through Cascade River State Park. Id even returned to the welcome sight of my fiancée. Its not to deny the goodness of those things. In fact, Id say that God spoke to me through the goodness of those things.

The problem was, I had to go back to work. There are all sorts of reasons to work. God created man to work, even before the fall, I know, yet I was and am tired of concocting presentations that may or may not lead people to Shout to the Lord. Its all a very personal business, anyway. What if someone doesn't want to sing or think about God? Its sort of humiliating to raise your hands in a worship service anyway. Who just sings songs to God out of the blue anyway? (birds, yes, I know)

Well, besides a bad case of the Mondays, I was overwhelmed by my upcoming wedding and marriage. It didn't have anything especially to do with my fiancée. Old doubts flood me. Do I have what it takes to love a woman for a lifetime? How will you keep your job from overrunning your personal life? You don't have a personal life anyway, my self would answer. You're no good unless you produce, boy, so get back on the wheel.

My best self-assessment was that there was something wrong, so I did what I often do, which is call my mom. Supportive as she was, it wasn't what I needed. I was miserable and in need of a dad. I lost my dad when I was four, so I when I'm left with tough questions, Ive learned that God is my dad and I pray. And somehow, something good often happens. Well, this time, I was just upset that I had to go through that whole process again.

By Tuesday, I had such a bad attitude, that I was going nuts. I decided to call on a couple of older guys and let them in on what was happening, my roommate being one of them. Dave is a tremendous listener and I really think he understands the irreparable gap in my life. Rick was also key in letting me vent about some job stuff. And I know I have others that I can go to, too. Even my neighbor Tom this morning offering me a poached egg was a helpful.

The kicker seemed to be reading a sermon by C.S. Lewis about Transposition. He argues for the correlation of things natural to be rooted in things spiritual. For example, music from an orchestra is often reduced into piano arrangements. It is sad for the one who knows the glory of the former over the latter, but it is representative and communicative of the former. The reduction could easily become all anyone ever knows of the piece, if it stays un-orchestrated. However, the existence of the reduction doesn't mean the orchestration doesn't exist, it serves as a reminder of the glory of the original. The same is said of things spiritual, the reduction of whatever is spiritual into our natural terms doesn't mean the full orchestra of a spiritual symphony doesn't exist. It just means that what is seen currently is a shadow of reality.

In terms of my life, for example, my mind can easily doubt God when he is talked about as Father. I have no human father to draw from. I could easily doubt who He is. I can play the victim card. No doubt, that loss does make me a victim in some ways. Nonetheless, the life I lead on the physical level is only a reduction of something else. The lack of the presence of a dad in my life doesn't mean dads, don't exist. Of course they do. Ive seen hundreds of dads, and envy the objects of their love, if I'm honest. Still, the point is that those dads don't come from no where to become loving dads. The goodness that resides in this world from father to son is not a mere happenstance of biology or psychology that generates ones who are fitter than others. Human dad-like love is only a piano reduction at best. It gets the melody across, has tremendous melodic and emotional power and certainly can move the soul.

It is the existence (or absence) of that dad-like love that leads to either extreme pessimism (my case, at times) or a curiosity, and perhaps faith in where that love comes from. Lewis case points to a strong Father with symphonic tendencies who will show off his fatherliness in natural ways. It happened to me this week. Through Rick, Dave, Tom. Natural questions about life and support I would have needed through a dad came through men who know how to be a dad. I am thankful that they took notice.

Back to the psalm. Not only do I have to lead folks in joyful songs on Sunday as part of a job, I want to. Thanks to a great Dad and a few men and women, this week I will be able to honestly do that. It will happen not because of some emotional trick I can pull, for I am really not that sly. Rather, I agree with what I see at the end of the Psalm, The Lord is good and His love endures forever. I needed the experience of this week to testify to the goodness of the Lord. I needed the supernatural symphony to explode into my morose pianistic reduction of life. May his faithfulness continue through all generations, this fatherless one all the more.