Talking about music is like dancing about architecture… Rotating Header Image

November, 2009:

New Orleans 2009 – Day 2 – Work (#Orleans09)

Nov 30th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
No comments yet

CrokinoleOne of my favorite things so far is being in close proximity to some older members of our congregation. Something I appreciate about my heritage is the strong work ethic, and that ethic is on display here this week. But not only do they work hard, they laugh hard and play hard too. Every night there are a few spirited rounds of crokinole.

My experience here has already reinforced my belief that inter-generational ministry is the way to go. During the work day today, my team was doing drywall work. We did well enough that they’re sending us back to the same site tomorrow, but without an MDS Crew Leader. But that’s OK, because Trudy Fehr emerged as our leader.  This was spontaneous and unanimous when the MDS Director asked: “If I take Jake (our current Crew Leader) away tomorrow, who should be you new Crew Leader?” Trudy worked hard today, gave direction, and taught us what to do when we needed help.

“Heeeeeeeere’s Trudy!”

Another fun part of trips like these is that you finally get to see the personalities of people that are usually quiet. This was the case with Anna Kauenhofen today. She’s been the quietest one on the trip so far today but sometime after lunch a personality emerged that we haven’t seen before.

We got to meet the owner of the home we’re working on today. Her name is Virgey (Ver-gee) Holloway. She told us her story; how she’s been out of her home for almost 4 years now; how her family was moved to a small town in Texas; how her family is now scattered across the country because there is nothing to come back to in New Orleans. The story of families being separated by Katrina is very common. Some of these families have generations of history in these New Orleans neighborhoods; in many cases, that history has now ended.

Virgey’s house is a style called “Shotgun House“. As the story goes, they are called this because they are narrow and you could look through the back door and shoot someone at the front door with a shotgun with an unobstructed view. There is additional terminology that I think you’ll find amusing:

Single Shotgun House – a long, narrow, single story house

Double Shotgun – two shotgun houses attached

Single Shotgun Camel (This is what Virgey’s house is – click on the image t see a larger version) – a long, narrow, single story house with a second floor toward the back – a “camel hump” if you will

Double Shotgun Camel – two shotgun houses attached with a second floor toward the back

Virgey had a bit of her terminology mixed up too. There is a Mr. Penner that works for MDS; she knows him as “Mr. Pennerd who works with the Midianites.” Oh well, we didn’t correct her.

New Orleans is a city of paradox: there are decrepit houses everywhere, but there are $80,000 Mercedes and other expensive cars in front of many of them.

I notice that more care and time and attention was put into the older houses. There is an ornateness in the detail. When we refinish them, everything is square and flat and “efficient”.

It was a good day of work… time to go to bed and rest up for another full day tomorrow.

New Orleans – Day 1 – Travel (#Orleans09)

Nov 30th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
3 comments

New Orleans 2009

Well we made it here; we’re in New Orleans ready to get to work with MDS (Mennonite Disaster Services).

It was quite a trip: left at 11:00pm, spent over an hour at the Sarnia border, stayed up all night, flew out of Detroit at 6:00am, landed in Houston and hopped onto another plane to New Orleans. About 12 hours total travel time, and we finally got some rest after lunch.

Before supper we headed out for a tour of the city, visiting the French Quarter and the Mississippi. After all that travel, it was nice to find the distraction of attractions.

Here are some of the sights of the city (click on the images to see larger versions):

The origins of the city

A tunnel section of the New Orleans airport

Me in front of an old building

Very nice street art

This was definitely my favorite shot of the day. I call it “Moon Over Mississippi”

Tomorrow, the work begins: drywalling, plumbing, framing, flooring, roofing.

Question 1: Didn’t Jesus Say We Should Sell Everything We Own and Give it to the Poor?

Nov 27th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
3 comments

For the last week I’ve been collecting questions here – feel free to add a few more; below is the first answer. This is actually a repost (with some edits) from September 2008, but I’ll re-post it now for two reasons.

One, it tries to answer a question submitted by Nathan Colquhoun:

After reading the story of the rich man and Jesus telling him to give all his possessions to the poor to truly inherit eternal life (top it off with all the other stories about wealthy and poor) how do we as a rich country honestly consider ourselves having eternal life if we have not done this basic, straight-forward command?

 The second reason is this: today is Black Friday, a.k.a. the annual day of stuff-lust and material worship, a.k.a. the day on which normally sensible Christians encourage other normally sensible Christians to engage in the sin of materialism.

____________________________________________

 Jesus vs. Stuff

STORY

As he traveled, Jesus taught the crowds that gathered around him.

When the story of the Rich Young Ruler is told in Matthew the young man runs up to Jesus just as he is setting out on his journey. He’s waited until the last minute, possibly hoping the crowd has pretty much gone on their way and nobody will see him talking to Jesus. This is his moment; he’s been walking around the edges of the crowd while Jesus spoke. He hears something in Jesus’ message and feels that he’s missing out.

bling.jpg

The scriptures say that he was not just rich, but extremely rich. The Jews equated riches with divine favor. So unlike the story of Zacchaeus, the people probably would have thought it proper for Jesus to consort with this type of man. Here was someone whom everyone respected, whom Jesus could probably gain some advantage from.

Alfred Plummer guesses that, “This rich man had no doubt previously consulted the official teachers on the question he put to Jesus, and had evidently not been satisfied with their answers.”

As he kneels before Jesus he asks, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Now commentators are split on whether or not this young man was sincerely seeking an answer or only hoping to get a cheap spiritual product from Jesus.

Gundry says, “He seemed to think he could gain eternal life by a single heroic act.” In other words he was hoping for a quick-fix answer, something that could be accomplished in a moment, or at most a 30-day period of intense effort, like one of those “30 lbs in 30 days” programs you see advertised on telephone poles in high traffic areas.

Perhaps he expected, or even hoped that Jesus would give him a difficult task that his great wealth would enable him to accomplish. This would have been the “win-win” scenario that he was looking for. Finally, he thought, an opportunity to use my wealth for “good”!

JESUS LOVED HIM

One detail that is mentioned in the story in the book of Mark is that before Jesus answered him he felt love for him. So another commentator believed the seeker was sincere, otherwise his false pretense would have aroused disgust in Jesus rather than sympathetic love (for his sincerity).

This implies a searching love… like a pause you leave between when someone asks you a tough question and when you answer with something you’re quite sure they won’t want to hear

Jesus might have thought as he looked at him “I love you, but I know you’re not going to like this answer.”

“ONE THING”

Jesus answers, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’” And then the young man replies that he has kept all of these commandments all his life.

No one is good except God alone – why does Jesus say that? Is the young man hiding the fact that he already believes that Jesus is God and hoping that Jesus won’t ask of him exactly what he’s about to ask?

Luke 18:22a “When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack…”

“You only lack one thing…” The young man’s eyes open wide with anticipation, “Wow – I thought it would be a bunch of stuff… but only ONE thing?! I’m sure I can do that! Woo, I heard that you could read minds and stuff and I thought you were going to give me this list of stuff that I had to make right. Whew, only one thing, eh? So, what is it?”

Luke 18:22b Jesus says “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

What is Jesus telling him to do? This challenge is meant to reveal the thing that the young man’s heart is attached to. “You have everything,” Jesus tells him, “Except one thing… Unfortunately, getting the one thing you lack will cost you everything else you have.”

JD Hastings: “Human nature is like a boat upon the seas, it will stay only where it is fastened.” Where you drop your anchor, that’s where you’ll stay. The young man needed to detach himself from the anchor of excessive wealth. I like the way another author puts it: “When he opens his hand to grab hold of Jesus, his earthly riches will fall out of his clutches and land on the poor.” (Abraham Piper)

Sadly, we read in Luke 18:23 that, “when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.”

WHO IS RICH?

The World Bank estimates in a recent study that “1.4 billion people, or one quarter of the population of the developing world, lived below our international line of $1.25 a day in 2005.” $1.25 – This is the total financial resource for an entire day to buy food, pay for shelter, and live off of.

Still looking at other people as rich? I calculated how much I live on per day, it was more than $1.25. It was closer to 100 times that much.

CAMEL – NEEDLE

Next Jesus turns to those left after the young man went away and says, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Is he exaggerating a bit or is there a point to this? He does say that with God such things are possible, but I think his point is well made that being rich will hinder your chances of being his disciple.

Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” Remember, the Jews at that time thought that if you were rich it meant that you were already favored by God… so if this guy couldn’t be saved, who could?

REWARDS

At this point Peter (always one to step forward and open his mouth) says, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.29 And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30 who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”

In Matthew and Mark Jesus actually says that the rewards for the sacrifices in this life will be a hundredfold.

CONCLUSION

The rich young man was not willing to invest in the idea that Jesus was proposing like he was in all those other proposals that we presume had made him so rich. He had an investment thinking mentality: “I have to get more out than I put in.” In this case, he chose the riches he could touch and see in this life over the riches Jesus promised him in the next life. The difference was faith.

Jesus says if you make money and stuff your goal in life there is almost no chance that you’ll end up a disciple of his. Nowhere does Jesus say it is a sin to be wealthy, but he does say that if you do become wealthy it becomes very difficult to be one of his followers.

So to answer Nathan’s question – or rather his assertion -  I do not believe that selling everything we own and giving it to the poor is a basic, straight-forward command for everyone.

I’m sure there will be some discussion, at which time I’ll have more to say. Have at it.

The Two Selves (The Medaille House Journals – 4)

Nov 26th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
No comments yet
***This is a series of posts based on writing I did on personal retreat in October 2009. Read earlier posts in the series here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 |Part 5|Part 6|Part 7***

WaterLike every other uncomfortable experience, I was blind to the future benefits while I was going through it.

It was while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago – or maybe I should call it “time off” instead. The word “vacation” fills the mind with thoughts of traveling somewhere (preferably exotic) to engage in hedonism restrained only by the morals we hold absolute. Vacation is when you go somewhere and do something away from home. I did neither. Instead, I stayed home and faced myself.

You see, on vacation you don’t really have a lot of time for self-examination. You don’t have time to look at who you are and decide whether or not you’re OK and if anything needs to change. On vacation you’re completely preoccupied with “This is who I would like to be and where I would like to be all the time.” And that person, the one living in the most fantastic of fantasy lands – you’re kissing his hindquarters, doing whatever pleases him, singing his praises, showing him with your love.

In reality, all of this just puts you further behind on developing the real self, the one you need to live with the other 51 weeks of the year. The you that has to get the kids off to school every day, the you that needs the strength to deal with the day, the you that has to put the kids to bed at night.

This real you, as you well know, is often impatient, tired, and raises his voice more frequently than he should. This is the you that suffers while on vacation, but the suffering is buried under pleasure.

We think that vacation is escaping this for a week or two of reprieve before we step back into the fray, but the book of that life remains exactly as you left it, bookmark in place.

This time of facing myself – this not taking a vacation – it was unplanned. I had responsibilities and no available funds to make them go away as I have so often done in the past.

Dorian GrayWe are so good at avoiding self-development, and our main strategy of avoidance is self-indulgence. We believe that we need “me time” – a day at the spa, a day at the movies, or a day of amusement – in order to relieve the self of its mundane existence. We should instead be tending to the real self rather than running off with the vacation self for a romantic getaway. But the real self is left behind, or at best is brought along as a spectator.

And so in the absence of the distractions to which I was accustomed during my time off, I began to look at the real self. More accurately, I spent some time looking at who I was and what I was on my way to becoming, and the rest of the time was spent on the aggressive confrontation that followed. My real self came knocking at the door, and when I answered, when I opened the door, I saw someone who was malnourished, underweight, and had obviously been homeless for a while.

“There is no greater disaster in spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality,” Merton says in Thoughts in Solitude, “for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with realities outside and above us. When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die.”

Too dramatic a picture, you say? It seems so in the afterthought but the power of the present has its purpose.

Just like I know that my body needs exercise and my soul needs God, I know my spirit needs times of silence in order to maintain its health. It needs these times of silence for self-examination, and to allow the Holy Spirit to ask it questions about where it’s been lately and what kind of crazy things its had to do to survive.

More often than not, when it is asked these questions, my soul points the Holy Spirit my way and says “It’s his fault” – and he’s always right.

Next Week – LiveBlogging From New Orleans (#Orleans09)

Nov 24th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
No comments yet

Next week I will be leading a team of 13 to New Orleans to do disaster relief work through Mennonite Disaster Services.

How to follow along:

Blog – I will try to post at least once per day here at the blog and  include pictures. All of the posts related to New Orleans will be at the page you’ll find by clicking here. (If you keep that window open and refresh it periodically, you’ll get all the posts I make from New Orleans.)

Twitter – I will tag my tweets with the hashtag #Orleans09 if you want to follow along on Twitter. If you are not a Twitter user, you can still follow along at by clicking here.

N. T. Wright on Blogging and Social Media

Nov 24th, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
2 comments

All salient points. He understands the medium. Take a look:

NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

Wright’s one big worry: isolationism. Sure it is human beings typing and human beings responding, but there is something about human communication that involves bodies and faces, and however good you are as a writer, you can’t engage in all those ways. We are in danger of dehumanizing our communication.

I like that he uses the terms “gnostic dream”and “cultural masturbation” to describe the sort of self-stimulation that seems so prevalent in in the (bad neologism alert) “blogosphere”.  There is nothing more bland in the blog world than the comments section a blog with an exceedingly narrow audience.

Wright’s General Rule of Blogging:
For every hour you spend on a blog, you ought to spend at least that amount of time with real, touchable, hug-able human beings.

Amen.

Ask Me Anything

Nov 23rd, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
13 comments

http://londonrelocationservices.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/question.jpgI find that some of the best and most discussed posts at The Ascent to Truth come about by way of a question sent to me by email, Facebook, or Twitter. Obviously, one question represents the questions of many others.

So, ask me any question. (No doubt I will receive very shortly hordes of inane and entertaining questions via Fb, Twitter, and the comments section below. These are all fine – have fun)

Here are some ideas for topics about which I might actually be able to answer with some authority:

Worship
Atheism
Songwriting
Prose and journal writing
Art
Hockey
The “Emerging Church”

And some people I know a few things about:
Thomas Merton
Mark Driscoll
John Piper
Madeleine l’Engle

Go ahead, drop a comment in the box below…

Douglas Wilson – Leveling the Monks of High Art

Nov 23rd, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
No comments yet

I will quote here (at length) from Doug Wilson’s recent piece called “Humbling the Arts”, but you really should read the entire thing for yourself here.

Money quotes:

We have come to the point of high circularity where our culture defines art as anything done by an artist, and an artist as one who has the right and authority to produce art. The detritus of this approach can be viewed at a tax-funded gallery near you.
***
http://pointsouth.com/apologia/books/pic_dwilson.jpgOnce on a trip I was struck by a particularly beautiful bit of graphic design, and it was doing nothing but decorating a restaurant at an airport. Musing on this, it occurred to me that while contemporary painting is in a wretched state, the aesthetic value of contemporary graphic design is light years ahead of the advertising of a century ago. Compare Vermeer with Jackson Pollock and you get half the point. The other half can be seen in a comparison of an ad for shoes a century ago and an ad for shoes today. Taking one thing with another, mutatis mutandis, current advertisements are aesthetically far superior to anything being done back when serious painting was still worth displaying on the wall. I mentioned this to a friend who pointed out an obvious connection—

ads today are the work of a “guild.” Look at any striking ad and you are looking at the work of a team of twenty people. No tortured genius signs it. It was done for money, plain and simple. No misunderstood soul thought up the ad with the back of his hand pressed against his fevered brow. Intelligibility is prized since the company actually may want to sell their product while intelligence is also prized because the ad has to stand out. Creativity can and does flourish under such conditions. In a similar way, the best creative work being done in television is in the world of commercials.

***
We should want to learn how to serve others outside the guild by means of painting, poetry, music, short story writing, and all the rest of it. Of course there are obvious dangers in this—establishing a gallery in order for people to watch us try to be aesthetically humble has some obvious snares. But nevertheless, we really do not want to be monks of high art. Rather, we want to be puritans of all artisanship, high, middle and low.
***
Attempts to thrust ourselves forward will result in humiliation. He [Jesus] taught us that the first will be last, and the last first. The one who exalts himself will be humbled and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Despite the clarity of this doctrine, Christians persist in wanting to become rich, recognized, feted, honored, awarded, and flattered. They imagine that the teaching of Christ would of course have to be obeyed by them in an invisible spiritual sense, deep in the recesses of their hearts.

They would have to make sure the success did not go to their heads. Like the self-deceived, would-be philanthropist who daydreams about winning the lottery and imagines how much good he could do with the tithe, so Christians have wanted into the big time—so that they could then make a mark for Jesus. Along this line, Christians want to be actors and screenwriters and novelists and producers and poets and directors and painters, and then what a grand testimony we shall all have! But it never seems to occur to anyone that perhaps Jesus meant what He said in a more earthy sense. No one wants to be that nameless servant of Christ who did some of the spectacular wood carving on the north side of a 12th century cathedral—the anonymous fellow with the same social status as the 12th century butcher. As the blues song has it, everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die.
***
This [being "puritans of artisanship"] involves three basic tenets.

First, the incarnation and humiliation of Jesus Christ is the arch-typical pattern for all who would be artisans—death is always followed by resurrection, and all resurrections must be preceded by death. Modern art is fruitless precisely because it refuses to die to self—it is a form of art that is all about self, barbaric yawp and all.

Secondly, an artisan always works with his materials, not against them, and since all materials are created by God and declare His glory, it is most necessary for all the works of our hands also to declare His glory.

And third, the world is filled with glories that none of us has yet seen.

***

MK – Wilson is a splendid writer whom I am pleased to have discovered by way of Collision, a documentary film about his conversation tour  with Christopher Hitchens.

“The Edge Of His Cloak” Author Kevin Abell on the Genesis of His Book

Nov 21st, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
No comments yet

I recently published a review of Kevin’s book here. You can purchase his book at Amazon.

This is from the Aylmer News Blog:

“In December of 2008, my wife and I had the opportunity to have lunch with one of the young women who used to be a part of our youth group. During our time together, she shared with us that she was struggling with depression.  I left our time together that day feeling both encouraged and conflicted. However, I don’t think I would be way off base in saying that in
our lives, there are people that we are confident in.  This particular young lady was one who I was quite confident in.

(Inspiration for title?) Matthew 14:36- “People brought all their sick to him and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched him were healed.” Here at Gennesaret, people came from all over the countryside to seek  healing, even just to touch the edge of His cloak.  I couldn’t reconcile why our friend continues to suffer if she really knew Jesus personally. If she came to Him in the same way as the people of Gennesaret, would He help her in any way?

That is how it began.  It began for two reasons.  Firstly, I hope in some way to help our young friend.  Secondly, I needed to work through and reconcile the truth of the Bible with what I saw in front of me.

I have approximately 3 chapters left to go in my next book.  I say, ‘approximately’, because I guess I’m not absolutely sure.  Perhaps I’ll need more in order to bring the topic to a close.  I haven’t set the title in stone, but I am considering calling it, “Authentic Love (In A Superficial World)”

The motivation for that one actually revolves around my children. Many parents do in fact spend a great deal of time teaching their children many things.  Many parents send their kids to some form of martial arts. Many parents enrol their children in music lessons.  Hordes of children take part in competitive sports whether they be hockey, soccer or basketball. We intentionally teach our children many things, but rarely do we intentionally teach them how to love.”

Michael Frost – “A Call To Transform Neighborhoods” (Renov8 #rv8)

Nov 21st, 2009
by Michael Krahn.
1 comment

***This will be the last of the liveblog posts. I will probably follow up with some further thoughts later next week. Thanks for reading*** (All of my posts from Renov8 can be found here)

The time has come to wrap up the conference, and who better to do that than the guy who got us started: Michael Frost.

Michael Frost

He starts with a story of a heroic church planter, an ADHD dyslexic church-planter who couldn’t sit still and up straight so decided to stop going.

Instead, he gathers some friends and goes water skiing and it turns into a regular gathering. Eventually he had close to 100 people gathering at the docks for prayer and teaching, communion, baptism. Frost says to him “You say this like it’s a problem…” to which the guy replies: “I think I might have accidentally started a church!”

His point is that there are people planting churches who have never been to a church planting conference. Part of what he feels he is called to do is find these planters and bless their plants as legitimate churches because sometimes they’re not sure that they are.

We need to keep our eyes open for these kinds of churches – these “Accidental Churches”. If you’re a denominational leader, this tends to freak you out, but these churches do want encouragement and oversight, so why not give it to them?

5 things we need to remember and hold on to as we go from this conference

1. Let Jesus be our reference point
This sounds strange to say to a bunch of Christians but he’s been with too many planters and others who make him wonder if they’ve ever read the Gospels. They know a type of Jesus, but not the one in the gospels.

What would we have done if we’d been present at the wedding in Cana at which Jesus turned water into wine? We would have left before the miracle occurred. Michael Frost retelling this story is something worth hearing

Don’t worry what people say about you, because the supposed “holy” people of his day hated him too.

2. Foster a radical spirituality of engagement
We often only connect with God on retreat – we have a spirituality of retreat. He’s not saying a single word against retreat time, it is a good thing to do, but we tend to think that time spent on “life” is time spent away from God and we need to retreat to spend time with him.

But all of these daily and mundane tasks ARE time with God, not just the things that are called “ministry”. God is present in every task. Jesus said, “My food is to DO the will of God.” Why shouldn’t that be our food as well?

I like Frost… a thoroughly biblical renegade. As a speaker, he is very good at anticipating objections and addressing them.

3. Be inspired by prevenient grace
Be aware that God has already prevened before Michael Frostwe intervene or convene. Look for shalom; look for where God is at work. This has been said all over the conference, but Frost is the first one to successfully articulate what it means. Thank you.

He tells the story of Australian author Patrick White, a gay atheist, who suddenly felt the need to go to church after experiencing prevenient grace. (story found in “Flaws in the Glass” by Patrick White). When people experience prevenient grace, they think they need to go to a church to find out what is happening to them, only too often they find building with people in it who are devoid of any grace at all.

Prevenient grace is at work in everyday experiences. People are having religious experiences all the time, and we’re not there to tell them what it is. (This echoes Wagdi saying that Muslims often see visions of Jesus after Ramadan)

We need to do less gathering and more infiltrating.

4. Follow the Missio Dei into strange places
Say yes to what the Missio Dei is doing, don’t always wait for others to tell you where its going

5. Inspire others to go with you
Ask God to raise up others to go with you to look for evidences of prevenient grace. We need more people following the Missio Dei, not more people filling seats.

“Ignite a revolution of missional engagement.”

He ended the talk with a poem by Adrian Plass poem called “Amen”:

Adrian Plass – Amen

When I became a Christian I said, Lord, now fill me in,
Tell me what I’ll suffer in this world of shame and sin.
He said, Your body may be killed, and left to rot and stink,
Do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – I think.
I think Amen, Amen I think, I think I say Amen,
I’m not completely sure, can you just run through that again?
You say my body may be killed and left to rot and stink,
Well, yes, that sounds terrific, Lord, I say Amen – I think.

But , Lord, there must be other ways to follow you, I said,
I really would prefer to end up dying in my bed.
Well, yes, he said, you could put up with sneers and scorn and spit,
Do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – a bit.
A bit Amen, Amen a bit, a bit I say Amen,
I’m not completely sure, can you just run through that again?
You say I could put up with sneers and also scorn and spit,
Well, yes, I’ve made my mind up, and I say Amen! – a bit.

Well I sat back and thought a while, then tried a different ploy,
Now, Lord, I said, the Good Book says that Christians live in joy.
That’s true, he said, you need the joy to bear the pain and sorrow,
So do you still want to follow me? I said, Amen! – tomorrow.
Tomorrow, Lord, I’ll say it then, that’s when I’ll say Amen,
I need to get it clear, can I just run through that again?
You said I will need the joy, to bear the pain and sorrow,
Well, yes, I think I’ve got it straight, I’ll say, Amen – tomorrow.

He said, Look, I’m not asking you to spend an hour with me,
A quick salvation sandwich and a cup of sanctity,
The cost is you, not half of you, but every single bit.
Now tell me, will you follow me? I said, Amen! – I quit.
I’m very sorry, Lord, I said, I’d like to follow you,
But I don’t think religion is a manly thing to do.
He said, Forget religion then, and think about my Son,
And tell me if you’re man enough to do what he has done.

Are you man enough to see the need, and man enough to go,
Man enough to care for those whom no one wants to know,
Man enough to say the thing that people hate to hear,
To battle through Gethsemane in loneliness and fear.
And listen! Are you man enough to stand it at the end,
The moment of betrayal by the kisses of a friend,
Are you man enough to hold your tongue, and man enough to cry,
When the nails break your body – are you man enough to die?
Man enough to take the pain, and wear it like a crown,
Man enough to love the world and turn t upside down,
Are you man enough to follow me, I ask you once again.
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said Amen.
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen,
I said, Oh Lord, I’m frightened, but I also said, Amen.

← Earlier Posts