Some thoughts on Hamilton

Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, chps. 1-3.

The sacred rights of mankind

are not to be rummaged for among old parchments

 or musty records.

They are written as with a sunbeam,

in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divinity itself

and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. (1775, by 20yr old Hamilton, p. 60)

Anna can sing, or rap, every word of Miranda’s Hamilton. While spending a few days with friends at Pine Lake; I found myself, by surprise, coming home with Ron Chernow’s biography Alexander Hamilton from which Lin-Manuel Miranda received his rap musical inspiration. The book is a gift. “Take it home,” our guest said, “it’s only used as a door stopper around here.”  It’s of door stopping girth—750 some pages. So this morning, I went to work on it. Easy for Anna, but a task for ponderous readers like myself. 

The above “hand of divinity itself” quote comes from Hamilton’s earliest essays written while a collegian only a year and a half after his arrival in America (New York), and about a year and a half before the Revolution. We see in young Hamilton what shows up in Jefferson’s declaration that we are “endowed by [our] Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”  These rights come to us by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God”.

“Nature and Nature’s God” isn’t quite the same as our God of the Gospel with Christmas and Easter, Ascension and Consummation; but, it is nonetheless, notable. It’s the Enlightenment at its best. Doesn’t such human dignity require something more than “old parchments or musty records”? From where do we receive such an enlightened vision of humanity? What happens when such a notion of “Nature’s God” is dismissed? What is left to preserve human value?

There’s another notion of Hamilton and our founders, summed up by Chernow towards the end of chapter three: “The task of government was not to stop selfish striving—a hopeless task—but to harness it for the public good.” That has some Gospel in it. All humans, even though “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” remain flawed like Hamilton and Jefferson—like you and me. Meanwhile, what’s the best form of government we can come up with for such flawed yet noble human beings? For such mortals as ourselves, it’s hard to beat the form of government our founders thoughtfully and heroically forged. We do well to be grateful.

Making Big Hard Leadership Decisions:

Reflections on Acts 15

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us

to impose on you no further burden than these essentials… (Ac 15:28)

Last night, after phone conversation with friend dealing with a big church leadership question, I thought of the Jerusalem Council. They had to make a big decision. The debate concerned whether or not us Gentiles need to be circumcised and follow dietary laws—to become good Jews in order to receive the Gospel. After “much debate,” the assembly decided neither circumcision nor dietary laws matter. Us pagans can be saved as is.

Their claim to pronounce such a big decision seems modest: “It seemed good…”.  No mountain, or vision, just “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”  Maybe that’s the best model for making church decisions. We don’t claim ultimate authority. It just “seemed good…” We leave ultimate judgments to God. Meanwhile, we do what seems good.

There were big names present: Peter, Barnabas, Paul and James the brother, or half-brother, or something, of our Lord who served as lead pastor of the Jerusalem church. With such big personalities, one might expect something like “Peter decided that you don’t need to be circumcised.” But, not so. There’s a “we”, and an “us”; and a certain humility: “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”

Between now and the last trumpet sound, decisions have to be made. We honor the biblical pattern when we says something like “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.”

Some thoughts on C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed.

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

        How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I bear pain in my soul,

        and have sorrow in my heart all day long?

…Consider and answer me, O LORD my God!

        Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death…
But I trusted in your steadfast love;

        my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,

        because he has dealt bountifully with me.

(Ps 13, A Psalm of David for the music leader)

The Bible is full of such laments (Pss 44,60,74,79.80.95,90). It’s the way God’s people worship, sing and, in the last verse, praise. We can’t just jump to praise. We have to owe up to our losses, sorrows and griefs; then we can make our way to praise. Like Holy Week, we are not allowed to skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday without entering into Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Otherwise, Easter doesn’t work.

These lament thoughts came to me this morning while reading an email from Brian followed by a text note from Miah: “Just finished A Grief Observed. Unreal. How does he do it?” It caused me to think of my own Lewis journey. In college, some folks insisted I read Mere Christianity. They thought it would cure my fascination with Kierkegaard. I tried, but it failed to cure me of S.K. In seminary, Richard Cunningham, my theology professor, had just published a book on Lewis. I told him I thought Lewis too much a rationalist. He said, “You don’t know Lewis. Go to the library and read A Grief Observed by N.W. Clerk. It’s a pseudonym, but it’s actually Lewis.”  So I did. He was right, I didn’t know Lewis. Ever since, I continue to read Lewis backwards from A Grief Observed written at the end of his life to Dymer written at the beginning: “With all my road before me.”

Back to that lament: “How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long?” Psalm 13 provides an outline for A Grief Observed. It’s Lewis’ experience of grief at the loss of his wife: “Cancer, and cancer, and cancer. My mother, my father, my wife. I wonder who is next in the queue” (p. 12). Let me try some one, two, threes on laments…

1.   Individual and Community: The Lament comes out of the suffering of David—an individual. But, it’s sung as a form of praise by the Believing Community. It’s assumed the whole community relates to David’s grief. We all know something of what Lewis laments.

2.  Believer vs Unbeliever:  Only believers lament “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” An unbeliever doesn’t lament the silence of God. He just figures there’s silence because there is no god. Because we believe, we lament.

3.  Good Friday and Easter Morning: Lewis eventually finds himself free to praise—to praise the God of the Cross: “Praise is the mode of love which always has some element of joy in it.” Eventually, as the Psalm goes, “we will sing to the Lord!”

It doesn’t mean Lewis is ever, this side of Glory, free from the tragic loss of his wife. Just when he seems free of it, the grief comes crashing in: “In grief nothing ‘stays put.’ …Bereavement is an integral part of our experience of love.”

Lewis moves on in faith and hope and love, but the tragic loss of his wife marks him like an amputee. Like Jacob who limped along as he went after that all night wrestling match at the ford of the Jabbok (Gn 32:22-32). Or, like our Lord whose sacred wounds accompany him into Glory (Jn 20:24-29).

Back to School

Reflections on Harry Potter

I’ve been holding out on Harry Potter. Resentful, I suppose, that Hogwarts has trumped Narnia. But Anna insisted I read at least The Sorcerer’s Stone. So I did. I confess, Harry Potter is good and fun. You certainly are the better for such a read.

As you begin another school year, Anna from 8^th grade to High School—a big jump, almost as big as from Privet Drive to Hogwarts; some Harry Potter thoughts might be useful. I’ll suggest a few back to school thoughts:

1.  Magic Isn’t Easy:  It takes a lot of schooling to learn the ins and outs of magic. It doesn’t come easy. But once you learn some, it can be useful.

2.  Magic can be Dangerous:  There’s always the Dark Side. Education of itself does not free us from Dark Magic. We can use knowledge, like the tree in the Garden, for good or evil.

3.  There’s a rhythm to the School Year: Interesting how Hogwarts follows the same school year that you follow: Halloween, Christmas, Easter, and Finals.  If we allow “Halloween” its Christian meaning, “The Eve of All Saints Day,” then we have our Christian Calendar: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week and Easter. With the rhythms of Christmas and Easter in our bones, we are ready for Finals. That’s the last two chapters of The Sorcerer’s Stone when all the gifts of learning and sport come into play.

4.  Sport: It can be argued that our family cares too much about sports. But what would Hogwarts be without Quidditch? What a wild, fun sport!

5.  Music: After singing the school song, professor Dumbledore teary eyed sighs, “Ah, music, a magic beyond all we do here!” 

By surprise, the gifts of learning (books & lectures) and playing (Quidditch, chess & flute) provide what is necessary and useful for confronting evil through the trapdoor. And, each of the three friends bring something from their learning and playing that enable them to confront evil.

1.  Hermione’s attention to books and knowledge enables her, with her knowledge of herbology for example, to get them past the “Devil’s Snare”. Her mind has a way of figuring things. When she figures out the riddle of the four choices she explains “This isn’t magic—it’s logic. A lot of the greatest wizards haven’t got an ounce of logic, they’d be stuck in here forever” (chp. 16). Reminds me of the professor in LWW when he sighs, “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?” Isn’t it interesting that the school of magic requires logic to deal with the evil that meets them through the trapdoor? I like that. Learning has to do with heart and mind, magic and logic, imagination and reason. In our chest, located between head and heart, magic and mind meet and mingle to form our character and give us courage.   

2. For Ron, it’s that chess game he loves to play, that will come into play as they work their way through the trapdoor to the sorcerers’ stone.  Only this chess game, on the other side of the trapdoor, involves real people. Ron, with his love and understanding of the game, places each one in a position to win: “Harry, you take the place of that bishop, and Hermione, you go there instead of that castle… I’m going to be a knight”.  As the living game below the trapdoor unfolds, Ron, the knight, sacrifices himself freeing Harry to checkmate the king. “‘That’s chess!’ snapped Ron. ‘You’ve got to make some sacrifices!’” (Chp. 16)

3. And, for Harry, two things come into play: 1) His Quidditch skills enabled him to fetch the winged key that unlocks door to the inner chamber; and 2) When he pules out his flute, a gift Hagrid had given him for Christmas, the music from the Harry’s flute puts the three headed monster dog to sleep freeing them to go through the trapdoor. Doesn’t that remind us of something in the LWW?  From the first day of school, professor Dumbledore had told them that music is a magic beyond all one learns at Hogwarts.

Throughout the whole struggle below the trapdoor, there is courage mixed with all that they had learned that frees Harry, Hermione and Ron to deal with the evil that lay below. One gets the feeling they are not done with what lies below. Evil things have a way of reemerging. I suppose it will be so until the last trumpet sound when the devil is cast into the lake of fire (Rv 20). Between now and then, we best pay attention to our studies. And, our playing—music and sport. Who knows when it will all come into play in the great adventure of life that lies before you?

One more thing. It’s the great year end Feast. The high point of the Feast held in the Great Hall comes when professor Dumbledore awards the House Cup. By surprise, Gryffindor ends up edging out Slytherin for the House Cup. Dumbledore clapped his hands and in an instant “the green hanging became scarlet and the silver became gold; the huge Slytherin serpent vanished and a towering Gryffindor lion took it place” (chp.. 17).  “The Lion”, doesn’t that remind you of another great Feast in Cair Paravel? There’s much Narnia in Harry Potter. Anyway, “It was the best evening of Harry’s life”. May you have such feast and such evenings! They tend to come by surprise—when all your learning and adventure comes into play.

Before Easter Morning

Some thoughts on Solomon’s “Who knows if the human spirit goes upward?” (Ecc 3:21)

Not from Solomon, but from a deeper wisdom, comes Job’s resurrection faith:

I know that my Redeemer lives,

and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

and after my skin has been thus destroyed,

then in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see on my side,

and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

My heart faints within me! (Jb 19:25-27)

It comes in the midst Job’s inexplicable suffering. When his comforters pile on with wisdom’s diagnosis of his suffering: “If you knew wisdom, you would know that God is calling you to repent of your sin” (Jb 11:6). We shouldn’t be too hard on Job’s comforters. Who could have known what was going on in the courts of heaven? We who have read Job know about that troubling wager between God and Satan; but, neither Job nor his comforters know anything about it. Nor, apparently, are they ever told.

In the midst of all that, Job finds his way to some deeper understanding—that he knows something wisdom of itself does not know. Not even Solomon. He knows, must be by faith, that his “Redeemer lives.”  We can hardly read or hear these words without hearing that rising melody of Handel’s Messiah: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.” And then the refrain from First Corinthians: “For now is Christ risen from the dead, the first fruits of them that Sleep”. From Job to Christ.

Elie Wiesel, one of those remarkable holocaust survivors who found comfort in Job, concluded his Nobel Peace Prize with these words:

Let us remember Job who, having lost everything—his children, his friends, his possessions, and even his argument with God—still found the strength to begin again, to rebuild his life. Job was determined not to repudiate the creation, however imperfect, that God had entrust to him.

It doesn’t get us to Handel’s “Christ is risen…”; Nevertheless, it’s good, isn’t it? We do well to “remember Job.”