The Pause that Refreshes (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

You’ve likely heard it, perhaps even saw an advertisement with it: the pause that refreshes. I first heard it in the 1950’s. Did you know the phrase originated as an advertisement for Coca-Cola ... in 1929?! I have to admit, along with millions of others, I’m sure, that the Coca-Cola marketing wizards were right: it is a pause that refreshes. But even before Coca-Cola made the phrase a staple in our collective “top of mind” —centuries, if not millennia— pausing has been refreshing people in all sorts of ways.

Take Eddie and the Cruisers ... one of my all time favorite movies. Great story, great music, great characters, great dialog. When it opens, Eddie and the Cruisers is a bar band, much like any other bar band. But there's something about them, some almost-but-not-quite-there thing you sense when, early in the movie, they walk into Tony's bar and declare, "Eddie and the Cruisers are here!"

Not long after that entrance, the leader of the band, Eddie Wilson, is having difficulty explaining to Sal, the bass player, that the song they are rehearsing is too fast, that the meaning of the lyrics can't really be understood at that pace. Sal declares they must maintain the driving beat or those dancing to the song "will miss a step." Eddie looks around, sees young, starry-eyed Frank Ridgeway standing nearby and waves him over. Eddie asks Frank if he knows what he's trying to convey. Frank thinks about it and then says the song needs a Caesura, which he defines as “a timely pause, a kind of a strategic silence."

What's interesting to me about that scene is that both Eddie and Sal are right; depending on what result is desired. It's 1963; so Sal's analysis about the dancers is correct. Eddie, on the other hand, is also right because he senses a need to take their music in a different direction. He adopts Frank's Caesura and changes the song, telling Frank, "You can stay."

This scene marks the tipping point, that moment when the group starts transforming itself from a good, but not particularly distinctive, bar band into a major national artistic success.

Like Eddie, we feel a need for a Caesura ... and the Lectionary gives us not one, but two. First, we pause to give thanks, to experience gratitude for all the Lord has blessed with us. I think the Matthew and 1st Timothy passages best capture that spirit. And for next week, we pause on Christ the King Sunday to focus on the majesty and sovereignty of Jesus. I think we see that best in the Daniel and Revelation passages.

Advent, one of the busiest times of the year, will begin in a few short days. So it’s especially good, this week, that we can take a caesura, a pause that refreshes.
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A version of this reflection appeared in January 2013 as Eddie and the Cruisers.

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PHOTO (and more on “The Pause that Refreshes” and the effective use of pauses in music and speech): https://mannerofspeaking.org/2009/05/19/the-pause-that-refreshes/

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Thanksgiving Day, USA (November 22, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//

Joel 2:21-27
Psalm 126
1 Timothy 2:1-7
Matthew 6:25-33
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Reign of Christ Sunday - Proper 29 (34)
27th Sunday after Pentecost 11/25/2018
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=230

2 Samuel 23:1-7
Psalm 132:1-12, (13-18)
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14
Psalm 93
Revelation 1:4b-8
John 18:33-37
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We're not there! ... this week at the Waco “Egg and I” restaurant. Taking a break for Thanksgiving weekend. Join us next Friday morning at 8:00 for good food, good fellowship, and good discussion (plus some pretty excellent prayer and laughter).

It could be the perfect Caesura in your week.

Enjoy!
Steve

Kurt Kaiser: Living Life By A Wonderful Lyric (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

It was late on a Sunday afternoon when we pulled into the parking lot next to my dorm at Abilene Christian College. My mother and my sister helped me wrestle my few worldly goods from the car to my room. —I got the joy of dragging the trunk up the two flights of stairs.— Then, after the burger-fries-and-drink special at Templeton’s pharmacy across the street, they drove away and the next phase of my life officially started.

As a transferring Junior, I had less knowledge and clout than a Freshman. Consequently, the next 48 hours were packed with registration for whatever classes were left after three-fourths of the student body had chosen theirs; constantly getting lost; being late for just about everything. The experience left me frustrated and angry. So, when I heard students were gathering Tuesday evening at the Administration Building steps, I was primed.

I had seen my share of student demonstrations.

I was at the University of Michigan when Kent State occurred. What most saw on television in the aftermath of that debacle, I saw up close and personal; the angry response of colleges students across the nation.

So, on that Tuesday evening in Abilene, Texas, I made my way across campus to the Admin Building with an expectation. But, as a church-associated college, student assemblies at Abilene Christian were decidedly different than I had learned to expect from my first two years at a state college. There were no dramatic speeches, no fists thrusting skyward, and nothing was burned, in effigy or otherwise.

What there was ... was singing.

I love to sing. And I was immediately captured. I sat down on those old stone steps and joined my voice with the hundreds of others gathered there. At first, we sang traditionals, like "Amazing Grace" and "Be a Thou My Vision." But we quickly moved into songs I had never heard, simple melodies driven by great lyrics, but way too informal to have been included in a hymnal (then).

And that's when I first heard it.

I remember that girl's voice, lilting out from the comfortable silence, singing "It only takes a spark ..." Then hundreds of voices chiming in, "... to get a fire going."

"And soon all those around
can warm up in its glowing.
That's how it is with God's love,
Once you've experienced it.
You spread His love
to everyone,
You want to pass it on."

It went on like that, verse after verse. When it ended, I was different. I had stepped through a kind of doorway. I had thought my new life began two days earlier, when my family drove away. But I was wrong. Hearing “Pass It On” for the first time; that marks the true beginning of my ACC experience, and though I didn't realize it then, the real beginning to the rest of my life.

What I could never have imagined as that still-a-little-lost-but-starting-to-get-it college Junior, was that I would one day be friends with the author and composer of that song.

For almost a dozen years, now, it has been my privilege and blessing to worship, fellowship, study scripture, eat meals, and laugh with Kurt Kaiser. My family and I have enjoyed the moving music that flowed from his talented fingers during Sunday worship at DaySpring. But most significantly, to me, is that I’ve shared about 500 Lectionary Breakfasts with Kurt; 500 more intimate hours of prayer, Bible reading and discussion, food, fellowship, and laughter.

It has been a wonderful way to get to know a warm, humble guy who just happened to be one of the cornerstones of modern Christian music ... and a guy who brought about one of the major turns in my life.

It was at one of our Friday Lectionary Breakfasts that I heard Kurt say something that really stuck with me: "You can live your entire life by a wonderful lyric." So true. It’s no hyperbole to say that hearing and singing Kurt’s song that day in 1971 turned me in a new and unexpected direction.

Now, here we are, almost five decades later and Kurt Kaiser has left this world for the next. I will miss him squeezing my shoulder as he parted from us each Friday morning. I will miss getting lost in his playing as he worshiped the Lord with the gifts God gave him. And I will surely miss the way he could be so unexpectedly funny, causing us to erupt in laughter just at the moment we needed it most.

This week’s Lectionary scriptures are about praising, praying, singing, and incorporating our worship into our daily living. It’s almost as if God planned this week’s scriptures to help us celebrate Kurt’s love of the Lord. Hebrews 10:24 encourages us to “...consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.” That’s what Kurt Kaiser did as he lived his life by the wonderful lyric that fueled it.

I think Kurt would want you, too, to discover your own wonderful life lyric, whatever will lead you closer to experiencing God’s love ... and then, I’m sure, he would want you to “Pass It On.”

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
Proper 28 (33) (November 18, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//

1 Samuel 1:4-20
1 Samuel 2:1-10
Daniel 12:1-3
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
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This Friday will be our last DaySpring Lectionary Breakfast until the week following Thanksgiving (The “Egg and I” restaurant is expecting us at 8:00, this week, but not the Friday after Thanksgiving). Join us for our usual scripture, prayer, food, and fellowship.

Blessings,
Steve

“If You Don’t Like the Answers You’re Getting ...” (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

Did the confessed murderer kill the fourth victim?

That’s the central question in the Tom Selleck movie, Jesse Stone: Lost in Paradise. It is the final (so far) movie about the life of Robert B. Parker’s Paradise, Massachusetts Police Chief. In it, the Massachusetts State Police accept Chief Stone’s offer to review one of their old, unresolved cases. Serial killer, Richard Steele, confessed to three, horrific, murders ... but is insistent he did not commit the fourth, identical murder.

No one believes him ... but absent a confession (or better evidence), the case remains open.

There are four premises used to conclude Steele is lying: (1) he confessed to being the killer, (2) the details of all four murders are identical, (3) the police did not reveal those details to the public, and (4) the killings stopped as soon as Steele was imprisoned.

As the story unfolds, Chief Stone becomes frustrated when some of the answers he’s getting to his inquiries seem to make no sense. He eventually voices a philosophy shared with him by a friend and counselor: “If you don’t like the answers you’re getting, check your premises.”

It’s good advice. And it leads Chief Stone to ... well, you’ll have to see the movie if you want to know more. For our purposes, it’s that philosophy we need to borrow. Though Jesus never actually spoke those words, He was constantly challenging His listeners (and still does, today) to “check your premises.”

We see a great example in this week’s selection from the Gospel of Mark. At the time of a Jesus, the Scribes were much admired for their knowledge of the Law of Moses, their erudition and their interpretations of precedents and tradition. Along with the Chief Priests, the Sadducees, and the Pharisees, they comprised the aristocracy of Israel.

In brief: because they interpreted the Law, they had the power to tell people how to live their lives. Most people made the assumption (premise) that they always had the people’s best interest at heart.

Jesus warns his followers to “Beware of the scribes.” He then urges them to consider some aspects of the Scribes that don’t add up. Jesus wants His followers to ask themselves: If the Scribes are so great, why do they have such a great need to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, to occupy the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets?

He then points out two serious problems: (1) the Scribes use their positions to impoverish widows, and (2) their prayers are not real, just attention-getting devices. Those are not the actions of people who really love the Lord.

His warning fits hand-in-glove with his command “to be wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.” Without doing any harm, ourselves, we are to evaluate those who are in positions of spiritual leadership over us and apply some critical thinking when we do. The answer to “Who watches the Watchmen?” is ... us. We need to be ready to ask the hard questions ... and we can’t really do that if we start with the wrong premises.

And that’s why, if we don’t like the answers we’re getting, we need to check our premises.

Crashing the Reunion (a Steve Orr Lectionary reflection)

All about me were people side-hugging, full-hugging, air-kissing, cheek-kissing, lip-kissing. There were a lot of backs being slapped, hands being shook; bro-hugs. There were lots of confused looks (“Are you someone I’m supposed to know?”) and a few shocked looks (“You still look the same! How is that possible?”). And, yes, there were a few tears.

It was a high school reunion ... just not my high school reunion.


I was privileged (and blessed) to be invited to attend the reunion of the class just ahead of mine. These were people I had looked up to in my youth. They had been kind, accepting, funny, and brave.

Ours had been a time of great upheaval and change ... all about us (and among us), the Civil Rights Movement was unfolding. I watched how they were with each other (supportive, caring, protective) and I experienced how they were with the classes behind them (open, egalitarian, leading, inclusive).

They became my role models.

I personally experienced and observed them being good people. They didn’t know they were becoming my role models. I never told them. I didn’t realize it, myself, until some years later.

I found myself thinking of them as I read from the Book of Ruth in this week’s Lectionary scriptures. Ruth’s declaration of commitment to her mother-in-law sends shivers up my spine every time. Here was a older woman, Naomi, who so inspired a younger woman that she would not part from her, under any circumstances. Ruth had grown to respect and, yes, love Naomi so much that she was willing to abandon her own people, move to a foreign country, and even change religions!

Ruth would follow Naomi anywhere.

I spent many years doing my best to imitate the best of those folks from that high school class. I wanted to treat people as they had treated me, and, I’ll admit, desired to be as well thought of. Those emotions are difficult for me to describe. Some are very deeply felt. But what Naomi inspired in Ruth comes closest.

But Ruth said, "Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.

Wouldn’t you like to be a Naomi to someone?

I would.

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PHOTO: Steve Orr

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READINGS FOR THE COMING WEEK
All Saints Day (November 1, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu//texts.php?id=226

Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44
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Proper 26 (31) (Sunday, November 4, 2018)
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=227

Ruth 1:1-18
Psalm 146
Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Psalm 119:1-8
Hebrews 9:11-14
Mark 12:28-34
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Friday mornings at the Waco “Egg and I” are a special time. From 8:00 to 9:00, we enjoy a good meal at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. But we also enjoy reading scripture, praying, and laughing with a group of people we have come to admire.

Join us.

Blessings,
Steve