I did not know it, where a powerful lesson in my spiritual development was being taught.
I can remember our band director, as he would be "teaching" (the class format was more rehearsal and learning to become one with your instrument through improvisation) the Jazz Ensemble, he would make comments about the "blue notes." He referred to these notes as the notes that make the listener (and even the musician at times) perk up and say, "Hey, that sounds different." There are times in jazz music when the chord structure inhibited the resolution of the chord. The "blue note" always leaves the listener wanting more though the listener may not even be fully aware of what he/she "wants." These "blue notes," along with the beats, rhythms, and the very soul of jazz music is what makes it jazz music.
Life is a lot like jazz music. With complex rhythms, shuffling beats, and blue notes. Yesterday was a “blue note” day in my life. It was one of those days when things did not seem to resolve. It was a day when my spirit, as though sitting in at a table in a smoke-filled club listening to a jazz combo, heard the chord structure in a tune and said, “Hey, that sounds different.” I can almost smell the smoke, see the dim lighting, and hear the jazz combo spending “A Night In Tunisia.” (Which by the way is one of my all-tome favorite jazz tunes.) The day was one of these days because of the absence of my mother.
It is days like Mother’s Day that bring up the impossible-to-answer question of life; the question of “Why?” It is the question of “Why?” that puzzles so many while deeply bothering others. There are those in life who are appalled that the question even be asked…especially of a person of faith. So what are we supposed to do? Is it not true that life often leaves us hanging? Is it not true that the questions of life seem much bigger than we are? How are we to respond to the “blue note” days of life that do not resolve and leave us asking for more? We now find ourselves at a crossroads.
These issues are at the very core of our being. We want things to resolve. We want things to be nice and neat. We want order and for life to always work out. We want completion. I want these things as much as anyone. But we live in a world where things don’t always end up this way. We live in a time when there seem to be as many questions without answers as there stars in the sky. And if we, as Christians, find ourselves in these places in our own lives or in the lives of others, will be tempted to force an answer onto these questions which will make no sense. Again, I think we are at a crossroads with three possible paths before us.
One direction leads to denial. We can stick our heads in the proverbial sand and live as though there is nothing wrong. There is such great danger in denial. What makes denial so dangerous? Denial can, if it goes unchecked, prohibit the natural and God-given ability to lament. Some might say, “How can one say these things to God?” I believe God is a big God with a big heart and big hands that are big enough to handle whatever problem I am facing, road I am tolling, or voyage on which I have embarked. The beauty of lamentation is that many of the characters in the narrative of the scriptures find release at this very place. Job, Jeremiah, David, Mary & Martha, even Jesus all come to a place where the pain and reality of life is too much to bear and all come (or are brought) before the Lord broken and beaten by the waves in the storms of life.
The next direction leads to, and can be an offshoot of denial, superficiality. In the church we love clichés. We love to say things such as, “Remember not to question the Lord,” “God will not give you more than you can handle,” and one of my favorites (I hope you can sense the sarcasm here), “Everything happens for a reason.” What is so dangerous about these clichés? I have heard them a thousand times and even fallen into the trap of saying them myself. The danger is in the fact that it masks the reality of the situation behind a superficial faith. In the midst of life’s valleys there is no reason to pretend to “have it all together.” Often times we don’t know what else to say to people in the midst of valleys, or to ourselves when we find that we are the ones in the valley. We fall back on these clichés as if they are our “spiritual crutches.” Referring to the earlier post, falling back on these “crutches” is a result of wanting to approach the finish line of the marathon without the preparation or actually running. These crutches make for lazy theology.
Yet, there is a third path open to those at the crossroads: the path of questioning. Questions are not bad. Questions are not wrong. There is no harm at all in asking questions of faith and life. In fact, the one who claims to be a person of faith without questions is a person who is living in denial and out of touch with reality. I feel questions are necessary to our spiritual survival. I can remember sitting in the sanctuary of Boiling Springs Baptist Church on the day of the memorial service for Dr. Dan Goodman. Someone made the comment about Dan that, “He did not come to church looking for answers but for questions.” Questions matter to our spiritual development. Questions are biblical. Questions arise in the throes of life. If we do not allow ourselves to ask the questions of faith (even the questions we are afraid to ask), how can we be sure that this “faith” is worth having?
“Where is God when it hurts?” God is in the same place God has been all along: present in the pain. I think the words of Andrew Peterson provide a great summary:
And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God
(from The Silence of God, 2003)
May we find questions to our answers…
-ASR
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