Chris Fabry's Blog, page 5

Praise The Oh

There’s been a backlash about taking the word “Lord” from a performance on The Voice last week. See more about that HERE.

Perhaps it was a case of needing to the public domain version that caused them to remove “Lord,” but many see this as another instance of deleting references to God/Jesus/Faith. Best case scenario is that the move was made to make the song available free on iTunes. Worst case scenario…well, read on.

Worst case is that this is the new push that’s been going on for a long time. In order to have a manger in the public square we must also have Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty around. We must either extract or water down this exclusive religious speech.

Let’s imagine a world without the word “Lord.” The Eagles and Jackson Browne would need to change the words to “Take It Easy.”

It’s a girl, my Oh, in a flat-bed Ford slowing down to have a look at me.

George Harrison’s words would need to be changed to:

My Sweet Oh.

Wait, that song is pretty syncretistic, so perhaps it can stay. That may be a lower case “L” in that song.

But certainly we’d have to change hymns:

Praise to the Oh, the Almighty, The King of Creation.

And what do you do with a song like, How Great Thou Art?

Oh Oh, my God, when I in awesome wonder….

You’d probably have to take “God” out of there and supplant it with “Word.”

Oh Oh, my Word….

You can how silly this would become. That’s because words mean things. And religious speech is offensive to some. Always has been. But it’s particularly offensive to speak the exclusive religious speech of Christians who believe that God became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus, or Yeshua as he was known in his own culture, was not merely a moral teacher who taught us to turn the other cheek, love others and walk the extra mile, he was inextricably intertwined with the truth that he claimed to be one with God. He claimed to be Deity.

The Christmas hymn, Hark the Herald Angels says it well:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

Emmanuel means, “God with us.”

Oh.

It’s easy to pick on The Voice for their faux pas. They were just trying to make things more palatable for everyone (or, perhaps trying to make the song available free). But when you extract the name “Lord” from a beloved tune, you gain the ire of many followers who will object, vilify, protest, tweet and express unbridled outrage.

The harder question for us is not what some producers at NBC decided to do but what I do every day. It’s much easier to boycott, picket, protest, and raise a holy ruckus over what those godless, pagan, insensitive people did by taking a word out of a song I like.

It’s much more difficult to look at my own life closely and see the ways I have marginalized God or taken “Lord” from my lips. Maybe this is why some are incensed. I get upset with other people when I see them doing things I am guilty of. Perhaps our furor over this is partly due to the small ways we have removed God from our lives.

Oh.

The Caller

I’ve been doing call-in talk radio for more than 20 years. I’ve never had to use the delay or “dump” button. Callers have, for the most part, been considerate, compassionate, and kind. Some have been upset, angry, and agitated, but have always conducted themselves with respect and a sense of decorum.

That changed yesterday on my program, Chris Fabry Live. A man called to tell a story that I thought illustrated the topic of the show. The story turned out to be gross and profane.

I was shocked. All of those working behind the scenes were shocked. So much so that I wasn’t able to give the cue in time to dump the content of the call.

Earlier in the hour I said that I felt two words rising to the surface of my life in the past few days. The first was opposition. The second was kindness. I mentioned this long before we took that call.

Opposition comes in many forms. An opposing force can defeat your, bowl you over, or make you stronger for the fight. Opposition seeks to disarm you and defeat you. The caller represented this opposing force well.

After the call I tried to simply move on with the program, not knowing exactly what was on the air and what wasn’t. It was clear after a few minutes that people did hear the offending remark and I felt like I had to say something about it.

In the closing moments, a lot of people ran through my mind. The mom driving her kids home from school. The dad doing the same. The elderly woman who listens every day for encouragement. The station managers who trust us to protect their listeners from such outrageous and offensive material.

And then I thought of that man. He sounded young. He sounded nervous. What happened in his life to make him think this would be funny? Is he angry with the church for some reason? Is he angry at God? Does he even believe God exists? When I began to think of him, instead of anger and vitriol, I felt very sad for him. And I tried to be kind. And many of our listeners wrote and mentioned this—that the offensive, crude and undignified remarks were handled in a way that treated the caller as a person who needed God’s grace. Who am I to withhold grace when I’ve received so much of it?

So if you think of the gentleman who called and start getting angry, pray for him. Pray that God’s grace and mercy will overwhelm him and that he will become a trophy of that grace.

Norma

I love talking with people who want to follow God with a whole heart. But it's painful to hear their stories and know how hard their lives are. Following God doesn't mean you won't get thrown to the lions. Obeying him fully won't keep you from imprisonment or crucifixion.

But you'll never regret obeying him, no matter how hard life gets.

Norma called yesterday. She's been living with a man for nine years. They have a child together. She became a Christian not long ago. Lately she's had this feeling that her relationship with this man isn't the best. He's a good guy, but he's not interested in God. And they're not married.

She went to a church and was counseled by a pastor. It's no big deal.

But that still, small voice is telling her there's something off, something not right.

I encouraged her to listen to that voice and surround herself with some people who want to help her obey God. I also encouraged her to separate from that live-in relationship.

I do not think this is going to be easy. Her heart is entangled with this man. Her child has a father and some would say it would be foolish to give that up. But I believe Norma has something better in front of her. And I have the faith to believe that this man who isn't interested in knowing God might consider eternal truths in a crisis like this.

But you can't manipulate people into the Kingdom. You can't cajole or finagle the grace of God. Norma's job, and yours, and mine, is to obey what God says because ultimately He has the best interests of Norma, her child, and the man she is living with at heart.

Say a prayer for Norma today. Say a prayer for her friend. For her child. Ask God to bring around her people who will care for all three of them through what will no doubt be one of the most difficult times of their lives.

And while you're praying, ask God to look in your own heart and point out something you need to obey, some way you need to follow more closely. He has a way of doing hard things that lead to good for his children.

Are You Having Fun?

I was umpiring in the field at a Little League game recently. The season was winding down and I finally took the plunge to see if I could keep up with the intricacies of calling runners out at 1st and 2nd.

Umpiring is not easy, especially when you have critics on both sides of the fence. But you can’t let the possibility of making a bad call keep you from making any call. That’s my motto.

I was standing behind the first baseman from the other team. His hair was long and unevenly cut under his cap. He had the look of a scared deer who had been running from hunters all season and was just tired.

“Are you having fun?” I said before play resumed.

He gave me a look, sort of a modified eye roll, then a grin. “Not really.”

If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times, kids are supposed to have fun. It’s a learning experience. It’s all about enjoying the game and discovering yourself and blah blah blah. This kid had cracked the code. He knew it wasn’t about having fun and learning. It was about winning. It was about not making a mistake.

“Why aren't you having fun?” I said, probing a little further.

He put his hands on his knees and spoke to the dirt. “Because our coach yells at us all day.”

That does tend to take some of the fun out of it. I looked at his coach—there were two. Judging from my interaction with them, they didn’t think umpiring was about having fun or learning either.

“Well, you guys have gotten a lot better over this season,” I said, trying to encourage him or say something he hadn’t heard from his coach. “I’ve seen a lot of progress.”

First base didn’t say anything.

On the next pitch, a ground ball came to the infield. The throw was a little off-target and first base couldn’t stop it. From the dugout came a yell, instructions that sounded like they’d been given before, mixed with derision.

The pitcher got the ball, looked at the runner and climbed on the mound. The coach's words hung over the field like a cloud.

“I see what you mean,” I said to First Base.

He didn’t look at me, but I saw him smile.

Advice to a Talk Show Host

A couple of months ago I was on a radio program with another host. He said he was thinking about making the leap to Christian radio. His email to me today excitedly (and he was a little scared) said, "I'm finally taking the plunge. Any advice?"

Here's what I said:
So glad to hear you’re taking the leap. Yes, it’s scary, but the best things in life are hard. And this will be hard, but good.

I try not to give too much advice, but since you asked:

1. Be yourself. Don’t try to be Rush or Beck or anybody else. God uniquely created you. Glorify him with who you are.

2. Talk about what brings out your passion. If you deal with things you don’t care about, the listeners will know.

3. Avoid the gripe fest. People like talk radio because they feel like they can vent. Venting lets a lot off, but Christian radio is different. Always have a point to the venting, a place you’re taking listeners that redeems the rant. Obviously, this takes us back to the Scriptures.

4. Don’t lean on guests for everything. You could do all 3 hours every day with nothing but authors. Avoid that trap. Spend time with your listeners and tap into their perspectives.

5. Figure out now what success is. Is it ratings? Is it phone calls? For me, success is connection and can only be seen in the rearview, as you hear from people who will thank you for talking about things they relate to.

6. In the middle of all of your prep and stress and strain about 3 hours a day, the best thing you can do is cultivate your relationship with God.


That's my advice. What would you add?

Base Path Voices

Snapshots from a Little League game. A pitcher aims at home plate. Hopes he won’t hit the batter. Prays it’s close to a strike. Just close, that’s all he wants.

My son has made it to first because the pitches were only close. Blue helmet. Plastic cleats. The ball hurtles toward the plate and Brandon is gone, pushing off first and running with the pent-up energy only 12-year olds know. Striding toward second. The catcher stands and rainbows the ball over the pitcher’s head. This young man with a mask and shin guards who has suffered the slings and arrows of a coach who has only seen what he’s done wrong. But now he is up and firing toward two outstretched gloves. Shortstop and second jockey for position in a competition for who will catch and tag.

My son slides between them and the ball skitters a few feet away, harmless as a kitten. He is safe. A little dirty, but safe. And he stands on second and surveys the view, brushing off his uniform.

The pitcher gets the ball and eyes home plate, more determined. Focused. He is so focused he does not see my son straying off second, walking slowly back to first. Walking like he had no right to be where he had been.

“What’s he doing?” a mother says behind me. She has lamented the frigid temperature, now in the 50s. She is from Chicago, but her blood has been conditioned by desert heat.

“I don’t know,” another mom says. “Maybe he thinks he’s out.”

My son gets half-way to first, then a look of terror strikes him as he hears a voice from his bench and he turns back as the pitcher delivers. My son scampers back to second and half of the crowd breathes a sigh of relief.

The game over, we walk to the car and talk intricacies of the past two-hours. The player hit by the pitch who had to go out of the game. The triple another teammate hit. The pitcher on the other team whose mechanics and hair looked like Tim Lincecum.

“Oh yeah, on that play where you stole second and then tried to steal first, what happened?”

A laugh. Cheeks flushed red to match his hat. "Don't bring that up again."

“But what happened?” I say. “This is all about learning from our mistakes.”

A long, winding story of what goes through a 12-year old’s mind spills from hips. Standing on second he was unsure whether or not he was “safe.” Or if the ball had been tipped by the batter. Or if he had left first too soon.

“When you make it to second, you stand on the base and call time if you’re unsure about anything,” I said.

“But I heard someone say ‘Go back!’” he says. “I thought it was the umpire."

Many voices yell many things at many people on a baseball field. There are voices we think we hear that mix and mingle with what we hear inside.

“Go back!”

In this diamond of a metaphor, I saw myself straying off second, moving but backward, returning to the base I touched long ago. A voice, a siren, a fear, maybe guilt urges me to go where I’ve already been. It sounds real.

“You don’t deserve to be there. Go back.”

Your opponent wants you to retreat. He does not want you to stand on the base where you are and move forward. But your coach compels you home. He is urging you forward and telling you this is about learning from your mistakes and he is waving his arm so you won’t break stride. Listening to that voice is something you have to choose. Listening to that voice will help you be “safe” at home.

Just remember to slide if there’s a play at the plate.

Desire and Fear

This is the prayer, attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, discussed on the program 10/8/2013 and taken from the book, Prayers for Today: A Yearlong Journey of Contemplative Prayer. The prayer is also credited to Rafael Merry del Val.

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebuked, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being criticized, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, deliver me, Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus grant me the grace to desire it.

Treha's Hope

Creating something from the heart is difficult. Letting it go is even more difficult because you know there are flaws and imperfections.

A month ago my story, Every Waking Moment, was sent into the world. The picture on the cover is a profile of Treha. Some have asked, “Is that one of your daughters?” No. I won’t reveal the identity of the cover model, but the image is one I associate now with the “girl in my head.” The creation I dreamed up over several months.

Treha is wounded. She’s marginalized. She’s not “seen,” and this is the hard thing of releasing anything you love. You long for it to be seen and there’s so much competition and glitz and glitter in the world to look at rather than a plain Jane, an ordinary, struggling young woman with an amazing gift.

In the story, two young filmmakers stumble onto her. They try to capture her story, so the tale is told in linear fashion, but with bits and pieces of the film thrown in. For some, this is jarring. It doesn’t make sense. Others get it immediately and simply jump into the flow of the story and the clues revealed by the older people in Treha’s life. Bits and pieces of their own lives that commingle with hers.

Treha, and the reader by extension, has many questions about life. Where did she come from? Why is she the way she is? What hope does she have for the future? This question of identity, if anyone will ever see the real Treha, is our own struggle, our own journey. And the characters that seem “normal” around her discover that they have these same questions as well.

How you answer the questions of life, how you choose to respond to the circumstances surrounding you, helps determine your path. And it helps if you find one or two people along the way who can put aside their own agenda and simply do life with you.

This is the hope Treha brings to each reader. It’s something I pray you’ll discover in your own life, in Every Waking Moment.



I was sent the following video well after the book was written and edited,
but it shows perfectly what Treha is able to do.

A Guardian Angel Inspires a Nonverbal Woman With Dementia to Sing

Silly Words Hanging Around

“Here’s your list of vocabulary words,” the teacher said.
The class groaned. But there was one kid in the room who could hardly contain his excitement. One kid who looked forward to this exercise in class almost as much as recess.
“Copy the words and then I want you to use them in a paragraph.”
The kid was me. And now I squirmed. I couldn’t wait to use the words in sentences. I was like a kid in a word-candy store.
“And Chris, don’t use them all in one sentence.”
Rats. She was on to me. I used most of the words in the first two sentences because a lot of them were throw-aways. Not as interesting. Then, I would use the rest to complete a story, some kind of rambling, child-induced, Swiss-Family-Robinson-knock-off of a paragraph that left me in stitches.
I did well at spelling because I could see the words. There was something inside that put them together. My friends had other abilities. Drawing. Math. Paste-eating. (I tried but 1967 was a bad year for paste and it turned me against Elmer’s.)
When I made it to high school and took typing, Ted Bias and I sat together, which was a big mistake for Ted because we laughed our way through asdf jkl;. The lazy brown dog jumps over whatever it wants to. When the teacher told us, “Type whatever you want to,” Ted and I looked at each other and the fingers flew. Monty Python quotes. Limmericks. Rhymes.
When she looked at our papers she never gave us the opportunity to write whatever we wanted again. She deemed it, “silly.”
When I was in Junior High, a teacher looked at some of my poems and stories and scowled. “Who are you trying to be, Dr. Seuss?”
Her words were an IED to my heart. She didn’t mean to shoot me down, but sometimes it doesn’t matter what you mean. What you say is enough.
So I learned punctuation and grammar. I wrote the inverted pyramid. Journalism. Structure and details and facts and getting it right. One spelling error was a letter grade.
Then, somewhere in my late 20s or 30s, something clicked. I looked at a blank page and knew something was missing. Not just words: my words. The words I’d stored up for years, the ones hanging around back there in fourth grade that I’d had so much fun writing.
Today I give you a new word. It’s a name. Treha. She’s part of a story I wrote about a girl yearning and longing to make sense of life. She has a gift. She has a story. It’s built by words just hanging around not doing anything until they met the empty pages.

I’ve tried not to use them all in one sentence.

The Old Guy In The Parking Lot

Have you seen the old guy in the parking lot? He’s waiting for his wife. He’s biding time. Letting life pass him by until he can pull up to the front and let “the wife” in. I have not wanted to be that man. I have not aspired to this endeavor. It has always looked a little sad to me. I'm not trying to be harsh here.
I’ve always felt my wife doesn’t want me to become that old guy. She deserves more than a chauffeur in her twilight years.
Age dulls the senses and makes you oblivious to fashion. You wear black socks with sandals because it’s more important how you feel than how you look. You don’t care how you look. You don’t care how others younger than you perceive you because they’re not coming to your funeral anyway.
I was sitting in the parking lot of Walgreens the other day and realized I had become that old guy. I had my Cincinnati Reds hat on and gray hair was sticking out in unseemly ways. I need a haircut, but pulling the hat down makes me presentable. White shirt, red shorts, black socks.
The dog was with us. We’d taken the dog to the Farmer’s Market. Big mistake. He was too excited to contain, so we put him in the car and listened to him yap while we picked out carrots and broccoli. And then, on the way home, my wife said, “Could you take me by Walgreens?”
“What do you need?”
I thought she’d say she needed Epsom salts or hydrogen peroxide or Advil. A prescription, maybe. She sent me there the other day for 100% juice, any kind, she said. Didn’t matter the sugar content. So I walked up and down the aisles and finally found the juice and then called to make sure she really meant it.
Just like old guys will do. I’ve not only become the old guy in the car waiting in the parking lot, I’m the old guy who goes on a mission but has to call to make sure he’s getting the right thing. “I want to take a picture of toothpaste for my blog,” she said.
I was supposed to accept this and just keep driving. I knew it in my gut. Don’t even look at her. Don’t smile or laugh. This is what I said “I do” to more than thirty years ago, driving to Walgreens to take a picture of toothpaste.
And I did. And I didn’t smile or laugh or question, I just drove and parked and sat there like those other old guys I’ve seen.
This has been my view. Again, not to be harsh or judgmental, but I've seen them as young and vibrant and at some point they give up. People point and they walk. Like sheep, they listen for “the voice” and they obey, herding themselves into respectable pens. And they listen to ball games on the radio in the parking lot. At least that's what I do.  
I have bucked this for years. I’ve followed my wife into Stein Mart and Hobby Lobby and Pier 1, acting as if I’m supposed to be there. Milling around candy displays and lusting at the stack of Milky Ways I know I shouldn’t have because of what it will do to my digestive system. Or standing over the cast-off items at Ross, thinking I might actually want to watch 50 episodes of some old TV show I saw in reruns as a child or that the sandals with built-in socks would get me noticed.
“I’m ready,” she said one day, standing with her purse and bags. Looking at me. Willing me to leave. Calling like a siren. Years ago I would ask to be lashed to the main mast to see if I could resist the voices. Now, I just shuffle off behind her and carry the bags.
It was in the Walgreens parking lot when I understood why men wind up in the car, in the driver’s seat, with the dog, waiting. I saw it clearly. And I realized I was wrong about them. I had NOT become a man without a purpose, I had become a man with a different purpose. Sitting at Walgreen’s made me realize these guys are the smart ones. They can’t hear the same frequencies as younger people and they have to look over their glasses to actually see things. But they are hearing frequencies of the heart. They're seeing beyond themselves.

Perhaps instead of driving his wife out of duty or to avoid guilt, he actually WANTED to be there. Perhaps he wanted to do this because after all the years of everything revolving around him and his needs and desires and wants and vision, he understands, finally, that life is really not all about him. At least, not JUST about him. It’s about him and her become an “us” or a "we."
So if you see me in the car, in some parking lot, weep not for me. I’m not really waiting. I’m saying “I do” at the speed of idle.