The Perils of Pride

This week (Feb 6) TheNew Yorker published a humorous essay –  “Flight of the Concord” by Jeremy Denk, a classical pianist. It’s not about the French Concorde, nor the Flight of the Conchords, the crazy New Zealand music-comedy duo – it refers to a sonata by Charles Ives and Denk writes about the perils of the recording studio. Really worth reading, even for folks who have no idea what it means to "lay a track."

A critic heard Denk play Concord and insisted he needed to record it; “You’re having A Moment with it, and one never knows how long such things last.” Suddenly, Denk is prey to the idea that he can do this better than any other. And maybe he even did. He writes, “You might imagine that making a recording is a lovely occasion: you go to the studio with your entourage; there is banter; you lay down tracks, locate our groove; the producer gasps in admiration…”   

It’s that gasp of admiration I recognize. Denis gave me one at supper last night, about a pretty little thing. I’d gone to the kitchen about an hour before, looked in the pantry, pulled out wild rice, dried apricots and cranberries, a few other ingredients, toasted some pecans and dished up a savory main-dish salad. It gave me a flash of pleasure for having hit it just right. But that he concurred? Even better.

Is this universal?  That we have moments of thinking we can distill 50 lifetimes of thought and practice into X better than anyone else? I don’t think it’s wrong to find genuine pleasure in doing something well, or in receiving recognition for it, but I think my problem is hungering for that gasp because it cancels a sense of self-doubt. I don’t like to admit it, but it’s a sneaky form of pride.

Bruce Ray Smith’s insights during his battle for humility at least give me hope that I’m not alone in the struggle to ferret out the wounded pride that just crops up everywhere – in writing, raising children, or just living. I even want someone to tell me how well I pay the bills! In WinterLight, He writes,

“As for my pride, what is it I renounce? Myself: that grand self I imagined, an illusion, something which does not exist.

            I said no, I am saying no, to nothingness.”

And so, as we head over to a L’Abri conference that begins tomorrow morning I will be aware of that Grand Self that accompanies me. We will listen to a roster of eloquent speakers, people who love God and love to love people. One of my heroes, Jerram Barrs, will be there. I will plunk myself down among folks who’ve seen every relevant movie, read all books published in the last decade, understand quantum physics and how it applies to postmodern art – and oh, they can also remember all the details – but I will admonish the Grand Self, “You’re listening to a demented voice. They haven’t. They don’t. We all have broken hearts and that’s what this Christian thing is about. We can’t fix ourselves, but we can get a few pointers on which way to go for help.  

New Year - with Leonard Cohen

January 1. 2012. Am still alone. In the quiet of this evening spent with Leonard Cohen watching the concert video again – Live in London. Cohen is in his 70s, a gracious man, and this is obvious as he kindly and often turns to members of his band to praise and introduce them. It's uncanny. His smile is so like Jerram Barrs, another hero of mine. I’ve always loved his music from the first time I heard Suzanne Takes You Down years ago, sung by a young woman who lived in our commune. It was so different from the Christian choruses I grew up with, or any other music for that matter – it was mysterious, sexual, beautiful.

This concert is filled with common Grace and Truths that are powerfully strung in Cohen’s poetry and music. Though I’m quite sure he doesn’t share my faith, still through his art, he does me great goodness. I am linked to spiritual concepts that can sound weak and boring if I tell you them outright. Like: “Believe me, one day things will be different. Jesus is coming back to fix things.” Well, yes. He is. And I believe it, but how to express it?

When I listen to Cohen sing one particular song -  Democracy  everything together – the inexorable rhythm, the drum of time, the lyrics, the wind instruments that march on, the voice harmonies that rise – I sense in its richness this is a little like how the Holy Spirit might come to us. On the day when Jesus returns, when all injustice, and illness, and the poverty of people, and the dearth of shelter and love, and the corruption of nations; people everywhere will see that Someone coming through all the static. If “Democracy” is what this poet wants to call it, that’s okay. But, to me, “Democracy” speaks of Christ. About the longing to have things be right, of being human and made whole in  our essential selves, our bodies, in our loves, “We'll be going down so deep / the river's going to weep, / and the mountain's going to shout Amen!”

            Perhaps you’ll give his work a listen one day and join me in my obsession?

Democracy

It's coming through a hole in the air,

from those nights in Tiananmen Square.

It's coming from the feel

that this ain't exactly real,

or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

From the wars against disorder,

from the sirens night and day,

from the fires of the homeless,

from the ashes of the gay:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall;

on a visionary flood of alcohol;

from the staggering account

of the Sermon on the Mount

which I don't pretend to understand at all.

It's coming from the silence

on the dock of the bay,

from the brave, the bold, the battered

heart of Chevrolet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,

the holy places where the races meet;

from the homicidal bitchin'

that goes down in every kitchen

to determine who will serve and who will eat.

From the wells of disappointment

where the women kneel to pray

for the grace of God in the desert here

and the desert far away:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on

O mighty Ship of State!

To the Shores of Need

Past the Reefs of Greed

Through the Squalls of Hate

Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

It's coming to America first,

the cradle of the best and of the worst.

It's here they got the range

and the machinery for change

and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.

It's here the family's broken

and it's here the lonely say

that the heart has got to open

in a fundamental way:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men.

O baby, we'll be making love again.

We'll be going down so deep

the river's going to weep,

and the mountain's going to shout Amen!

It's coming like the tidal flood

beneath the lunar sway,

imperial, mysterious,

in amorous array:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on ...

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean

I love the country but I can't stand the scene.

And I'm neither left or right

I'm just staying home tonight,

getting lost in that hopeless little screen.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags

that Time cannot decay,

I'm junk but I'm still holding up

this little wild bouquet:

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

2009 Gift List from Toad Hall

This just went up today. It's a tough job picking the books (mostly) that meant most to me in 2009. Lots of good ones left out. I AGONIZE over choice. Denis always tells me to keep a list and work on them throughout the year. Much easier, he says. But I say, why do that when you can leave it until mid-November and then stagger to the office with a mile high stack, and be frantic about scanning covers and writing succinct helpful summaries that aren't pathetic repros of jacket blurbs and give yourself migraines?? No question there.

http://www.ransomfellowship.org/

Through this window

I like to think who lives behind that window, and that shade, and that one and that one and it takes about fifteen seconds and a knock on the head to stop that kind of mental hashish. Where we live, a small Midwestern city, there are 2,454 people per square mile so it’s a conceivable pastime. Out this way, Manhattan, for example, has the highest population density of any city in the US at 66,940.1 people per square mile. That was in 2002. Looking down from the top of the Rockefeller Center jams my brain.

While on vacation I try to maintain some bits of reading here and there for sake of nourishment and grounding. Jerram Barrs’ Through His Eyes is doing that for me. Are you with me yet? It’s okay if you’re not.

I was thinking about the stories behind all those windows. It’s good we don’t know them all, being finite and what not and came to this:

The story of Tamar is a shocking story, but events like these in her story happen every day in all of our cities, in every country on the face of this earth. Some of the people involved in these shocking events are Christian believers, and yet God does not abandon them. Each one of us who reads Tamar’s story knows that we have made choices and done things to other people that have been seriously wrong, and yet God has not turned away from us. The truth is that God has no other people to love and to honor – and to forgive than people who are sinners.

Use Protection

Often I am to blame for trouble in marriage, friendships, failures of measuring up, the practice of patience or any you-name-it virtue, I know this. But I forget that Satan also has a sniffing devouring interest in tearing us away from security in our Brother and Protector.

We cannot claim with certainty that every one of our sufferings and hardships is the devil’s work, for there are many sources of troubles in this world: our own sins, the sins of others, the hostility of the world, the brokenness of our universe because of the curse, the Lord’s discipline. But even though we cannot with confidence accuse the devil of being the source of all our troubles, we can be sure no matter what the source that Satan will be actively using our sorrows to discourage us and to undermine our faith. He is always going around like a lion to devour us. He is always lying, accusing, and murdering. This is his nature, and his purpose is to seek to tear us away from our security in Christ. Therefore, we must always pray against him, no matter what the source of our particular sorrows.
- The Heart of Prayer by Jerram Barrs

Jesus will not hear us better

Reading through Jerram’s book on prayer, I hear his kind voice intoning this advice. Good for the soul like crusty bread and fine cheese. I’m often corrupted by either pride or despondency, so in hearing this I say to self, “Now, EAT this.”

“…discipline in prayer has to do with reminding ourselves, moment by moment, how much we truly need the Lord. It is a matter of developing a consistent mealtime pattern of saying “thank you” to the Lord; a habit when we rise in the morning of telling him we love him and need him; a routine when we walk by the way (or drive along the way) that we long for him to guide and direct us; a custom of when we meet people of asking him what we should say or do; an instant recognition that when we face temptation we must turn to him for strength; a glad remembrance at the end of each day, when we lie down at night that we are thankful for his support and sorry for our failures. This is the discipline we need.

“…Yet a word of caution is needed. Personal discipline in any area of our life has value. But legalism (making a set of rules that measure how well we are doing in praying regularly) because it almost always leads to either pride or despondency: pride because we are keeping the rules and we congratulate ourselves and become puffed up about how spiritual we are compared with others or with our previous practice; or despondency because we are not keeping our rules, and so we feel unspiritual, useless, and condemned. The Lord desires neither pride nor despondency from us.

“We are always to remember that the Lord will not hear us better because we have observed our disciplines. This is a truth we need to have engraved on our hearts and minds. Nor will the Lord hear us less well because we have not kept to the letter of our disciplines for prayer. He is our completely loving Father who does not condemn us or turn us away because of our lack of spiritual discipline. [my emphasis] It is just because he loves us that he desires that we set aside time for prayer…he longs for us to show him how much we love him and how much we are aware that we need him. [from The Heart of Prayer: What Jesus Teaches Us by Jerram Barrs]