New Site

I’m in the process of moving my things over to jeremygoodwyne.com.

Details to follow.

Delish

AllRecipes.com is one fantastic site.

Today, I made a Basil Cream Sauce that was so easy, and so darn good. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 ounces pine nuts
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pint light cream

Directions:

1. In a food processor, combine basil and garlic. Begin processing, and pour in olive oil in a thin stream. Process for about 40 seconds, or until mixture begins to emulsify. Add pine nuts and Parmesan, then blend for 1 minute.
2. Heat cream in a saucepan over low heat until simmering. Pour 1/2 of the hot cream into the processor with basil pesto, and pulse for 20 seconds to incorporate. Pour mixture back into cream, and simmer for 5 minutes, or until thickened. Pour over pasta. Serves 6.

I meant to take an attractive picture, but my growling stomach overrulled my aesthetic sensibilities. I barely followed these instructions, because I didn’t have half of what it asked for. I used dried crushed basil instead of fresh, and half and half instead of light cream. I didn’t use pine nuts or Parmesan cheese. But it still turned out excellent, so I assume the “correct” version is borderline gourmet.

i’m glad to know you

Oh you’ve lost 900 baseballs games.
And we kids all love to call you names.
And you never learned to fly a kite.
And your penless so you cannot write.
And at lunch you sit alone and mope.
You’re a wishy washy kinda dope.
Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, you don’t have one hope!

“Yes I do! Yes I do! That little girl who’s new
smiled at me, smiled at me, at lunch today!
And tonight I will go home and pray,
That tomorrow she might come and say
‘Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, I’m glad to know you’”

Oh that new girls looking over here!
Oh good grief she’s calling over here!
“Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, Hey watcha doin’?”

“Oh nothin’! Oh nothin’! You wanna do somethin’?”
“Why don’t we, why don’t we fly my new kite?”
“I’d be very proud to fly your kite!
I’ll run with all my very might!”
“Charlie Brown! Charlie Brown! Please do hold on tight!”

Oh he’s got the kite up in the air.
Oh it’s hit a tree; it’s gonna tear!
“Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, I think you’ve wrecked it.”

“I’m climbing up that tree, I’ll get your kite down free”
“Watch yourself, watch yourself, You’re gonna fall!”
“Oh I’m so embarrassed I could die!”
“That’s OK, it was a manly try.
“Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown, I’m glad to know you.”

Happy Christmas, Chuck.

good enough

Anyone who has ever been privy to the long-standing debate over the relationship between faith and works knows at least that it is not exactly orthodox to make a statement such as “I’m not a good enough person to work in the church.” As if there is the higher class of super-Christians who have very little wickedness to struggle over, and maybe at the worst, they have a a few unoffensive sins that cause them a little irritation. And the rest of the world that is deeply sinful would be better to work as plumbers, lawyers, teachers, politicians, or sundry other spiritually insignificant vocations.

But I can say right that I don’t feel as though I’m a good enough person to work in the church. Regardless of orthodoxy, there seems to be a tremendous amount of pressure on those who serve in the Church to essentially be perfect. If not perfect, than acceptably imperfect. No horribly offensive sins, anyway. The church will stand or fall on your perfection. And pastors are driven to the dark to sin quietly, in silence, alone, until they are discovered, and the church really does fall apart.

I don’t need this. I could be getting a M.M. in choral conducting, or music theory, and then a D.M.A. and running an amazing choral program at a University, composing and arranging music, and writing books. Or I could pursue a career in vocal jazz, get with a combo, and start singing standards all over. I could do that. I could be famous, successful, and I could just be a congregant who is expected to be a sinner, and is ministered to.

But I love church music. I love worship. I’ve studied it quite a deal. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I’ve got strong opinions about most things in the field. I have a heart-wrenching desire to teach a congregation about Biblical worship, and to teach musicians in the church how to effectively lead it. I believe God has given me a gift. I think he’s called me to serve in the church. Sometimes I wonder. He didn’t make me mostly perfect, and I’m not interested in getting intimate with a church just to have them find out I’m a sinner and send me packing. The world of jazz wouldn’t send me packing. Christ doesn’t send me packing. I hope.

Giving Thanks

Last evening Julie and had a big group of friends over to celebrate the commercially-ignored season of thanksgiving. Julie helped me decorate and try to capture the colors, smells and sounds of the season. Here’s the menu: 17 lb. turkey, dressing, gravy, baked macaroni and cheese, twice baked yams, green bean casserole, broccoli casserole, cranberry sauce, creamed corn, rolls, garlic mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, Amish friendship bread, and pumpkin-chocolate chip bread pudding.  Jeffrey brought a bottle Fonseca Tawny Port, and beside we had tea, soda, beer, wine, and whiskey. I was pretty adamant that we make a cornucopia. Adamant enough that I told everyone who was coming that we would have a cornucopia on the table before I had any idea where it would come from. I figure that’s the best way to get things done: Make ridiculous promises, and your pride motivates you to keep them. Ha.

The cornucopia really was great. (The picture above was our centerpiece) The fact is that Julie and I and everyone we know have been blessed abundantly. I have about as perfect a job for this season of my life as I could imagine. Julie has been extremely successful at work, and she is excellent at her job, which she loves. We have absolutely wonderful, sacrificial families who bend over backwards to assist us in any way they can. Julie’s parents were here half the day yesterday helping us clean. Tom was in the backyard with me raking leaves, while Cheryl was inside vacuuming and dusting the whole house and teaching us how to cook a turkey. This, all for a party they weren’t even coming to. We have a place to live for a very good price, and which provides us with sundry opportunities to learn how to fix things. So the cornucopia was important to me because we have been blessed with plenty. It’s such a fantastic image. And of course my wonderful bride pulled through and found the basket for me. She always pulls through.

I will be 25 in three days. One quarter of a century old. My life has been characterized by God’s riches. I was raised in the church, hearing the Word preached regularly both from the church, and in my family. While we were never affluent, we never lacked either. The Lord was incredibly faithful in His generous provision, and when things were tight he provided my mother with an uncanny ability to make money last. I have never lacked any good thing. I have always had every need met, and a great deal of my desires as well. I can certainly claim, with the rest of America, immensly more wealth than much of the world. I hope that, in my inentions to develop discipline, part of that will include developing a general spirit of thankfulness.

On the disciplines

At some point in my developmental years, I was convinced that to do anything with rellentless regularity was to strip it of worth. If I were to spend the same amount of time in scripture at the same time every day, then it wouldn’t be truly valuable. I would be legalistic, working my way across Jordan. There would be no way for me to do this and gain anything from it. After the second or third time it would be mindless, rote. So for the Christian, every action one takes in terms of actively mortifying the flesh must be purely spontaneous, spur of the moment, whimsical. I guess this attitude is part of a general culture which has despised and rejected tradition. Tradition has no value, so actions that begin to become traditional are worthless.

In my case, I am so reticent to dispose myself to a system of discipline. Yet I look at my forebears in the faith who prayed unceasingly, saturated themselves with the Word, and defined their lives with service to others. And then, of course, there is my Lord, who spent his youth until His thirties in hard labor and stodying the Word and ways of God.

So I’ve finally had a conversation with myself and determined that routine is not a sin. Doing anything mindlessly is certainly not a good thing, but that doesn’t mean that we punish ourselves by not doing the thing at all. We eat on average three times a day, seven days a week, etc. I’m sure any honest person would admit that they are not properly thankful for their meal, that they eat mindlessly and out of habit. Should we starve ourselves because of the great risk? Certainly not. The problem lies not with the action, but with our thinking. So we must constantly inform ourselves. If we tend to not correctly understand the reason and worth of the Lord’s table, it doesn’t mean we should take it less, it means we should explain it more. If we have trouble treating Confession of Sin with the weight it deserves, it doesn’t mean we should include it in our liturgies less, it means we should explain it more.

I’ve begun to spend some time studying the subject of the Spiritual Disciplines. I’ve started using M’Cheyne’s calendar for daily scriptural reading. It is excellent. I’ve committed to being up before the sun. There are probably a thousand other little matters of discipline which I need to nail down, and I hope to. We’ll see how it goes.

Big surprise

I suppose nothing has changed. People don’t really change- at least I don’t. I’m not any better at this now than I ever was before. (Here’s the part where I make excuses) I mean, I really am online basically two days a week – both of which I am at Church planning worship, barely having enough time to do that. I need to spend time writing drafts before hand, and then just throwing them up when I get online. We’ll see.

I’ve started journaling pretty regularly. Julie pulled out stacks of her old journals and it was thought-provoking to hear her read excerpts from those. I have maybe one journal, with perhaps ten entries in it from college. And the only thing I learned from reading my journal is that I wasn’t nearly the “nice-guy” I like to remember myself being. In fact, I’ve pretty well revised my own personal history to include most of the marks of a saint, and it’s a wonder that people could stand in the presence of my holiness. And then, when I’m honest with myself, I realize just how deceived I am; It’s no small wonder the Lord in His blazing righteousness didn’t wipe me off the face of the earth for my unceasing arrogance, unchecked hormones, and unabashed disregard for His precepts.

I’m like the prodigal who broke back into his Father’s house, and when everyone awoke the next morning pretended he’d been there all along, scoffing, spitting and swearing at those who entered through the front door on their hands and knees with tears in their eyes and broken hearts. My Father must look at me in incredulity and disbelief, wondering if I think I’m fooling Him. Fortunately my Father is omniscient and omnipresent, and when I thought I had fooled Him and snuck in, He had actually called me, arranged my travel, and left the window open that I crawled through. And he gently reminds me of my state, all the way assuring me of His grace, and even using my frail body to promote His own glory.

dancing before Yahweh

David whirls with all his might before the Lord - Schwebel (1996)

As a seminary project this summer I did an exegesis of 2 Samuel 6:12-23. This is the passage in which King David brings the ark of God into Jerusalem from the house of Obed-edom, the Gittite, and dances in the streets. Michal, his wife sees him dancing wearing only an linen ephod, which is a priestly garment that does not provide much coverage. She is outraged, and accuses him of “exposing himself” to the “servant’s female servants.” David defends himself and submits that he will humble himself even more than that, and be abased in Michal’s and his own eyes, but the female servants of servants will honor him. And then the text says that Michal never had any children.

I couldn’t help but sympathize with Michal, and I still do to some extent. It struck me that David was flaunting himself before women he wasn’t married to, and Michal had a right to claim that only for herself. Well… and I guess Abigail and Ahinoam. And Bathsheba. And perhaps Abishag. Perhaps.

David certainly was not without flaw. So why does God-inspired scripture clearly take his side? One can’t really claim that the author simply wanted to paint David in a more positive light. The collective book of Samuel paints David extremely unfavorably at parts. But here, the narration is with him.

I don’t think that Michal’s problem with David is voyeurism. Indeed, the text does not support her claim that he exposed himself, though it doesn’t really refute it either. But Hebrew culture (and Yahweh) looked very unfavorably on the “revealing of nakedness” so one would think, had David committed this sin, that he would have been reproved. Michal seems to have forgotten how her own father, King Saul, lay naked in front of the prophets. Without being too hard on Michal because I know my own sin, I think that her biggest problem is pride. She is the daughter of a King, and she is married to a King, and if anyone knows what a King should and shouldn’t do, she does. There are a few indicators. The first is concerned with location. The ark has been in exile for decades. David has finally taken it and brought it (with the presence of Yahweh) to the royal city, Jerusalem. Everyone in Israel seems to recognize the weight of the moment. Everyone, it seems except Michal. She watches the festivities passively from a window. Sure, this is a good thing, but the princess must maintain an image, establish parameters. There will be no wild dancing in the streets for any reason. Second, the sarcasm and word choice Michal uses: “How the King of Israel honored himself today…” Not “my husband,” but an impersonal, disconnecting “the King.”Third, the referents of her case are interesting: “his servants’ female servants,” and “one of the vulgar fellows.” The people Michal alludes to are the lowest of the low, people a King should not be consorting with. Fourth, the way the text refers to Michal gives hint: “Michal the daughter of Saul.” Her allegiance seems to be terminally tied to the defeated line of her father. She does not find her identify in Yahweh’s chosen man, but she mortally holds to the line of Saul. Lastly, David’s response brings the point to a head: “It was before the LORD, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the LORD — and I will make merry before the LORD.” If David was incorrect in his characterization of the problem, then this exchange must have been really awkward. What is he talking about? But if he was correct, it must have struck a nerve. Not only was David the King, but he was Yahweh’s chosen King.

For the Christian, there is an incredible picture in the story. It is very easy to read stories in the Old Testament, and walk away with morals to follow. Morals are great, but if we proceed from this story with a list that goes something like “OK, I need to not be prideful, I need to not judge people for how they worship, I need to not look down on poor people, etc.” then we have missed the point. More pointedly, if we walk away from this narrative and we don’t see Christ, then we have sorely missed out. In David, we find a picture of Christ. Michal rejects David because he consorts with questionable types. One might find Jesus doing something similar. David, imperfect as he is, has his priorities in order here. The ark, and hence Yahweh are entering Jerusalem. David doesn’t sit on his throne as this takes place, he leaves his throne to usher in this presence himself. Jesus Christ IS the presence of God, and he left his throne in the heavenly places to come to this world. David doesn’t surround himself with guards and fine things. He strips off his robes, and humiliates himself before God and his people. He does not shield himself from vagrants. He gets right in the middle of them. Jesus Christ penetrates the world, consorts with adulterers, murderers, lepers, Samaritans, Romans, tax collectors, and anyone else he shouldn’t be around. He is shamed and humiliated, stripped naked, beaten, and crucified. This is the message of 2 Samuel 6:12-23. David is a shadow of the greater King of Kings. If we are going to identify with someone in this story, let us not be so presumptuous as to call ourselves Davids. If we are lucky, we might be the “servants’ female servants” or “one of the vulgar fellows.” By all rights, morally we are poorer than they. However, if we do not recognize this simple fact, then perhaps we are Michals. We find ourselves to be wealthy and worth much. We have worked hard, made good decisions, and now we’re reaping the results of our own wisdom. Let us pray for repentance! Before the seat of Yahweh, we merit nothing! So let us be “one of the vulgar fellows” and honor Christ for his work of redemption. Apart from that work, we are ruined.

Preludium

Erik Satie - Ramon Casas i Carbó (1891)

I have said for a while that once I was fairly well employed I would start a blog. And today was my first day directing the worship at Christ Community Church in Simpsonville, SC. I’ve been thinking about what I might use this space for, and I have some ideas. But I’m not going to dictate them here, because I don’t want to be trapped into anything. So we’ll see how this goes. This is just an introductory post, a preludium of sorts. The next post will be official. Until then.