Monthly Archives: December 2008

Disillusioned Children

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These lines conclude a poem by Emily Dickinson:

But I, grown shrewder, scan the skies
with a suspicious air,
as children, swindled for the first
all swindlers be, infer.

There’s a recurring theme on pastor blogs:  a hunger for God coupled with deep discouragement over the institutional church.  These twin attitudes also mark the emerging church movement.  I wonder if many who went into ministry with idealism now feel swindled — we’ve seen too much of the underside of the church.  The dictionary says ‘swindle’ derives from an old German word meaning vanish.  With our innocence gone, we’ve grown shrewd and suspicious like the disillusioned children in Dickinson’s poem.

It’s good to be disillusioned.  Losing illusions brings wisdom.  It’s like the demolition scene in Makeover – the old house disappears before the new rises.

On Zechariah

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Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.’ The angel replied, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.’  (Luke 1.18-20 NRSV)

Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, parents to St John the Baptist, are lesser known characters in the Christmas story.  They didn’t qualify for the pageant — their figurines don’t appear in any Nativity set.  But Luke thought this old, childless couple important, and he placed them at the beginning of his Gospel.

Zechariah received the angel’s news of his son’s birth while at the Temple on incense duty, a once in a lifetime opportunity for him.  The Mishnah describes a complicated affair involving ladles, firepans and times of prostration.  Zechariah had never done this, of course, and must have wanted to do it well.

The angel’s interruption startles and terrifies him.  That in this state he gets muted for asking an honest question has always seemed harsh to me.  (Mary later asks an honest question of the angel but gets no reprimand.)

So Zechariah and Elizabeth enjoy the gift of an unexpected child in their lives.  Their ‘barrenness,’ a hard thing in that culture, is healed at last.

But it isn’t really.  Their son grew up to be a strange, locust-eating prophet — not the kind to come home for Thanksgiving.  The wilderness took him away.  The story ends with Zechariah and Elizabeth facing another kind of barrenness, having lost their only son to the desert.

I wonder if it was worth it for Zechariah, to have a small part in the biblical drama.  Maybe he would rather have had grandchildren.  His song sounds hopeful, but many emotions can hide under a melody.  “Even in laughter, the heart is sad, and the end of joy is grief.” (Proverbs 14.13 NRSV)

The Value of Manual Work

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Paul Sedan, a carpenter in North Carolina, hopes Americans return to making our own things rather than importing them from other countries.  He worries that manual work is little praised or emphasized.

Young people today are not encouraged to work with their hands. It’s thought to be demeaning. But working with your hands to create something new is energizing and rewarding. It boosts self-esteem… it helps you see how something can be improved.

Monasticism long ago saw manual work as a spiritual discipline.  It forms half of the Benedictine moto:  Ora et Labora.  Pray and work.  Monastic writers saw the positive effects of work, as Sedan does, and they understood how the fatigue created by manual labor can loosen the grip of negative emotions and attitudes in our lives — greed, sadness and inordinate anger, among others.

After reading Sedan’s article, I went out front and raked leaves.  I collected them onto a blue tarp and dragged them to the leaf pile in the side yard.  A little labor helped my property, and hopefully my soul.

It also brought to mind Tom Bombadil’s description of Farmer Maggot: “There’s earth under his old feet, and clay on his fingers; wisdom in his bones, and both his eyes are wide open.”