I just wanted to share with you Regina Spektor’s new song “Laughing With” from her new album “Far“. The whole album is excellent. I like that she refuses to normalize her style and makes a mark anyway.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poorNo one laughs at God
When the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
When it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from the party yetNo one laughs at God
When their airplane start to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love, hand in hand with someone else
And they hope that they’re mistakenNo one laughs at God
When the cops knock on their door
And they say we got some bad news, sir
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine or fire or flood*Chorus*
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha
Ha haNo one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’ve lost all they’ve got
And they don’t know what forNo one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilariousNo one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughing at God in hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poorNo one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
We’re all laughing with God
We had Rik and Zara Leaf with their two kids with us for a week. They just left today. Rik took the entire Sunday morning, playing his songs and talking in between. It was a refreshing time. There was no preaching of any kind. He told stories and talked about their own experiences. His mixture of music, poetry and story-telling had a powerful impact on our community.
He lost his father this last year and he shared that with us. That afternoon I went home and wrote a letter to my own dad. This last summer when we visited I told him some of what was going on in my life. I was afraid that he might be disappointed in me because I have a history of being a shit-disturber and rocking the boat, perpetually self-sabotaging my own success. Rather than express disappointment, he was totally supportive. I wanted to tell him how much that meant to me. I closed the letter with my love, saying: “I wanted to tell you this rather than wishing I had.”
We underestimate the power of the arts. Even Jesus told stories and did things as his main mode of communication. I don’t think he was a preacher. I remember this last summer reading Cormac McCarthy’s book The Road. Now, I’ve watched all the documentaries and read science books and magazines and pamphlets warning me about our impact on the environment, but to no avail, even though I cognitively understood the problem. After I read The Road I became not only interested in but more passionate about radically decreasing the size of my own footprint on the environment. It literally transformed my mind and my behavior as a result.
I remember listening to the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt’s cd, Te Deum, and being overwhelmed with the universe being full of Glory and that all is loved.
I remember seeing the French artist Luc-Olivier Merson’s work, Rest on the Flight to Egypt (view it here), and being transformed to understand that the good news isn’t just for everybody, but includes everybody.
That’s why, when I say I am an artist trapped in a pastor’s body, it isn’t a bad thing. I am creative, and my creativity doesn’t just find expression in my paintings, my cartoons, my music or my sculptures, but in everything I do, including my relationships and the way I pastor a community. Rik affirmed that to me this weekend when he said that our community is like nothing he’s ever seen or experienced, and he thinks it is beautiful. That’s because we are trying to be creative instead of copycats.
The photo was taken this morning out my backdoor. Do you see the young buck bedded down in our shrubs?
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
This is a watercolor painting I did a while ago, on Arches 140lb. coldpress paper. It is inspired by a view of the river outside my window on a brisk morning. It measures 7″x13.5″ (18cm x 35cm), and is available, if you want it, here.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
This is one of my watercolor paintings called Birch Grove. It measures 6″x6″ (15cm x 15cm). I’ve submitted it for this week’s Illustration Friday theme “pattern”. You can purchase my art HERE. Thanks.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
A couple of weeks ago we tried something I call the Open Round Table in an attempt to exercise a new way to do leadership or elders at our church. It was open to anyone from the community who is interested in the church and has its welfare at heart. No one was excluded. I was quite nervous going into the meeting because I had no idea who was going to be there, how many, and what was going to happen. I had no agenda, except that we needed a handful of people who could make final financial decisions and deal with delicate matters. I was hoping that we would learn how to dialog as a community, and that this would facilitate care for the community. I was pleasantly surprised. About 40 people showed up. We gathered into a large circle. At first it felt very awkward, with long stretches of silence with us just looking around the room. But eventually conversation started and I believe true dialog occurred. I gave a little preamble to explain why we were doing this. As a part of this preamble I read this passage from an essay of quantum physicist David Bohm, “On Dialog and Its Application“:
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.Some time ago there was an anthropologist who lived for a long while with a North American tribe. It was a small group of about this size. The hunter-gatherers have typically lived in groups of twenty to forty. Agricultural group units are much larger. Now, from time to time that tribe met like this, in a circle. They just talked and talked and talked, apparently to no purpose. They made no decisions. There was no leader. And everybody could participate. There may have been wise men or wise women who were listened to a bit more– the older ones– but everybody could talk. The meeting went on, until it finally seemed to stop for no reason at all the group dispersed. Yet after that, everybody seemed to know what to do, because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in smaller groups and do something or decide things.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
