The joy of the jump

“At some point you just jump off the cliff and you do the thing, and the thing is going to be good if it comes from inside of you.” — Ron Collins

“The act of being a writer, the point of being a writer, is to find joy in your life and to bring that out of you.” — also Ron Collins

I have backed Ron Collins’ Kickstarter, which will give me On Becoming (And Becoming Again) A Writer and two other books, and these quotes from his promotional video have already been helpful.

The first quote is a variation on one of my favorite Ray Bradbury quotes, “Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.”

There is a fun and a special kind of joy in writing, and I need to get back in touch with that reality/truth.

It’s the seeing a cute or clever turn of phrase and being delighted that it came from somewhere inside you — it’s the scene spilling onto the page from a chamber of delight you didn’t know you possessed — I used the word delight twice because it is appropriate to the feeling. Good writing is a joy, a blessing and, well, a delight. I am grateful that among God’s gifts to me are this ability to turn phrases and smith words.

Collins has already helped me reach inside to find that joy again. I look forward to the book, and more, I look forward to what comes out after I reach in.

Doxology

I found myself Sunday afternoon wondering about the origins of the familiar short hymn we sing at the end of worship service and the people who wrote it.

Praise God from whom all blessing flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

My brief search at brittanica.com led me to the following.

The words come from Thomas Ken, who was Anglican Bishop of Bath and Wells from about 1685 to about 1691 and served as royal chaplain to King Charles II. He had a falling out with Charles’ successor, James II — long story short, over religious differences — that led to Ken spending some time in the Tower Of London and put on trial for sedition along with six other bishops. They were subsequently acquitted.

Despite that ordeal, Ken remained loyal to James and, when the king fled the country and William and Mary were crowned monarchs, Ken refused to swear allegiance to the new regime and was deprived of his office. “He spent the remaining 20 years of his life in retirement.”

The music is from the Genevan Psalter, a hymnal initiated by John Calvin in 1539 and published in a complete edition in 1562. The 150 Psalms were translated into French and set to music by Loys Bourgeois, Calude Goudimel and others. Bourgeois gets top billing because he’s responsible for about 85 of the melodies.

Bourgeois spent a day in jail, charged with the horrendous crime of tampering with the accepted Psalm tunes without authorization. Calvin got him out, and the alterations were eventually approved.

What struck me, besides the fact that the melody is more than 450 years old and the Doxology has been sung for more than 300 years, is that both of the men spent time behind bars for the manner in which they chose to praise God. It’s a reminder why the Founders of the new nation forbade Congress from prohibiting the free exercise of religion as the first tenet in the First Amendment to their Constitution.

Music and multitasking

I put on my “CCM” (contemporary Christian music) playlist and am now torn — I want to do some reading, but it’s hard to concentrate on the book when I’m listening to the music.

Some might call it multitasking, but those are two tasks that are mutually exclusive to me. The words on the page demand my attention, and the music demands to be heard. I can do one or the other, but not both.

Oddly, I’m listening to the music while I write, and that is not a challenge. Perhaps they both involve the creative part of my soul, and the book taps another aspect that requires concentration of a different kind. I suppose the people who study these things could explain it to me.

It’s interesting how the songs fling me about. Here is “Get Together” by Randy Stonehill, and I’m in the 1980s happy to hear a CCM artist embracing the spirituality of a pop song from a decade and a half earlier. Now comes “The Lord’s Prayer” by Sister Janet Mead, and it’s the seventies and I’m tickled to see a God song reach the Top Ten but a little timid about sharing my faith.

The Shuffle feature always splits up “He is Exalted” and its prologue, “Release of the Spirit,” even though they belong together. I remember how thrilling it was to hear Twila Paris at the piano building up to the song, much like the classical opening to Amy Grant’s “Sing Your Praise to the Lord.”

And here’s “John the Revelator,” and I’m reliving the first time I heard Phil Keaggy’s magnificent album Crimson and Blue. Here’s a funky extended song with lots of flashy guitar. Most artists would be content to make this the centerpiece of the album’s climax, but Keaggy goes from this into “Doin’ Nothin’,” another extended track with lots of flashy guitar. For a believer with a rock and roll heart, the two songs back to back comprise an exhilarating 16-minute romp, followed by the mellow and worshipful cool-down of “Nothing But the Blood” to finish the album beautifully.

I will definitely need to silence the phone before I can hear John Piper’s words in my brain this morning. My, Keaggy laid down some mighty fine music.

Old age, modern style

I stood in my kitchen and pulled out my phone.

I stared at the home screen with its display of all the apps I use regularly.

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I had pulled the phone out of my pocket.

This must be the 2026 version of walking into a room and forgetting why I walked into that room.

My trapped High IQ brain

Ten days later, the snow is almost all gone. I guess it was just a dream, that 30-odd inches of snow, winter’s last gasp, and now we can get on with spring. The daffodils will pop any day now, and the red-winged blackbirds have already settled in for the season.

And I? I am searching for the road less traveled, as if that will make all the difference in the world, searching for a new way, although the way to where remains a mystery.

The Facebook algorithm is sending me in an odd new direction. A professorial sort looked out at me from a sponsored video Thursday morning.

It turns out that my doomscrolling and lack of focus “aren’t bad habits; they’re a high IQ brain trapped in procrastination it can’t escape.” This poor trapped brain of mine will do “anything to avoid what really mattered” — “but then my friend recommended the neurodivergent reset plan.”

If I would just take a little online test and keep reading, I’m sure at some point they would tell me their limited-time offer to purchase my own personal neurodivergent reset plan at a reasonable price.

It was flattering that they assume I have a “high IQ brain,” although a little alarming to find I am “trapped in a procrastination I can’t escape.” Fortunately I have a high enough IQ not to keep reading until they sell me the neurodivergent reset plan that will finally let me escape what I can’t escape.

I always wanted to have a high IQ brain, and I kind of like the idea of being divergent in some form or fashion — who wants to be “normal”? and define “normal” anyway. Here’s to the ones who “think different,” right? We’re the ones who save the world most of the time.

He’s alive

Writing about Jesus the other day, I said Christians need to stand their ground on the truth of who Jesus is. And I hope you were paying attention when I added, “Part of that truth, of course, is referring to Jesus Christ in the present tense.”

As we approach the annual observance of Christ’s execution and resurrection, there’s an important distinction to be made.

The death and resurrection of Jesus is not a nice story or a myth. The death and resurrection of Jesus is historic fact, witnessed by rather large numbers of people.

In his first recorded letter to believers in Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote, “What I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time …”

Those hundreds of witnesses never recanted. Paul went on to say, “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead.”

And so in this coming week we commemorate the historic events at the foundation of the Christian faith. The events were so momentous that they set a movement in motion that has survived more than 2,000 years now.

That first generation of Christians were adamant that they witnessed the risen Christ. Who am I to say they did not see what they testified to, including those who were martyred for refusing to recant their testimony?

We celebrate this holy day every year because He’s alive.

Miracles in our lifetime

How did records happen? The leaps of faith and logic required seem miraculous. What made someone think they could reproduce sound by attaching a needle to a megaphone and applying it to a rotating bit of wax — and then the evolution that replaced the megaphone with an electronic device called a microphone and developed the means to amplify the needle’s vibrations to fill rooms and auditoriums?

I look at the squiggles etched into the vinyl surface and can scarcely imagine how they will be translated into glorious sound. And don’t get me started on how over the years they have miniaturized the process so the sound from hundreds of these 12-inch records can be condensed into a flash drive, also known as a thumb drive because it is about the size of a human’s thumb.

I am in awe of the technology that brought music into my living room 60 years ago. I am only beginning to wrap my head around the technology that has evolved in the ensuing six decades.

The camera I used to take the photo of a record being played can also shoot video, record sound, take dictation, connect me with countless sources of news, information and entertainment, read me a book, play me any recorded music I want to hear, and oh yes, I can make a phone call with it.

And it weighs about six ounces.

My father was born three years after the first commercial radio station went on the air. I often marveled at the scientific achievements he witnessed in his lifetime, and lately I’ve been pondering what I’ve been experiencing in my own lifetime. Outside of the realm of politics and government — where the goal seems to be to wreak as much death and destruction as humans can muster — a lot of people have been busy making this a much better world than our forebears could imagine.