Metamorphosis

Not long after I became a Christian, my wife (whom I was dating at the time) had a conversation with an LSU football player at a meeting of Campus Crusade for Christ. He happened to be a fraternity brother of mine, although I didn’t know him very well. LSU football players tended to live in a world apart from the rest of the student body, even if they belonged to fraternities.

She told him she was dating a fraternity brother of his, and he asked who it was, likely expecting to hear of one of the many Christians in our fraternity. When she said my name, his face registered shock.

He didn’t know me very well, either. But he likely knew of me. And we hadn’t talked since I had become a Christian. Still…

The fact is that I must have had some kind of reputation, although it wasn’t entirely bad.

I was the fraternity go-to guide when a pledge needed tutoring in English.

I was the guy for pledges and actives alike to go to read their papers on Faulkner’s story “Barn Burning” or Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Browne” (I can’t abide to read either to this very day).

I was the soft-touch active who the pledges would come to during initiation week for counsel and a shoulder to cry on, and the one who would leave a pack cigarettes in a desk drawer for the pledges to smoke (it was verboten during initiation week unless an active gave you permission).

So, you may ask, why would that cause shock on the fraternity brother’s face?

Well, the fraternity was roughly and evenly divided between the Christians and – the pagans.

I had not been part of the Christian half.

I was the guy who consumed most of a quart of bourbon at football parties (shared with my date, of course).

I was the guy who was first in line at the jungle juice parties.

I was the guy who would dance on the ledge a big brick planter in the recreation room during parties.

I was the guy known for dancing the heel off his shoe at a fraternity party.

I was the guy who led the party crowd in the rousing “Fish Cheer” by Country Joy & the Fish (it was a Woodstock thing – screaming the f-bomb at the top of your lungs).

So – the report of the shocked look hurt – but I couldn’t say it was unjustified.

So what happened to the party animal?

“I don’t understand the process,” says Jerry Bridges in The Discipline of Grace, “but I know the word for it. It is metamorphosis. That five-syllable, ‘eight-cylinder’ word is used to describe what happens when a caterpillar spins a hard cocoon around itself and some days later emerges as a butterfly.”

It’s the same word that Paul uses to describe “the spiritual transformation in the life of the Christian,” Bridges says.

And that’s what had started happening to me. The fraternity brother knew about the moth. My girlfriend saw the butterfly emerging.

Metamorphosis.

It’s a good word. And an apt one.

Over at Informing the Reforming, Tim Challies is leading the discussion of The Discipline of God. Today’s focus is Chapter Six, “Transformed into His Likeness.” To see what the discussion’s about, please visit Tim’s site.

The Gap Grows Wider

One of the concluding events for my masters degree was an extended oral discussion with three professors. I didn’t have to defend a thesis, but I did have to consider what I had learned and what it meant, and what I was going to do with it.

My seminar work was focused on the history of religion and on literature, and I had read Roman and Greek classics, the early church fathers (I fell in love with the writing of Tertullian, who was something of a heretic), writers of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and writers of all periods on the subject of science. I was even able to take a seminar on the Latin American novel, opening up an entirely new world of literature for me.

I told the professors the truth – that I had started the program because I felt I certain gaps in my formal education. And now that I had finished the program, I’d discovered that the gaps had become larger, not smaller.

So it is with the word that seems to be less and less used these days, for fear of offending non-Christians and that mysterious group we call “seekers.”

The word is sin.

The older I become, the more I understand, the greater the gap seems to grow between me, my understanding of sin, and God.

I knew and understood far more about sin in my 20s than I do today. Of course, I was a whole lot smarter about everything in my 20s than I am today.

Today I see the gap; I see how wide it is. I see how short I fall. No matter what I do, I can’t bridge that gap. There are times when I feel the gap like a harsh wind in a cold place, and I think I’ll never be warm again.

Left up to me, I would be stuck in that cold place. Forever.

But this thing called grace wraps itself around me.

In The Discipline of Grace, Jerry Bridges spends some time talking about who and what we Christians think we are and who we really are. We’re much more comfortable seeing ourselves with our own eyes. We look at the decaying culture around us, and we feel pretty good that we’re not as bad as that.

Bridges call that what it is – Christian Pharisaism. We’re like that Pharisee who was so pleased that he wasn’t as sinful as the tax collector. As for the tax collector, he understand how bad he was, and how he needed God’s mercy, even if he didn’t deserve it.

Pharisaism is about performance, and a preoccupation with performance is one of those things I’ve struggled with my entire life. I’ll probably be trying to figure out how best to cooperate with the undertaker when he places my remains in the coffin.

Preoccupation with performance is the twin of self-righteousness. It also keeps the focus where I like the focus to be – on me.

Somehow, I don’t think God is real impressed. He knows my heart. And he wants me to have the heart of that tax collector.

Even as I see the gap grow larger, the bridge across it becomes longer.

Over at Informing the Reforming, Tim Challies is leading a discussion of The Discipline of Grace. To see how people are discussing the chapter entitled “Christian Pharisaism,” please visit Tim’s site.

This post is also submitted to Bonnie Gray's rejuvenated blogging jam, with today's theme being "What I Know Now." To see more posts submitted, please visit Faith. Barista.

I Have a Confession to Make

I grew up a Missouri Synod Lutheran in pre-Vatican II Catholic New Orleans. The city was largely Catholic then; the religious leanings of  metropolitan area were divided roughly into majority Catholic, minority Protestant, and people who lived in the French Quarter.

I was part of that minority Protestant group, although most of my friends (and neighbors) were Catholic. You couldn’t help but inhale some understanding of the Catholic faith, however. So from an early age I understand that “they” venerated Mary and we didn’t; our ministers married and their priests didn’t; nuns used rulers in the Catholic elementary schools and our public school teachers didn’t; they got a smudge on their foreheads the day after Mardi Gras and we didn’t.

However, we all celebrated Mardi Gras, and in much the same ways. But not like the people who lived in the French Quarter. Enough said.

One practice that was always a mystery to me was what at first I thought were phone booths in their churches. No, they weren’t phone booths, I was told; they were confessionals. Whenever I asked my Catholic friends what they did in confessionals, they would become nervous and uncomfortable and shrug their shoulders. “Just stuff.” “Stuff?” “Yeah, stuff.” “What kind of stuff?” “Just stuff.”

One friend finally told me that “stuff” was telling the priest all the sins they could think of.

I was shocked. “You tell the priest all your sins?”

He nodded. “And they you have to say some Hail Marys or Our Fathers, and it’s OK.”

I knew what an “Our Father” was – the Lord’s Prayer, even if Catholics said it wrong. But at my house, a Hail Mary was a football play on television.

Even as I grew older, I always thought it odd that sins had to be confessed to priests. At my church, we were long on “no mediator between you and God” but short – really short – on how to confess your sins directly to God.

Where I think the Catholics got it right was that confession is a kind of conversation – a conversation between the sinner and the Authority. For me, the Authority is still God, and He forgives, but it took a lot of understanding and study for me to learn that I had responsibilities, too.

Confession comes from a contrite heart, a contrite spirit.

Confession comes from the understanding that God wants to hear it all, even the things – especially the things – you’re least comfortable talking about.

Confession comes from the knowledge that you fall short, that you always fall short, but you still have to try, and you do try. And you pray.

And confession comes from the hope that one day, you won’t fall short, but it won’t happen in this world.

And confession is a good and right thing to do; Jesus made it a part of the Lord’s Prayer for a reason, because it is a constant reminder that forgiveness is there, made possible by the Son, and it is the Father to whom we confess.

Led by Tim Challies at Informing the Reforming, we’ve been discussing The Hidden Life of Prayer: The Life Blood of the Christian, the 1893 classic by David McIntyre. To join the discussion, please visit Tim’s site.

Acknowledging Daily Mercies? What?

Reading The Hidden Life of Prayer: The Life Blood of the Christian by David McIntyre, I ran smack into some old-fashioned language (the work was first published in 1893). As I considered the meaning of the words, I began to understand how we can lose meaning when we change language. And language has changed a lot since 1893.

McIntyre is discussing prayer, and specifically the role of praise in prayer. And this is what he writes:

“…the tribute of praise which the saints are instructed to render to the Lord may arise either (a) in the acknowledgement of daily mercies, or (b) in thanks-giving for the great redemption, or (c) in contemplation of the divine perfection.”

Here’s how a contemporary English translation might say it:

“We’re told to give praise for three possible reasons: blessings, thanks for salvation, and/or worship.”

Both mean essentially the same thing, but consider what is lost in the contemporary version.

That praise is tribute.

That we are the saints.

That we are instructed to offer.

That we should acknowledge mercies from God.

That mercies are daily.

That thanks-giving is not a noun but an action verb (it’s hyphenated).

That salvation is a “great redemption.”

That worship is a contemplation – a deep thinking.

That what we are to contemplate is a “divine perfection.” (And McIntyre capitalizes “Divine” because it is a placeholder word for God. Think how common it is for us to lowercase “he” and “him” when we refer to God.)

Reading that short passage, and thinking about it, I was rather stunned. I began to think about all the other things we do – things other than our utilitarian, socially-mediated language – that loses meaning and a sense of awe.

Because that is what McIntyre is communicating – that praise is a form of awe.

Over at Informing the Reforming, Tim Challies is leading a discussion of The Hidden Life of Prayer. Please visit the site to see what’s happening the comments.

The Three Quiets

From the time I first became a Christian, I had people telling me about the important of a quiet time – a daily and regular time of study and prayer. The best time of day, most suggested, was the early morning, before the day began, before all the pressures of daily life crowded in.

Some suggested using a devotional guide, and some the Bible. Some said you have a short prayer first, then a study time, then a longer time of prayer. Others reversed the order. Some said you should have a cup of coffee, and others said you should wait until the quiet time was over before making the coffee. Some even suggested that you could mentally extend the quiet time until you were almost in a state of continual prayer throughout the day.

I’ve tried them all, and they all work. Or they don’t. What may matter less is the process, and what may matter more is the doing it.

In The Hidden Life of Prayer: The Life-Blood of the Christian, David McIntyre amplified this idea of a quiet time, to include more than just a regular hour. He describes three aspects of a quiet prayer time, and in a way I didn’t expect. I call them “the three quiets.”

First, he says, you need a quiet place, away from distractions. Even though the book was first published in 1891, McIntyre recognized all of the kinds of things that can distract from a quiet time – and how where you have a quiet time was of crucial importance. Some people might not be able to find one readily at hand, and he suggests some imaginative improvisation if that’s what’s needed.

Second is the one we’re most familiar with – a quiet hour, a regular time of the day when you can be alone in prayer. Actually, he suggests twice a day – morning and evening.

And third, McIntyre says, is a quiet heart – likely the most truly difficult to realize. He suggests what he calls three “simple facts of faith,” to keep one’s mind focused on God: recognize our acceptance by God because Jesus died on the cross; confess and receive the enabling grace of the spirit; and direct our hearts to Scripture, to read it “as in the presence of God” to calm our mind.

The quiet time and its associated quiet place and quiet heart are a practice, a kind of spiritual discipline. The best time for me is the early morning; the best place is usually a chair that’s not too comfortable. And often the best way for me to quiet my mind and heart (with a mind still trying to figure out why I’m not still in bed) is to read the beginning of the Gospel of John, a psalm, or I Peter. Yes, I know Peter was writing to Christians likely experiencing persecution, but I find his words very calming, like “a light shining in a dark place.”

Do you have a regular quiet time, and a regular place? And how do you quiet your heart?

Over at Informing the Reforming, Tim Challies is leading a discussion of The Hidden Life of Prayer. For a book that’s more than 100 years old, it seems delightfully on target. The language is 1890s English (perhaps with a Scottish accent), but it still appropriate for all of us in 2012.