#173 Tire-d Teammates

The other day a memory from my days as a college runner popped into my head, and I thought it I'd share it with you. During my junior year my teammates and I went out for a nine-mile run. (If that distance sounds extreme to you, don't fret. It was pretty normal for us.) It was a beautiful sunny day, and we settled into a comfortable pace that wouldn't make the run take forever but would still allow us to chat. About two miles in, we were a little off the beaten path when we came upon a bunch of abandoned car tires lying in the grass. Suddenly one of us had an idea: what if we picked up one of those tires? Now after spending hours and hours running together, we had developed a sort of mob mentality, and we had gradually become more and more willing to do pretty much anything to keep our runs from getting too boring or routine. So somebody picked up a tire, and the rest of us—whether verbally or not—just sort of agreed to haul it the rest of the way. We carried it and rolled it and passed it back and forth across fields and through neighborhoods and along paths. We took turns; whenever somebody got tired or just sick of the thing, we'd hand it over. By the time we got back to campus and deposited the tire in our locker room, the stupid thing had become a symbol of our unity. (Side note: Later that week I had a conflict with practice that forced me to run by myself earlier in the day. I left my teammates a joke on our whiteboard about deciding against picking up another hunk of rubber because I didn't want to be "two-tired." [Hey, I never said it was a good joke.])

During this time of COVID-19, let this story be a reminder. Together we can do some pretty dumb things. But difficult things also become easier when we commit to doing them together.

Grace and peace,
BMH

#172 Music Magic

I am obsessed with The Lord of the Rings. I could spend the rest of the year blogging about how great of a story I think it is. I love the books. I love the movies—not quite as much, of course. I think the best thing about the movies is Howard Shore's incredible musical score. Here's a pretty good sample piece: "The Journey to the Grey Havens" from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King—The Complete Recordings.

Listen to this piece as you read the rest of this blog. At the beginning we get a recap of a couple of the main themes from the series. In the middle there's a bittersweet section as some of our heroes say goodbye. Then the piece ends with a quietly hopeful and triumphant melody.

I have the complete recordings of the soundtracks for all three movies on my laptop. There's about 10 hours of music all told. The music covers everything: action, despair, reflection, fear, joy, longing, hope. There are so many themes, and they are all amazing. Howard Shore is brilliant. (He's so good he won the Academy Award for best original score for two movies in the same trilogy, both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King.)

Over the past few years I've repeatedly found myself listening to the complete recordings for The Lord of the Rings as Good Friday and Easter approach. As I get busy I find it soothing to listen to such familiar instrumental music, and having 10 hours of it comes in handy when I'm juggling the work for multiple services. But I also find this listening to be fitting. See, The Lord of the Rings is all about the triumph of good over evil, paving the way for the world to be set right. Each year during Good Friday and Easter we celebrate the triumph of good over evil in the climactic death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, which paves the way for the world to be set right.

I chose "The Journey to the Grey Havens" above because it's one of the last pieces on the last soundtrack, and the ending always get stuck in my head. But I think it's a fitting piece for the season of Easter in this very upside-down world. There's a lot of obvious bitterness and brokenness and pain right now, but because of Jesus' resurrection we have hope. Hope that the new heavens and the new earth are just beyond the horizon of this tired old world. Hope that all will be made right. Hope that, as Sam Gamgee says in The Return of the King, everything sad is going to come untrue. Jesus is risen! And because He lives, we also will live.

Grace and peace,
BMH

#171 Reading and Thinking

Pastor life is different without having worship services in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings. For the past few weeks I haven't seen the other members of our congregation during sermons or post-worship coffee time or even home visits during the rest of the week. It's been weird. Like many other pastors and churches I've been trying to come up with new and/or different ways to stay in touch with church members. I would not claim to have legendary creativity, especially now when we have a new baby at home, but I've landed on something that I think is working okay. Back in the middle of February, before society came crashing to a halt, our church started printing suggested daily Bible readings in the bulletin in an effort to encourage continued spiritual growth among our members. We're about halfway through a roughly 100-day plan that hops around Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for an overview of Jesus' ministry. So for each day I've been recording a video of myself reading that day's passage and then offering a brief comment on something that stood out to me in the reading. I keep things simple and don't do any research, but I find that making the videos helps me think about each passage a little more deeply than I might if I was simply reading them. I hope that my little videos are beneficial for whoever watches them, but at least I know they're helping me get deeper into God's Word.

Grace and peace,
BMH

P.S. If you're interested, you can find my videos on Kanawha CRC's Facebook page or YouTube channel.