A very happy 30th birthday to my little brother – Jon Beecham. Below is a little slide show of the Jon-O from 0 – 30. Enjoy! God grant you many years! Love ya!
Rich Mullins: Memory Eternal!
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(Click on the player above to hear some music and words from Rich. You can slide the little slider doo-hickey to the right to skip to the next song. )
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” ~Matthew 6:25-34
Today is the 11th anniversary of the untimely death of the musician, poet, missionary and ragamuffin, Richard Wayne Mullins. Rich has had one of the most lasting influences on my life – his music, poetry, and words, and most of all the example he set by the way he lived his own life. Men like him are few and far between. Rich was in no ways perfect and he would be the first to say that he was the furthest thing from a saint. However, most of the saints I know today are also that way – and even the saints we read about and study from centuries past, I would guess were also this way. It seems to me that the failure of most Christian historians, as well as my own failure, is to remember the saints as people who were primarily “good” and who accomplished great feats of piety and holiness, rather than remembering that they could also be scoundrels and failures, just like you and I. Perhaps they were in the end shown to be truly good, and truly did accomplish great feats of piety and holiness – but I’m sure they also had a dark side as well. I’m sure they had days where they were grouchy and angry, tired and lonely, sinful and sad. I’m sure many of them had a few friends or colleagues who knew them better than anyone else, and who most likely had many more “earthy” stories about them than those who had limited contact with them. Like most everyone else, save one, they were fallen and broken – but they knew it and trusted God to love them anyway. But there is this drive to clean them up; to remember them as only being good, and only being holy. Why?
Down the Path: Longing
“It was when I was happiest that I longed most. The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing to find the place where all the beauty came from.” ~C.S. Lewis
It’s time for Summer Camp again, and once again I find myself full of longing. It’s not always around Camp time, but it does seem to get stronger at this time of year. The quote from Lewis, above, sums it up better than I could ever say it. Jack has a way of doing that.
Perhaps some of you can relate, and perhaps not. Perhaps I’m truly crazy, but so many times throughout my life I have had such a strong sense of longing – a longing to see “home” – not to leave this life that is so wonderful, but to get back to where it is that I came from. I know I’ve said these things before, probably too often, but it is what it is and I can’t seem to shake it. God seems so close and yet sometimes so far away. Heaven is there and yet I can’t quite seem to grasp it. The way a tree sways, or a scent on the breeze in mid-summer, or even the color of the azure sky; all of these can sometimes have an ethereal feeling about them. There are times when many of these things remind me of something, and it’s not a nostalgic feeling but much more of a longing. The imprint of Eden remains despite the corruption that exists, and I can see it through what would seem to be a very thin veil.
I think others feel this way as well. I find myself surrounded by artists and musicians, poets and writers, all of whom feel lost, disillusioned, and like they’re not fulfilling their own purpose. We all believe and are often able to see, even if in nothing more than a glimpse, the influence of God all around us. And yet, we continue to drudge along at jobs that stifle, and stay silent at churches that are asleep.