Mel McDaniel the Philosopher

I spent much of my childhood anchored in one-seventh of the occupied seats in the family van as it hopped historical markers around North America. Often the only peace to be found from interstate potty-training and trucker talk on channel 7 was in an unchanging three-cassette rotation of country music. Mel McDaniel was fortunate enough to be a part of that trio with whom we grew up.

I quickly discovered that Mel is fond of Louisiana. He sings songs with titles such as “Louisiana Moon” and “Louisiana Saturday Night” (a personal karaoke favorite). And I once scoffed to a friend that you know that a state must not have much to offer if, in a song title, the state becomes an adjective to things that are held in common by anyone in anyplace, such as the moon or a particular day of the week.

I thought it might be a good idea for Mel to travel to Arizona or to Canada before he cut another record. I was ignorant to an important truth of what was being said (consciously or not) in his songs about Louisiana. Perhaps what Mel is saying is that he recognizes the value in the consistent aspects of his life like the moon that always adds its glow to the night and the reoccurring Saturday evening celebrations.

Oddly related to this, I am currently reading Orthodoxy with some guys from my church. G.K. Chesterton explains this truth that Mel eludes to and that often eludes me:

“All the towering materialism that dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption – a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead, a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe were personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance… it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due not to lifelessness but to a rush of life… people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony... It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon.”

Chesterton got it. Mel gets it. I am trying.

It’s not the variations that make places special or the differences in people that are of true importance. Those things are good, but it’s the things that persist; the things that are faithful in their rhythm. These are the things that our unchanging and faithful God exults in. The people that Jesus was drawn to during His ministry were not extraordinary. For His last dinner, before His death, He chose to eat bread and drink wine. When God is involved the ordinary is the extraordinary.

I know that I wouldn't choose bread to eat as my last meal on this earth. The problem is that we are all A.D.D. in our humanity. We want something to excite us because it’s an easy and quick thrill. But to exult in something for its constancy is difficult, it requires thought, effort and perseverance to grow in deep appreciation; it’s not something that naturally occurs.

A first kiss at the end of a date is a burst of nervous excitement, but a man kissing the same woman every morning for forty years is something truly amazing.

There are many talented musicians in my church and it is much fun to hear them perform, but the incredible part of our musical worship is that we sing, in unity, the same words to the same God; and brothers and sisters throughout the world and history sing those same words (although different languages) to the same unchanging and faithful God.

A new song with a fun beat can give us a quick thrill. But there are songs that we have heard a thousand times and with every listen they only grow deeper in their meaning. For me it was worn out songs making up a three-cassette rotation that maintained sanity on the highway.

There is something of deep value in the same moon that lightens the night sky just as it did last night, and in another Saturday evening with the same friends and the same family, even when this occurs in Louisiana.

This is what I am learning now as I prepare for marriage. I must learn to appreciate the rhythm that God has created in my fiance and soon-to-be wife. And to see that it is God behind her fascinating, not mundane, sameness. I believe recognition of this in my heart will be the difference between a life that strives to be a fluid act of worship and a life filled with merely points of worship.

Am I a Fascist?

Fascism is an ideology that believes that the world and humankind can be perfected with the sovereignty of a nation or race. The modern origin of this came from Mussolini who believed that he could, for the greater good, restore the ancient Roman Empire. Of course, we know where Hitler and the Nazi party took this form of government and the destructive path they followed.

Why did this ideology fail? The answer is simpler than you might think. It failed for the same reason all ideologies and governments will fail: this world is fallen. This world is not stumbling or tripped up or looking for its footing. It is fallen and all its inhabitants are depraved. It’s a done deal, this place is forsaken, and evil permeates every crevice. Girls get abducted in open day-lit parking lots; students get murdered on campus and genocide shares equal news coverage with basketball games. None of this is new to us, it is obvious and saddening.

When I viewed local and world missions, it was my perspective that we could improve this state we're in and become, on the whole, a more prosperous place with less oppression and poverty if we could only spread the gospel, in truth, to the ends of the earth. We could achieve a better world with the truth of Christ, and the reason that this hasn’t worked perfectly thus far is because various denominations and Christian cults alike distort (to varying degrees) the truth of the freedom that is found in Christ. I value truth and freedom above all things and I was certain this was the answer. To some degree, I still believe that this works and I think history has plenty of evidence to support this.

However, I grossly missed what God is wanting and expecting from me, and in my arrogance I exalted my own potential. God is not wanting me to feebly attempt to repair the sinking ship. What He wants is simply for me to let people know that their ship is sinking and there is only one way off- His Son.

I’m still not sure how I had been so oblivious to this. I had been going about doing the right things with the wrong aim. I've been immersed in World War II history lately, and I began to realize that when you boiled down my ideology it frighteningly had a lot in common with fascism. I was seeking to make this world better by attempting to institute a Christian nation (with more of a grass roots and peaceful approach).

The only hope for anyone is to be woken up and rescued and only God will do it, but he has asked me to be a part of it (that itself is amazing). A better world is a great thought, but it is only a temporary solution. It’s like using planks to try to patch up the Titanic when we should be building a life boat.

War and Peace

"The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace, because he trusts in You."

This stood out to me this morning as I was reading through the song in Isaiah 26. It probably caught my attention because peace is one of the most elusive of the fruits of the spirit to me. Ok, well let me be honest, rarely can I say that any of them define me, but peace likes to keep a little extra distance from me.

“I was born to go to war, it comes so natural to me…” as Derek Webb sings “I’ve got a poison conscience telling me to go with that.” Is it funny, sad or both that this is the connection I made as I was thinking about the Isaiah text? I think a poison conscience and a disposition to war pretty accurately describes me much of the time. Perfect peace does not.

The peace that eludes me, Isaiah says, is directly related to the steadfastness of my mind. Steadfast - I am a word freak and this is a term that I use but that I wasn’t sure if I had a precise definition. So I sought advice from two dear friends, Merriam and Webster, and they said that it’s being firmly fixed in place. It’s a true definition but as I thought about it, it seems the word is sold short by it.

The definition makes it sound easy, but we know that it’s not; it’s the opposite of easy. This is why Cal Ripken is a baseball hero and marathons are a celebrated accomplishment. And it’s the reason people are in awe of a couple that has been married for 40 years.

To me, steadfast not only connotes being firmly fixed in place, but also what it takes to remain firmly in place. To resist against the things that challenge your ability to remain firm. To be steadfast is to be focused on a goal, but also having broad vision and an engaged mind in order to know what to resist against and how to resist it.

Without effective resistance stamina fails. I have run some marathons and done some things that might prompt people to think I am a man of endurance. But steadfastness is beyond me. My mind is not steadfast on the Lord. This type of steadfastness is as much related to endurance as it is the sober mindedness that Paul speaks of in his epistles.

Without a steadfast mind by way of endurance and sobriety, there is no rest for me. I don’t allow God to fight my wars for me. I don’t trust in God enough to relinquish my command to him. The wars I do fight are in large, causeless.

I must learn to engage my mind more consistently. I must learn to push my thoughts to Christ continuously, so that I may know the battlefield that I am in and that I may know where victory is found. This is what will bring me peace. I have a long way to go.