I’m past the stage of shock now, two weeks after catching up with my best friend from junior high school.

“Catching up” isn’t the right phrase, though. It was as if I had him back, for a few moments. Then I lost him again.

Let me explain. We were inseparable from the moment we met. He attended a church that would have – at least in our parents’ eyes – made us spiritual cousins, but we knew we were brothers. We played chess. We launched rockets together. We talked Trek. His birthday was exactly one year behind mine, to the day.

When he went to college, he showed me this incredible device called a computer to which only he and a few others had lock, key and password access. It was fantastic. He showed me a game that printed on a plotter the path of a landing lunar module as you periodically typed in thrust commands and the screen displayed remaining fuel and distance and speed. He wanted to become a medical doctor, but I could tell he had a great affinity for this new device. I encouraged him to think about what it could mean if someone created, with the device, a huge repository of medical information from which doctors could draw.

We didn’t stay in touch, other than Christmas cards and the occasional phone call over the many years. The Christmas cards stopped a couple of years ago. Now I know why.

I Googled his name one day out of a sudden stroke of curiosity. The results happened to show up more or less chronologically.

He had become a medical doctor. He had written scholarly papers about creating medical databases and how doctors could use PDAs in the rounds, years before these became common practices. He had labored at the forefront of protecting those databases from corruption in a Y2K crisis.

Then, just five years ago, he volunteered as a street medic at some anti-war protests, expecting to treat the sort of injuries that one treats at marathons and street fairs and parades. Something went wrong. There was some violence. There were serious injuries. My friend began writing articles about methods used to subdue the protests. He began to wonder why unarmed people would put themselves into physical danger to protest war as he followed more rallies in other cities.

He began to research their claims, and to write extremely well-written, documented, and defended articles about war, peace, protest, and policy. He left the profession of medicine to pursue the profession of peace. He maintained at least a couple of Web sites. He pulled no punches. He had no fear of authority. Always articulate, he coined some quotes which found their way around the Web and became more or less famous. Other sites quoted him as an authority. I was sad to see that a couple called him a humanist. Eventually, he came to host a locally-produced – but widely syndicated – television show about topics of war, peace, protest and policy.

Then, two years ago, the television show’s Web site announced his departure. His Web sites went offline. His e-mail addresses apparently went dead; my e-mails to him were returned undelivered. There were no online records of him past 2003.

Now you have guessed why I haven’t shared his name, for I do not know his fate. Whatever it is; wherever it is, he will always be my friend. True to his beliefs, true to himself, true to all others. Because when he cannot be true, he will be silent. He is Kipling’s (and Solomon’s) “Thousandth Man.” I would no more want to endanger him nor his beliefs by pursuing his friendship than he would mine.

I know what he believes. And I know why.

We are brothers.

“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” – Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 8:11

The feet anointed for burial by a sinful woman had walked many miles, and into many places of worship.

The feet nailed to a cross had walked through Samaria to bring good news of worship in spirit and truth to another sinful woman whose concept of worship was tied to a mountain.

The nail-scarred feet His followers clung to as they worshipped Him had returned so He could remind them of His example of mission and worship. He came back to commission them to do as he had done, and – before those feet were lifted from among them one last time – to promise He would still be walking with them in Spirit.

For the beautiful feet of His followers bear a message of salvation and praise that is one and the same, just as prophesied many hundreds of years ago:

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” – Isaiah 52:7

Like my blogging buddy James Wiser, I’d be wiser to just stop writing this blog entry right now.

I’ve really got nothing against Promise Keepers. Many of my friends have found the rallies to be moving, profound, powerful experiences. I’ve never been. I’ve never been drawn to. Maybe it’s the advertising.

This morning I passed a billboard on the way to work for a PK rally in my home state. The headline was:

“Want to Be a Part of History?”

Hmm. I think I already am, as long as I have a blog. As long as I have old newspaper columns online from my career at the Abilene Reporter-News, or bylines from articles at other newspapers I’ve worked at eating themselves up on acidic newsprint in library archives. As long – as Dr. McCoy of Star Trek might say – as people remember me.

Someday I’ll die, and my obituary will be part of history, too.

It has to be hard to market something like a Promise Keepers rally. You wouldn’t get far with a headline like “Discover Your Feminine Side – Your Wife!” or “Abandon Your Family for a Weekend – They’ll Love You For It!” or “Hug and Blubber With Your Buds in a Big Stadium!” or “Get Your PK T-Shirt Here!”

But can’t they do better than “Want to Be a Part of History?”

How about, “Be A Man – Like The Son of Man”?

Or “Learn to Serve God Through Your Family”?

Or “New Marriage Paradigm: Christ Gives Himself Up For His Bride”?

Or “What Would Jesus’ Dad Do?”

When all of man’s rules are de-ratified
When society’s fully ex-stratified
Greed, un-gratified
Beauty, beatified
Will I wonder “Where would I be at if I’d …?”

Several of my favorite blog reads have been especially concerned of late about how to do church … Brian Burkett, Wade Hodges, and bartender “thewalrus” at thesecondchance (don’t belly up to this bar if you’re easily offended, though; the virtual drinks are served full strength and the language can be as salty as a margarita glass).

Plus a couple of others – one of them is david u and I’ve misplaced the other – have dared to wonder if items like the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed are as out-of-date as we might think.

It makes me wonder if I should put words to my own version: The Postulant’s Screed, if you will … where “postulant” is defined as “someone making a request, especially to enter a religious order” and “screed” is defined as “a long and boring piece of writing” and/or “a strip of something set as an architectural guide to making a straight line (orthodox).”

Maybe it would go something like this:

• I’m not sure I believe in the church anymore; after all, Jesus only mentioned it once or twice. But I do believe in the kingdom because He talked about it a lot, and so did the writers of the New Testament.
• The problem is, I don’t know how much the church and the kingdom overlap and I don’t have a good feel for any solid preference – let alone command – about size, structure, or procedure expressed in scripture. So do those things matter?
• I get the feeling that Jesus and his followers were much more concerned about persuading others to pursue a relationship with God through His Son … and right after that, taking care of each other’s needs as much as possible.
• I can’t help but feel that worship began, at least, on a daily basis and was virtually indistinguishable from service. I mean right at first; right after Pentecost.
• And something niggling in the back of my mind (it might be a verse of scripture, or maybe a song) convinces me that if I would just seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, that all the other things I worry about would be given to me as well.
• I mean, I know what I’d like to have in worship and in church if it was up to me … and I don’t see a lot of “thou shalts” and “thou shalt nots” connected to it (except that it comes from my heart, of course) … so maybe isn’t it more important for me to serve the needs of others in those contexts? Won’t God see to it that my needs are met, and maybe even choose to meet them through my sisters and brothers in Christ?
• Am I just crazy? Too simplistic? Need more scripture citations? (Well, the Apostles and the Council of Nicea didn’t cite book, chapter or verse!)

Okay, sorry that was long and boring.

But it just wouldn’t be a screed otherwise.

It’s the requisite first hearing. The charges against you are read aloud. They are lengthy. They are familiar.

Because you are guilty on every count. If convicted, the penalty is death.

You try to look up at the Judge, but you can’t. Finally, after the last of the charges and specifications is read, you hear His voice intone your name and ask, “How do you plead?”

Words fail you. Your Defender steps forward. “Your Honor,” He says – and His voice sounds peculiarly like the Judge’s voice – “I am authorized to enter a plea of guilty for the defendant, and to take full responsibility for the specified crimes. We have a contract to that effect.”

“Unfair!” screams your accuser. “Unjust! Nepotism!” – but he is silenced.

“So noted,” the Judge replies, and turns to you. “The case against you is dismissed. Your Defender is to be remanded to custody to serve the full measure of your sentence: death by hanging.”

You turn to see to see your Defender’s face as the gavel sounds its finality.

What language can you borrow? Would a thousand tongues be enough? Would you daily prove His love?

Would you give Him back the life you owe?

I have a yeoman’s knowledge of how things work on the Internet, so I was especially amused a moment ago while doing a Google search – just out of curiosity – for a key word in the theme of a HeartWorship item I’m trying to write for my church bulletin … and seeing an automatically-generated ad in the right column reading:

Guilt
Huge selection, great deals on
Guilt.
eBay.com

Man, trust eBay to get you the best prices on what you want most – or least, apparently!

If Google’s advertising autocompiler only knew the Price that had to be paid ….

Are there songs and hymns led at your church that are hard for you to sing? Not because of a strange key or peculiar musical intervals, but because of the lyrics?

I have trouble singing “All to Jesus I Surrender.” I want to mean what I say when I sing it. I’m not sure I can and still be honest with God, with myself, and with the people singing around me.

Same thing with the line “Take my silver and my gold; Not a mite would I withhold.” Well, a mite … maybe, since it’s not a denomination of our current coinage. (Still, it would be a valuable collector piece!) How about just “take my silver” and let me keep the gold?

And there’s the final verse “None of self, and all of Thee.” Can’t quite sing it with all my heart. Wish I could.

Sometimes I have to stifle a verse with a cough. Or just drop out and clear my throat. Or, more honestly, I just don’t sing.

Am I being more harsh in judging myself than God would be? Does He see me the same way I saw my little ones when they used to proudly bring and give me some precious thing they had found … something that was already mine?

Are there songs that are hard for you to sing?

It’s no wonder we leave church and can’t wait to get in line at the cafeteria or get seated at the restaurant or gather around the dinner table at home.

We’re sublimating for what we really lack. We’re empty.

We’ve been emptied out by worship.

It isn’t supposed to fill us up. It’s supposed to empty us out.

We brought our handful of grain, our libation poured out, our dove or lamb or bullock and offered them on the altar. We left without them.

Oh, maybe we left with a crumb of bread and a taste of grape in us. Just enough to tingle the senses and ignite the salivary glands.

But we left our songs, our prayers, our smiles and hugs and tears and needs. We left our hopes and our pains. We gave them to God.

It’s no mystery that it never seems like it’s enough. It isn’t. It can’t be. What we bring can never measure up to what we’ve been given. Our sacrifice can never match His.

No matter how good the singing, the preaching, the devotion and fellowship can be, it will never been sufficient; never equal to what our Lord deserves. Deep down, we know that. A thousand tongues would only be a tiny fraction of what there should be.

What there will be. In heaven. That’s the feast we anticipate. That’s what we’re hungry for: to join the voices of millions upon countless millions.

For now, a few dozen will have to do. That, and the comfort of knowing that, just maybe, the same Spirit inspired worship leaders to lead the same song at the same time in the same key at the same tempo in a dozen different churches that morning, and that God heard them all at once and it was closer to what it should be.

Or that He heard the cacophony of all the different songs and keys and tempos and it was music to His ears, like the giggling of toddlers at play is to us.

So we long to see with His eyes and hear with His ears.

And we leave church starved.

Because we’re supposed to.