"Love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered." Bono on the grace of Advent

Bono’s thoughts on Advent from an extended interview he did in 2004:

I remember coming back from a very long tour.  I hadn’t been at home for months.  Got home for Christmas, very excited of being in Dublin.  Dublin at Christmas is cold, but it’s lit up, it’s like a Carnival in the cold. 

On Christmas Eve, I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  I had done school there for a year.  It’s where Jonathan Swift was Dean.  Anyway, some of my Church of Ireland friends were going.  It’s kind of a tradition on Christmas Eve to go, but I’d never been.  I went to this place, sat.  I was given a really bad seat, behind one of the huge pillars.  I couldn’t see anything.  I was sitting there, having come back from Tokyo or somewhere like that.  I went for the singing, because I love choral singing.  Community arts, a specialty!  But I was falling asleep, being up for a few days, traveling, because it was a bit boring, the service, and I just started nodding off since I couldn’t see a thing. 

Then I started to try and keep myself awake studying what was on the page.  It dawned on me for the first time, really.  It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story.  The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough.  That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in poverty, in shit and straw…a child…I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry…unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable.  There it was. 

I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, the utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this. You see, love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered.  To me, it makes sense.  It’s actually logical.  It’s pure logic.  Essence has to manifest itself.  It’s inevitable.  Love has to become an action or something concrete.  It would have to happen.  There must be an incarnation.  Love must be made flesh.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ.  Christ taught that God is love.  What does that mean?  What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ.  Love here describes itself as a child born in raw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor.  I don’t let my religious world get too complicated.  I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is.  God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion.  Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love.  Now, that’s not easy.

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ.  The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.  I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery.  The children of God are running amok, wayward.  Maybe that’s why they’re so relatable. 

But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend.  When you’re a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules.  But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship.  The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. I really believe we have moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma.  You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or opposite one.  It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe.  I’m absolutely sure of it. 

And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “As you reap, so will you sow” stuff.  Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.  I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge.  I’d be in deep shit.  It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace.  I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

(From Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas, copyright 2006, Riverhead Books)

Pi's ponderings on Jesus

This is one of my most choice excerpts from Yann Martel’s novel, The Life of Pi. Twelve-year-old Piscine, or “Pi” for short, was raised Hindu by his mother, but also trained to have a skeptical mind by his atheist father. This sequence takes place while he and his family are on vacation in the northern part of India. His older brother dares him to enter a small Catholic cathedral…which no one in their family had ever done before.

I dared to enter the church.  My stomach was in knots.  I was terrified I would meet a Christian who would shout at me, “What are you doing here? How dare you enter this sacred place, you defiler!  Get out, right now!”

There was no one.  And little to be understood. I advanced and observed the inner sanctum.  There was a painting. Was this the murti? Something about a human sacrifice. An angry god who had to be appeased with blood.  Dazed women staring up in the air and fat babies with tiny wings flying about. A charismatic bird.  Which one was the god?  To the side of the sanctum was a painted wooden sculpture.  The victim again, bruised and bleeding in bold colors.  I stared at his knees.  They were badly scraped. The pink skin was peeled back and looked like the petals of a flower, revealing kneecaps that were fire-engine red.  It was hard to connect this torture with the peaceful priest I had seen from a distance in the rectory the day before.

Catholics have a reputation for severity, for judgment that comes down heavily. My experience with Father Martin was not like that. He was very kind.  He served me tea and biscuits in a tea set that tinkled and rattled at every touch; he treated me like a grown-up; and he told me a story.  Or rather, since Christians are so fond of capital letters, a Story.

And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief.  What? Humanity sins but its God’s Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, “Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas.  Yesterday another one killed a black buck.  Last week to of them ate the camel.  The week before it was painted storks and grey herons.  And who’s to say for sure who snacked on the golden agouti? The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done.  I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them.”

“Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do.  Give me a moment to wash up.”

“Hallelujah, my son.”

“Hallelujah, Father.”

What a downright weird story.  What a peculiar psychology.

I asked for another story, one that I might find more satisfying.  Surely this religion had more than one story in its bag—religions abound with stories.  But Father Martin made me understand that the stories that came before it—and there were many—were simply prologue to the Christians.  Their religion had one Story, and to it they came back again and again, over and over. It was story enough for them.

I was quiet that evening at the hotel.

That a god should put up with adversity, I could understand.  The gods of Hinduism face their fair share of thieves, bullies, kidnappers, and usurpers.  What is the Ramayana but the account of one long, bad day for Rama? Adversity, yes.  Reversals in fortune, yes. Treachery, yes. But humiliation? Death? I couldn’t imagine Lord Krishna consenting to being stripped naked, whipped, mocked, dragged through the streets, and, to top it off, crucified at the hands of mere humans, to boot. I’d never heard of a Hindu god dying. Brahman Revealed did not go for death. Devils and monsters did, as did mortals, by the thousands and millions—that’s what they were there for. Matter, too, fell away.  But divinity should not be blighted by death. It’s wrong…

Why would God wish this upon himself? Why not leave death to the mortals? Why make dirty what was beautiful, spoil what is perfect?

Love.  That was Father Marin’s answer.

And what about this Son’s deportment?  Why did he give himself up? Hindu gods never did that. No spindly cross would’ve kept them down.  When push came to shove, they transcended any human frame with strength no man could have and weapons no man could handle.

That is God as God should be.  With shine and power and might. Such as can rescue and save and put down evil.

This Son, on the other hand, who goes hungry, who suffers from thirst, who gets tired, who is sad, who is anxious, who is heckled and harassed, who has to put up with followers who don’t get it and opponents who don’t respect Him—what kind of god is that? It’s a god on too human a scale, that’s what. There are miracles, yes mostly of a medical nature, a few to satisfy hungry stomachs; at best a storm is tempered, water is briefly walked upon…any Hindu god can do a hundred times better.

This Son is a god who spent most of his time telling stories, talking. This Son is a god who walked, a pedestrian god—and in a hot place, at that—with a stride like any human stride; and when he splurged on transportation, it was a regular donkey. This Son is a god who died in three hours, with moans, gasps, and laments.  What kind of god is that? What is there to inspire in this Son?

Love, said Father Martin.

And this Son appears only once, long ago, far away? Among some obscure tribe in a backwater strip of West Asia on in the confines of a long-vanished empire? Is done away with before He has a single grey hair on His head? Leaves not a single descendant, only scattered, partial testimony, His complete works doodles in the dirt? …What can justify such divine stinginess?

Love, repeated Father Martin.

I’ll stick to my Krishna, thank you very much.  I find his divinity utterly compelling.  You can keep your sweaty, chatty Son to yourself.  That was how I met that troublesome rabbi of long ago: with disbelief and annoyance.

I had tea with Father Martin three days in a row.  Each time, as teacup rattled against saucer, as spoon tinkled against edge of cup, I asked questions.

The answer was always the same.

He bothered me, this Son.  Every day I burned with greater indignation against Him, found more flaws to Him…but I couldn’t get Him out of my head.  Still can’t.  I spent three solid days thinking about Him.  The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him.  And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him.

On our last day, a few hours before we were to leave Munnar, I hurried up the hill to the cathedral on more time…. short of breath I said, “Father, I would like to be a Christian, please.”

He smiled. “You already are, Piscine—in your heart.  Whoever meets Christ in good faith is a Christian. Here in Munnar you met Christ.”

He patted me on the head.  It was more of a thump, actually. I thought I would explode with joy.

“When you come back, we’ll have tea again, my son.”

“Yes, Father.”

It was a good smile he gave me. The smile of Christ.

I entered the sanctuary, without fear this time, for it was now my house too. I offered prayers to Christ, who is alive. 

(from Life of Pi by Yann Martel, 2001, Random House)

"Charity is no substitute for justice withheld," and other St. Augustine Quotes

Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.) is one of my favorite ancient mystics, and is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. In Roman Catholicism and the Anglican Communion, he is a saint and pre-eminent Doctor of the Church, and the patron of the Augustinian religious order. Many Protestants consider him to be one of the theological fountainheads of Reformation teaching on salvation and grace. In Orthodox Churches he is considered blessed or even a saint.

Born in Africa, he lived a hedonistic lifestyle as a youth, and developed a relationship with a young woman who would be his concubine for over fifteen years. During this period he had a son with this young woman. His education and early career was in philosophy and rhetoric, the art of persuasion and public speaking.  He was educated in Carthage and Rome.

At age thirty, Augustine had won the most visible academic chair in the Latin world, at a time when such posts gave ready access to political careers. However, he felt the tensions of life at an imperial court, lamenting one day as he rode in his carriage to deliver a grand speech before the emperor, that a drunken beggar he passed on the street had a less careworn existence than he did.   

After a flirtation with skepticism, he began his spiritual quest in earnest during his early 30’s.  In the summer of 386, after having read an account of the life of Saint Anthony of the Desert which greatly inspired him, Augustine underwent a profound personal crisis and decided to convert to Christianity. He abandoned his career in rhetoric, quit his teaching position in Milan, gave up any ideas of marriage, and devoted himself entirely to serving God and the practices of priesthood.  He eventually relocated back to northern Africa.  

His works—including The Confessions, which is often called the first Western autobiography—are still read around the world.  They include The City of God, Free Choice of the Will, and On Christian Doctrine, which are all seminal and influential on much Christian thought that followed.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from Augustine…let me know which ones you like:

Heart speaks to heart.

Nothing conquers except truth and the victory of truth is love.

To sing once is to pray twice.

Lord, you have seduced me and I let myself be seduced.

Love, and do what you will.

God, oh Lord, grant me the power to overcome sin. For sin is that which you gave to us when you granted us free choice of will. If I choose wrongly, then I shall be justly punished for it. Is that not true, my Lord, of whom I indebted for my temporal existence. Thank you, Lord, for granting me the power to will my self not to sin.

Christ is the teacher within us.

Hear the other side.

Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.

A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.

Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.

Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.

Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Don't you believe that there is in man a deep so profound as to be hidden even to him in whom it is?

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

Find out how much God has given you and from it take what you need; the remainder is needed by others.

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.

God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.

He that is jealous is not in love.

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave; he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

He who created us without our help will not save us without our consent.

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.''

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.

Love, and do what you like.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

No eulogy is due to him who simply does his duty and nothing more.

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

Love the sinner and hate the sin.

Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.

Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.

Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.

The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

There is no possible source of evil except good.

There is something in humility which strangely exalts the heart.

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.

We cannot pass our guardian angel's bounds, resigned or sullen, he will hear our sighs.

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

Who can map out the various forces at play in one soul? Man is a great depth, O Lord. The hairs of his head are easier by far to count than his feeling, the movements of his heart.

Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.

Once again, let me know the ones that resonate with you…or perhaps any that I haven’t listed.  : )

My Friend Brennan

I was fortunate to have Brennan Manning a friend over the past 25 years.  With his passing a few days ago at age 78, I've been searching for the right words to help deal with this loss.  I went looking in my library for all my favorite books by him, and realized that I have loaned nearly all of them out to others, who, like me, needed to read “good news for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out;” fresh cups of grace to many who were tired of fellow Christians’ legalism and judgment. This piece written by Philip Yancey several years ago at the release of Brennan's final book, sums up well my thoughts on this humble, broken, and forgiven man who was much more interested in being a pioneer than a settler.

Brennan Manning has written a memoir titled All Is Grace that will be published this year by David C. Cook Publishing.  I wrote the Foreword, and include excerpts here about my friend.

I first met Brennan Manning at an event called Greenbelt Festival in England, a sort of Christian Woodstock of artists, musicians and speakers that had attracted twenty thousand fans to tents and impromptu venues set up in the muddy infield of a horse-racing track.  Brennan seemed dazzled by the spectacle, and like a color commentator kept trying to explain the subtleties of evangelicalism to his wife Roslyn, a cradle Catholic who lacked Brennan’s experience with the subculture.

We did not see each other often over the years, but each time our paths crossed we went deeper, rather than tilling the same ground of friendship.  When he visited a monastery in Colorado for spiritual retreats, he would sometimes get a temporary dispensation from the rule of silence and meet my wife and me at an ice cream parlor (one addiction he doesn’t disclose in these pages).  Our backgrounds could hardly have been more different— Southern fundamentalism vs. Northeastern Catholic—and yet by different routes we had both stumbled upon an Artesian well of grace and have been gulping it ever since.  One glorious fall afternoon we hiked on a carpet of golden Aspen leaves along a mountain stream and I heard the details of Brennan’s life: his loveless childhood, his marathon search for God, his marriage and divorce, his lies and coverups, his continuing struggles with alcohol addiction.

As you read this memoir you may be tempted, as I am, to think “Oh, what might have been…if Brennan hadn’t given into drink.”  I urge you to reframe the thought to, “Oh, what might have been…if Brennan hadn’t discovered grace.”  More than once I have watched this leprechaun of an Irish Catholic hold spellbound an audience of thousands by telling in a new and personal way the story that all of us want to hear: that the Maker of all things loves and forgives us.  Brennan knows well that love and especially the forgiveness.  Like “Christian,” the everyman character in The Pilgrim’s Progress, he progressed not by always making right decisions but by responding appropriately to wrong ones.  (John Bunyan, after all, titled his own spiritual biography Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners).

At one point Brennan likens himself to Samson, that flawed superman whom God somehow found a way to use right up to the day of his death.  Reading such stories in the Old Testament, I’ve come up with a simple principle to explain how God can use the likes of such imperfect men and women: “God uses the talent pool available.”  Again and again, Brennan made himself available.  In the last few years, nearly blind, subject to illness and falls, at an age when he should have been enjoying retirement on a beach in Florida, he kept getting on airplanes and flying places to proclaim a Gospel he believed with all his heart but could not always live.

“All is grace,” Brennan concludes, looking back on a rich but stained life.  He has placed his trust in that foundational truth of the universe, which he has proclaimed faithfully and eloquently.

As a writer, I live in daily awareness of how much easier it is to edit a book than edit a life.  When I write about what I believe and how I should live, it sounds neat and orderly.  When I try to live it out, all hell breaks loose.  Reading Brennan’s memoir, I see something of the reverse pattern.  By focusing on the flaws, he leaves out many of the triumphs.  I keep wanting him to tell the stories that put him in a good light, and there are many.  Choosing full disclosure over a narrative that might burnish his reputation, Brennan presents himself as the Apostle Paul once did, as a “clay jar,” a disposable container made of baked dirt.  We must look to his other books for a full picture of the treasure that lay inside.

A poem by Leonard Cohen says it well:

Ring the bells that still can ring.


Forget your perfect offering.


There is a crack in everything.


That’s how the light gets in.

I Miss Rich Mullins

Being St. Patrick's Day,  I've been thinking of some of my favorite Irishmen.  Though Rich was not born there, his name and lifestyle certainly reflected much of the Irish flare.

I miss Rich’s beaming smile and furrowed brow.

I miss Rich’s pop sensibilities blended with eclectic instrumentation.

I miss Rich’s quick laugh and his barking anger.

I miss Rich drinking eight glasses of water a day to “counteract” his smoking habit.

I miss that Rich read the Bible not to understand God but to encounter Him.

I miss Rich singing the “Star Spangled Banner” acapella to open a show but being outraged at U.S. foreign policy.

I miss Rich’s contrite heart and his assertions to, like Martin Luther, “sin boldly.”

I miss our extended chats about the rebel Jesus and our arguments over theology.

I miss Rich’s focus on the needs of others and his recurring challenges with absentmindedness.

I miss Rich’s wrestling with fame and his willingness to confess openly his darkest problems.

I miss Rich’s love for the Church and his aversion towards westernized churchianity.

I miss Rich’s servant heart and his uncompromising stance with record label suits.

I miss Rich quoting lengthy passages of scripture and swearing like a longshoreman.

I miss Rich’s longing for purity and his struggles with celibacy.

I miss Rich’s attraction to “high church” and performing his concerts bare foot and in tattered clothes.

I miss Rich’s love for Amy Grant and his disdain for the majority of her fans.

I miss Rich’s zeal for what moved him (like seeing Dances with Wolves twenty-seven times while it was in theaters) and his equal frustration with pop culture trends (like obsessive dieting).

I miss Rich’s desire for meaningful friendships and his frustrations with loneliness.

I miss Rich’s clarity that realized taking pride in poverty was equally as wicked as taking pride in wealth.

I miss Rich’s blunt rebukes and gentle grace.

I miss Rich’s intense self-judgment and his recognition of Christ’s deep fondness for him.

Yep…Rich was a complicated character, and a friend. When I read Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing To Heaven by James Bryan Smith I guess my emotions about Rich’s untimely death in 1997 were still a bit raw. But many memories started flowing…

Like when I met Rich the first time at Blanton and Harrell Management while I was a consultant on Amy Grant’s Straight Ahead Tour.  Mike and Dan had recently signed Rich to their new Reunion Records label.  He was just as scruffy as you would expect wandering the hallways, and had some definite opinions about the $15,000 Turkish carpets on the floors.

Or the time a few years later when I was helping manage the artist department at Compassion, and had worked hard with Rich on a printed piece to go into his second album, Pictures in the Sky.  He was excited to use his platform to help needy children in the developing world.  Unfortunately, I had just come from the parent record company, and the president of the label had decided not to allow the flier to be inserted after all. We were sitting in the old Shoney’s restaurant on Demonbreum here in Nashville when I gave him the news.  In an instant, his eyes flashed, he pounded his fist so loudly on the table that it lifted all the silverware and tipped a glass of ice water. “That bastard!” he screamed.  The bustling joint grew eerily quiet as Rich fumed further while I tried to calm him down. With our mutual passion for the insert, we eventually got those in charge to change their minds, and hundreds of precious little ones ended up with better lives as a result.

Then there was the time I was on the road for Compassion with the modern rock band The Choir.  One show was in Wichita at a second floor night club.  A terrible load-in for the band and crew.  Rich had become a fan of their music, and showed up early to assist with all the equipment and stayed late do the same.  The Choir and their crew had no idea Rich was with them, and since he was just wearing a dirty baseball cap with his hair pulled back, they never recognized him.  Later, on the bus as we were headed to the next town I asked if they had enjoyed meeting Rich at all. “He was there?!” they exclaimed. They were pissed that they never got to actually meet him, even though he’d been helping all night. Rich never went out of his way to introduce himself, even though it was his home town, and he helped fund the club where they were playing.   He was just thrilled that they came to play and were making an impact on some kids he knew.

Another time I wanted to introduce Rich to some of my cohorts at Compassion.  I had warned my boss and the others that Rich could be a tad unpredictable, and that he was never shy about expressing whatever thought process his mind was churning.  “Be prepared….and take whatever he may spout-on about with a huge grain of salt,” I cautioned with a wink and a smile.

We drove up to Boulder, Colorado to see him open for Amy Grant on the Unguarded Tour. Rich was not in a particularly good mood after his sound check in the cavernous Univ. of Colorado Fieldhouse was completed.  Once he got permission from the road manager to go off site with us to eat, he was grousing in the van about the idiocy of Amy’s fandom that were waiting like cattle in long lines outside the hall.  Rich claimed that he would enjoy going up to those pre-teen wanna-be’s who were all wearing their leopard skin jackets and black spandex tights and “slap some sense into each and every one of them.”  My fellow Compassionates laughed nervously.

We drove to several area restaurants, but they were all over-run with said fan base, and the waits were over thirty minutes to be seated, so we kept moving.  This did not assist in changing Rich’s demeanor whatsoever.  Since we had limited time before Rich had to return backstage, we had to settle for a McDonald’s that was, once again, full of Amy-ites.  My chums were doing their best to make small talk with Rich, but he was sullen and somewhat withdrawn.  My boss, Dave, looked at me as if to say, “What is this guy’s deal?” 

As Rich was munching on his fillet-o-fish and slurping some orange drink, he suddenly plopped the cup on the table top and declared with intentionality that would make Idi Amin flinch, “Ya know, I could pull out a sub machine gun and mow down every single person in this restaurant, and not feel one moment of remorse.” 

Trying to lighten the mood I interjected, “Aw Rich, you’re so full of it sometimes…just relax and let the kids have their naïve fun.”  

He then took another bite and mumbled, “I am so very, very serious. Get me a gun and I’ll prove it.”  More uncomfortable acknowledgement and tittering ensued from our group.  Thankfully, his mood began to lighten, and he apologized for being such a jerk just as we dropped him off at the arena.  To this day, I’m amazed that my teammates at Compassion were willing to keep moving forward with Rich.  But it was a tremendous partnership that grew deep and more precious over the next eleven years.

The time that Phil Madeira and I put together the Mark Heard Memorial Tribute Concert at Belmont University also sticks out in my mind.  Rich had only recently come to be familiar with Mark’s artistry, and was moved by his sudden death the previous summer.  The concert was a rousing success as an artistic endeavor, the auditorium was packed, and we saw over $10,000 raised for Mark’s widow and daughter.  But we knew that another revenue stream that could not only help their financial straits, but also expand Heard’s heritage would be for artists to commit to covering Mark’s wonderful songs.  Rich was the first to pop up that night and promise to do just that.  His next album featured a powerful rendition of Mark’s “How To Grow Up Big and Strong,” and thousands more publishing dollars went to the foundation to assist the Heard family as a result.

I think my favorite story revolves around taking Rich on his very first overseas trek.  It was 1991, and I put together a Compassion Artist Vision Trip to Guatemala with Rich, Rick Elias, Geoff Moore, promoter Chuck Tilley, and my manager, Devlin Donaldson. None had ever really met each other before, and there was a great bond that formed during that week in Central America.  In fact, that is where the seeds of the Ragamuffin Band concept were sewn, with Rich and Rick became fast friends and collaborators from that introduction forward.

Whether we were trudging through Guatemala City’s massive dump, or clambering up Mayan pyramids at Iximche…whether we were sitting through an earthquake late one evening in our rattling little motel in Panajachel or skimming across the glass surface of the gorgeous Lake Atitlan… whether we were blowing bubbles with kindergartners in San Pedro La Laguna or Rich getting popped with a swinging stick from an overenthusiastic little piñata basher in Tecpan…whether we were watching naked kids splashing in a stream or he was leading a group of native teens in singing “Awesome God,”  Rich was radiant.  You could just see how this was impacting him from that point forward.

Before we had departed for the trip southward, Rich asked me if it would be OK to bring an instrument.  I assumed he meant an acoustic guitar, but he wanted to bring his large hammer dulcimer.  “Rich, that thing is worth a couple of grand and is pretty delicate,” I reasoned. “It may not survive the transport, and the kids at the projects are gonna want to bang on that thing relentlessly.”

“I won’t mind…I really want to bring it, and I certainly want the kids to try and play it,” he replied.  And sure enough, when we got there, once they saw the magic sounds Rich could bring out of it, they all wanted to try.  Most were none too dignified in their attempts to get notes out of it, but Rich was just beaming ear-to-ear with their efforts. I’ll never forget the images of kids crawling all over Rich trying to take turns pounding on one of his most prized possessions, and him being absolutely thrilled with joy. Before the end of the trip, a few strings were broken, and several chips were taken out of the fine wood finish.  But Rich simply didn’t care.  You could see his heart for wanting to teach children via music come to the fore during those moments…and that’s exactly what he committed himself to five years later when he moved to the Navaho reservation in New Mexico.

I like this summary of Rich from An Arrow Pointing Toward Heaven:

Growing into the person God created us to be, Rich thought, was the goal of the Christian life—not trying to sin less, but to be God’s more.  Mitch McVicker comments, “He would often say that the most holy thing he could do was to be completely human.  He was more interested in being genuine and real than being crisp and clean on the outside.  He said, ‘God created us human, and that means struggling, falling, admitting it, and being healed.’  A part of being holy means knowing that you are a struggling human and that you can be forgiven and healed by God.  He always focused on the hope on the other side of sin.”

Many of us are preparing to live rather than actually living.  Meditating on this may awaken us to the fact that we have one life to live, and the day—the moment—we are in will never be repeated.  In a sense, a well-lived life is the best way to cheat death.

“So go out and live real good,” Rich wrote late in his life, “and I promise you you’ll be beat up real bad.  But a little while after you’re dead, you’ll be rotted away anyway…it’s not gonna matter if you had a few scars.  It will matter if you didn’t live.”

Yeah, I still miss Rich Mullins and that thirst to drink in all God had to offer.  I still see Christ reflected in his sometimes awkward attempts to live fully.  With Jesus as my hope, may I humbly do likewise.   

No Room!

Adapted from a chapter in Tony Campolo’s book, Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from unexpected Places and Unlikely People:

A schoolteacher served students from several grades in a small one room schoolhouse in upstate New York, including one child who was euphemistically referred to as “special.”  That particular little boy was what we might call “slow.”

When Christmas season came, the teacher decided to put on a Christmas pageant, and the special needs boy wanted to have a part in it.  He didn’t just want to stand around on the stage; he wanted to have a speaking part.  Part of the presentation was a dramatic interpretation of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. They all knew that he could not remember lines very well, but they came up with what seemed like a viable solution to the problem.  They told him that he could be in innkeeper.  When Mary and Joseph knocked on the door of the inn, he was to open it and say, “No room!”  Mary would then plead with him further, and when she finished her lines he was to say again, “No room!” and close the door.

They thought he could handle this, but just to make sure, they appointed someone to stand near him behind the door and poke him at the proper time and whisper the right words in his ear, should he forget them.  Rehearsals went fine, and all were excited about a good presentation.

The night of the Christmas pageant all seemed to be moving well until Mary and Joseph got to the inn door.  Mary knocked.  When our little friend opened the door he said what was expected of him: “No room!” 

Mary responded, “But , sir, it’s cold.  Have you no place at all where we can stay?  It’s freezing and I am sick.  I’m going to have a baby, and unless you help us, my baby will be born in the cold, cold night.”

The boy just stood there and said nothing.  Mary looked at him and nodded her head as if to say Go ahead, it’s your turn.  There was another long pause.  The prompter nudged him and whispered, “No room!  Say ‘No room!’”

The little guy then turned to the prompter and said, “I know what I’m supposed to say…but I’ve been thinking.”  He then looked at Mary and said “…she can have my room,” and then he opened the door wide for her and Joseph.

To some, loving comes easily and almost without thinking. The rest of us must be more deliberate.  Let us pray that we are open to the leading of the spirit by being more responsive to the needs of others as they come to us.