Theology #1 The Silent Benedictions
I sneakily hand out the Benedictions. Listening to: Beautiful James by Placebo, Corpus by S. Santa María, Starless featuring Paul B. & Karen M.
I had written a small note about my discovery of the track Starless featuring Paul Buchanan and Karen Matheson, here.
And as I was re-reading, I felt compelled to turn this into an essay.
To speak of the power of words.
Words of Blessing and words of Lament.
Because we can hand out benedictions and bless others,
or we can pour out our heart in a long, long lament. God encourages it.
So, today the Benedictions. And the next theological essay will most certainly be about the Lament.
It means so much to our humanity. That God would encourage a lament. That He would acknowledge and want us to pour out our heart to Him in a complaint. Because this is what laments are.
On Words
The rhyme goes: Sticks and Stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.
In the history of falsities and badly-thought out ideas that people utter, this takes the golden crown. Perhaps it was meant to toughen the kids up (a playground can be a dangerous thing, indeed) - but if one truly reflects upon words and the effect a couple of syllables can have on the human psyche, we realize our tongue carries a weighty responsibility.
Scripture says that with it, we both bless God and curse others. Scripture also states that “…among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire.” (James 3:1-12)
And here goes a personal story on the power of words and their ability to derail a path (all contemplated in God’s good plan, but this is an illustration of how powerful they can be).
I was 18, my father had passed about a year ago. Despite having the best grades in class, I wasn’t able to go to university because I had graduated from a prestigious private school. No matter we were poor (destitute really) and that my last 4 years at school were on a scholarship granted by the owner of the school, not only because every year I won the best student of the class award, but also, out of fondness for my family (Mr. McPhee was a kind and generous man), despite all this, the fact remained: my school was private. There would be no university scholarship for me.
My dad’s death and the closed doors to a university education are tears that hang inside my soul forever, as Jeff Buckley sings.
I went to a technical school on a scholarship for good grades in high school. Technical schools could only pay for half your tuition (that was the amount of the scholarship) and my mom began cleaning other people’s homes to pay for the other half and the extra expense. I also started working evenings right after graduating high school. The idea was to study something technical, short and begin working immediately so my mom, brother and I could climb out of the financial hole my dad’s passing left behind.
It was a time of twilight and I talk about it here. Yet it was of monumental significance in a spiritual sense, because pain allowed us to find God. I converted to Christianity at eighteen, after Dad’s death.
There was, however, a chance at something better. A way to make good money and travel (one of my dreams) and leave my grandfather’s house (where we had been given a room) and all of that within six months. I would start making money almost immediately. Graduating from the technical school would take three years.
I spoke perfect English, I had the look that LanChile, Chile’s airline requested their flight attendants have (the nineties). Maybe this could work?
I told my aunt (a family friend) about it.
She cocked her head to one side, took one long look at me, from head to toe and said, “You’d have to lose weight, you know. Airlines like thin girls.”
I weighed 122 pounds on a 5.5 frame. I was a perfectly normal size, not overweight in the slightest.
I felt embarrassed, ashamed and crushed.
I didn’t apply to LanChile and continued at the technical school.
The power of words.
For many years, whenever I used to think of my aunt, this was the first thing that came to mind. A sad anecdote that dwelled inside the young woman I was.
Herein lies the wastefulness: it was a waste that the good of her memory, the way she helped me and my family, the ease with which she laughed, the energy she had when describing something she loved… her life force… Those memories were eclipsed by this one error in judgement.
It took time for me to dilute the memory. It took forgiveness. I thought my life had been derailed, you see, not understanding that even then, God was in control.
I’m older and wiser today. Memories sting so much less or don’t sting at all. Understanding is peace, and you achieve that through the grace of God and the passage of time (that’s why getting older is a good thing, folks, forget what the media sells you.)
This story is an illustration of the power of words. Like it, there are millions of others, as many stories as there are people on the earth.
Words have the power to change lives for the better
and for the worse.
Power to color the memory of us within another person.
So, wouldn’t we want to be remembered for the good we spoke over people?
Today, I try to be generous with my words.
I write them, after all. Words are something that have always come naturally to me.
I try to be soft and not blunt. I try to speak words of comfort and praise and use words like a soothing balm.
I try.
One of my favorite ways to use my words are in sneaky benedictions.
A benediction is a blessing. The word translated as “bless” in Scripture stems from the Hebrew root “brk” which means to “bless” or “to kneel” (and also, “to praise”). It occurs in verbal forms (to bless) and in nominal forms (a blessing).
Spoken by God to man and man to man (I use man as a generic term here), both forms are used in the Hebrew Scripture nearly four hundred times.1
Scripture even states that we, in our humanity, can also bless God with our words.
Psalm 145:2 reads, "Every day I will bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever."
Psalm 103:1-2 speaks of our soul blessing the Lord and Psalm 34 calls to “…bless the Lord at all times.”
To bless another is to ask God for his favor in this other’s life.
In the Old Testament, the mediator who asked for the blessing was most often a prophet or a priest.
But today, we, as royal priests, can indeed “bless” others. We can be the mediators between God and the blessings he would bestow.
1 Peter 2:9
New Living Translation
9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests,[a] a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
I am on the subway.
I see a person. And I feel moved to pray.
So I sneakily place my hands towards the person, just so… a soft angle here, a bit of a sharper angle there…
No one would ever know what I’m doing, such is the stealthiness of it all.
And I pray.
Perhaps these people have not a soul to pray over them, and God wants prayers ushered into His realm in their favor.
Antonio, a very young minister I once met (we were both so young, then, kids really) once said that “prayer moves the hand of God”. God desires that we pray.
Yes, He can move His hand according to his will, in His time, in His wisdom, but the fact is He wants us to pray. To bless.
So, I pray.
I offer sneaky benedictions for the folks I encounter.
I pray for artists whose music or literature has touched me (I mentioned praying for Paul Buchanan, whose album Mid Air has become the third musical epiphany of my lifetime. A sneaky benediction with hands “not” directed to Glasgow because God knows where north is and I don’t).
I pray for my city.
My family, my friends.
Those that are sweet and those that are difficult to deal with.
That I may be graceful. That I may be easy to deal with.
I give thanks for what God has given me and what He has saved me from.
I just pray.
Sneaky benedictions, conversations with God about a myriad of things, all the stuff our soul carries I surrender to Him as I walk and listen to music.
Or over coffee, I will pray. Before I sleep, I will pray. As I cook (and I don’t do it well at all) I will pray.
I’m funny many times, I know God smiles.
Just pray, people.
Offer your sneaky benedictions
and
or
pray for yourself.
Be like Nike and just do it.
Currently listening to:
Beautiful James by Placebo. An electronica sound is the perfect backdrop for this powerful rock anthem. A bit reminscent of Radiohead’s KidA sound of 2000, or even Placebo’s earlier work, Beautiful James is stunning and powerful with a distinct synth riff that I loved as soon as I heard it. That riff is everything.
And the lyrics. I love that they can be interpreted in so many ways.
James is whomever you want him or her to be.
If you think that some music is God-haunted, I believe this one can be put into the category.
For me,
“the troubles and your heart strife, I saw them” - that is God right there, right in the midst of hurt, walking next to me.2
“bring me back to life, never let me go”,
“take me by the hand as we cross through battlefields” is my supplication to God.3
Beautiful.
And speaking of beauty so intense that it will shake you, can you ever get enough of Mid Air by Paul Buchanan? Honestly people, (the one or two readers out there) go forth and listen.
But this time, the trip hoppy, jazzy, sensual sounds of Starless featuring Paul Buchanan and Karen Matheson impress. It reminds me of Vic Damone’s Strange Enchantment - I know, not at all similar, yet the orchestration… I’ll have to think about this a bit more to soothe the curious melomane heart I carry around.
I wrote about Starless here and it has been constantly on my playlist.
I’ve always loved Trip Hop.
When Paul phrases “this” and “much” - it is a magical musical nugget.
So akin to Sinatra’s phrasing and yes, there similarities in the baritone, however, Paul’s baritone is so much more from the heart. More raw and vulnerable. Sinatra’s baritone is more polished. Like Neoclassicism in sculpture. More scientific. Colder.
Paul is Hellenistic Art.
(And I love Sinatra).
Corpus by Sebastian Santa María. I’ve already talked about him, here.
The more I listen, the more enamored I become. Gosh, he was a wonderful composer and such a lovely guy. I found the only interview of his that exists on the Internet, a three-minute piece from Más Música, the definitive Chilean TV music program of the mid eighties.
Sebastián was playful, humble, brimming with joy.
God rest his soul (my heart broke a little when I saw the interview, I must confess).
Yet, Sebastián speaks of God in his music; in this interview he says “thank God” (something you so rarely hear in the culture today).
It is a comfort to think he’s finally at peace, in a body that is not broken, free from the cares and constraints of this earth, basking in the presence of Jesus.
However, one wishes that he had lived: that he would have enjoyed life next to his Manuela, that he would have expressed all he carried within through more of the brilliant music that came so easily to him.
Corpus is Anglo pop, a tribute to the Beatles (and the Beach Boys) with Latin American sensibilities. And sometimes, it resembles liturgical music.
Go forth and listen, it truly is a wonderful album.
Some Buenos Aires moments:
Pike, Dana M., "“I Will Bless the Lord at All Times”: Blessing God in the Old Testament" (2013). Faculty Publications. 3690. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/3690
Note by author: though not at all in agreement with the doctrine of the Church of the LDS, the study referenced is excellent and accurate.
Psalm 56:8 NIV
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record?