Sure, it hurts — but I’d do it again

Lately I’ve had reason to remember the old dictum “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

As I write I’m dealing with some grief but, in those times when I can look at the situation objectively, I’m seeing as a good thing that my heart can break in the way that it has done so. It means I’m not hiding it away under lock and key and was willing to take a risk to open it up.

Basically, I was reminded that I do have love to give and am thus refusing to become cynical.

It’s well understood that much music — most notably, the blues — is created in the midst of pain, and as a musician myself I’ve experienced that a number of times. It isn’t pleasant at the time but can lead to beauty in the end.

Six years ago I did a big-band arrangement of a tune I had composed a quarter-century earlier under similar circumstances; though I thought the tune was good, though simple, it took on a whole different air once I started working on the arrangement. After I finished it and my band went through it, our then-singer called it “heartfelt” — and I knew in that instant that I had succeeded. It has become the closest thing I have to a masterpiece, though I’d written many charts before and have since.

A few years ago I learned another, this one spiritual, reason for going through heartbreak; I actually heard from God, “Now you know how I feel.” Time and time again He waits for us to come to Him but we run away, perhaps because we’re afraid to trust, and that grieves Him. But this time, rather than share my affliction with others, I went to Him first. 

Indeed, the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

 

That sympathy helped me recently, as on Sunday just after a service I spotted a churchmate whom I knew had recently lost her father to death and waited for her to give her an extended hug. As she sobbed into my shoulder I was thinking, This is what it’s all about.

Don’t get me wrong — I still have to go through the process and face the temptation to short-circuit it. But on the other hand, a part of me can’t wait to see just what else will come from it. As written in Psalms 30:5b, “[W]eeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

'Total depravity' and supply-side economics

When I first heard the theory behind “supply-side economics” in the 1980s I immediately smelled a rat. The idea that cutting taxes on the wealthy would benefit everyone else down the road because they would invest their money I suspected from the start to be complete nonsense.

Here’s what might surprise you: I got that idea from my Calvinist background — specifically, the doctrine of “total depravity,” which holds that sin has affected every area of life. That is to say, when some supposedly foolproof idea comes to the forefront with a lot of flash-and-dash I start looking for the sin.

The truth is that such tax cuts not only haven’t led to such investment but probably were never designed to do so in the first place; it was always a justification for straight-up greed because our economic culture was shifting toward short-term (read: immediate) gains.

I learned nearly 20 years ago that a healthy economy comes from money turning over several times in a community before it leaves, and in such a mentality that’s never happened in the neighborhoods that could use it the most. Folks complain about the poor being on welfare, but 1) If the jobs aren’t in those neighborhoods, what is someone to do?; and 2) They still have to buy stuff from stores that might employ people.

That’s why the new tax-reform bill — probably better referred to as “tax-deform” — being voted on in Congress will have no lasting positive effect. Numerous analysts have noted that under the proposed plan federal taxes on people making $100,000 per year or less will actually rise in 10 years. Basically, the sin I’m talking about is not only greed but outright lying about its long-term effects.

Last month a group of left-leaning religious leaders were arrested while protesting in the Hart Senate Building; they recognized that it would hurt the poor, so they read a number of Bible verses about justice for the poor, numbering around 2,000, in the rotunda. Of course, when people like Isaiah made some of the same claims they paid with their lives.

I’m thinking — and hoping — that we’ll see more of this.

Dubious eschatology: Missing the point of "prophecy"

This week President Trump officially declared that Jerusalem was the true capital of Israel, indicating that, among other things, the American embassy in Israel would be moved there from Tel Aviv, though no timetable has been set. Of course, that move has pleased pro-Israel Christian dispensationalists, who for decades have argued passionately for that recognition as a fulfillment of prophecy.

And I’m not convinced that it’s biblically correct.

The thinking is, among other things, that a return of the Jewish people to that part of Palestine would result in the long-prophesied bodily return of Jesus Christ. But I see several flaws in that thinking.

Let’s remember that God promised Israel could remain in the Promised Land so long as it continued to worship Him “in spirit and in truth.” Indeed, part of its founding was that, according to Genesis 18:18-19, “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” Read that again — “all nations on earth will be blessed through him.” And that promise would be based on the obedience of his descendants.

But even a cursory look at the Old Testament, most notably the Prophets, would show that ancient Israel didn’t follow through and God as a result sent the nation into captivity a number of times. Indeed, by the time Jesus arrived on the scene only two of the landowning tribes, Judah and Benjamin, were still left.

And even here, God never demanded ethnic purity. One often-overlooked reason Jesus overturned the tables of the merchants in the temple was because they were set up in the Court of the Gentiles, the idea of which violated Isaiah 56:7, which He quoted: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (That’s likely why He added, “But you have made it a den of robbers.”)

In the days of the early church, of course, it took some prodding for the Jewish members to accept Gentiles; refer to Peter’s vision of the unclean foods. And even Jesus disciples didn’t get it, asking Him in Acts 1:6, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He responded, in effect, “None of your business.”

I do understand that some Orthodox Jews regard the modern state of Israel as illegitimate because they believe that its establishment won’t occur until the Messiah comes.

But let’s remember one thing about “prophecy”: It’s about declaring the intent of God, not necessarily predicting future events; indeed, the prophetic books, including Revelation, have always been more “Get it right!” than “Here’s what the future holds.” That’s why I’m suspicious of any attempt to say “This-and-this must happen for Jesus to return” — doing so misses the big picture.