Muscle Deep

God Incarnate. Liturgy. Small purses. Heaven. Islands. Banjos. Pumpkin seeds. Seasons. Loss. Contentment: all these and many other seemingly random thoughts and images have been marching round in my head over the last month, at times all together and other times one by one as if called in for interview. Tonight, several scenes and bits of quotes in particular keep cycling past the windows in my brain. The first is a night much like this one...

It had been a full day: an RSA meet and greet in the morning, teaching in the afternoon, worship rehearsal in the evening. I was slowly curling along the backroads home from rehearsal, windows down and the summer evening air blowing the loose hair away from my face and dripping with the scent of freshly mown grass. The frogs and crickets and cicadas had struck up a grand tune and the stars were out in force. I was gloriously happy. I realized in that moment that there was absolutely nothing I wanted to change about life here at home. Not in the sense that I had arrived: I know how many habits need changing and thoughts that need to be curtailed and responses that need to be repented of and submitted to the lordship of Christ. What struck me was the absence of the restless hunger that has colored so much of my life to this point. I've always strained toward the next thing, the next stage of life, the next gadget to come stimulate or spice up life, the next idea to thrill, the next story to carry me away. I've longed more than anything to arrive, to get to a point of rest from struggle. But that night? I felt no longing except to continue in this place, with these people, working hard and savoring the rest that is work's reward, sinking daily deeper into rhythms which help cultivate and channel my desires towards Christ.

That night fades out of view with its warm, steady glow of hope and contentment. Another night takes shape now in a music room in Florida. The morning was spent at church in the word and with God's people. The evening has been full of food and people gathered around a piano singing hymns with all their might. Banjo, mandolin, violin, cello, harp, shaker and (best of all) the voices of God's people have been raised in the declaration of God's character and faithfulness and in a renewed "amen" on each stirring charge to worshipful obedience. The words sink deep and the music quickens the heart and gets in the blood. Gradually the people gather their things and go forth into the night and a new week with renewed hungers and open eyes. To us now, "Heaven above is softer blue/Earth around is sweeter green/Something lives in every hue/Christless eyes have never seen." Even yet, the night isn't over. The girls and Alex end up back in the music room to jam through old time tunes until past midnight. As we finally fade into a vegetable state of exhaustion and begin to pack up, Emily starts to strum the chords for the 1965 classic, My Girl, and that was the moment. I still can't properly describe why this was the scene which makes this memory keep coming back. One would think that it would have been the hymn sing itself. That was the part of the evening that held such soul shaping lyrics. Those words rang in our ears and flowed out as joy and hope in our voices. But there was something indescribable about that last moment when the words were deep down but no longer on our tongues. I think perhaps it was because, for me, it was then that the fullness of the sorrow, deep loss, persistent hope and steady patience of each heart in the room suddenly seemed to take shape. We were pilgrims stirring from the feast and girding up for the next week's trek. Sorrows were known but not spoken of. Truth had already been abundantly declared. A tangible feast for the body had already been savored. And there we were, bound by many things but knowing that what truly ties us beyond and despite all other bonds is Whose we are. That morning we had tasted the body of Christ broken for us and the cup of Christ poured out for us. We were once again stained by the cup. And now, before morning came and we took to the road again, we were tasting of the wedding feast to come where we will be perfectly and eternally united as the Bride of Christ.

An unexpected Contentment. A taste of the Wedding Feast. And now a hundred thoughts from a book Emily lent me just before I headed back to Virginia trickle through my mind. I began reading the book on the flight home from Florida and read it in every spare moment after that until I finished it 6 days later. (If this blog post is going to avoid being 200 pages long, I can only quote a few lines of the book. But before I get to that, if you are reading this post and haven't yet read James K.A. Smith's book You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, you should stop and go order it. You will be so very grateful you did.) The part of the book that rests on top of the scenes which come before it in my mind tonight might be labeled "Life-Liturgy." To use the word Liturgy in this way might be distasteful to some but allow me to try to explain why it is has stuck in my brain as a freeing, joy giving, purpose shaping, grace infused lens on life. This thought really sunk in about two weeks ago when I was teaching an adult student. This genteel southern lady is the embodiment of refined elegance. Every strand of hair is in place, her posture is tall and graceful, and every carefully chosen word evidences the quick mind which sends it. She has taken piano and flute lessons since she was young and is an excellent sight reader, but has only taken violin for about 5 years. When she plays, I can sometimes see a visible frustration: the quick mind and ear assess the sounds from her instrument and fire back the results to her body, but nothing changes. Her knowledge hasn't impacted her performance because she hasn't had the time or energy as a busy mom of 4 kids to invest in this particular skill. As we chatted during her lesson, I found myself saying something to the effect of this: "Your mind knows so much, but it takes hundreds - even thousands - of conscious repetitions to get that knowledge deep into your muscles. Only after that can the violin sing."

That is what I mean by Life-Liturgy: A life organized such that in every mundane feature of a day we find a way to echo conscious repetitions of what we know about God and what God says about us until that knowledge works its way deep into the muscles of our soul. Only then can our lives sing His praises. There are so many ways that this is lived out practically, but let this definition sink into your own mind for a moment. Let the first hour of your day take shape in your mind. I've got mine. I'm watching minutes slip by and haven't yet seen any conscious repetition of the goodness of God, no prayer which defines my identity by the light of the Creator and the shadow of the cross. I've seen myself take in food, but not receive it as a sheep being led by the Eternally Good Shepherd who spreads a table before me and leads me to green pastures. I've seen myself discouraged at the selfishness and greed and gluttony in my heart but not run to Christ, the Restorer of my soul. I've seen myself pack a purse - a giant one - and hurriedly throw in several books, a thoughtless snack and tip money I really should be putting towards loans. It is perhaps fitting that the first hour of my day normally ends in purse packing. I'm finding this to be a rather key moment of Life-Liturgy because of what it reveals about my intentions for the rest of the day. But the night is getting late and soon my thoughts will get as lost as the ever elusive bobby pins in the bottom of my purse. So after sleep, let's get back to purses and then see how they relates to dancing and heaven and islands and those pumpkin seeds.