Gabriel’s visit

Always, when I have been sent to humans with a message, I have had to begin by saying “Do not be afraid”.

This is logical. A human mind cannot make sense of what it perceives when an angel manifests. I am told the carbon-based brain says, “Wheels within wheels. Fire. Wings. Too many faces. Everywhere, eyes” and then simply shuts down. In the presence of the Holy, the Other, there is holy fear.

The girl was no exception. She was afraid. Not just afraid of me, but afraid of the message. For that, too, was beyond the human capacity to understand.

But this time I was afraid too.

The girl was just like other humans I had visited. A carefully calibrated matrix of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen atoms - barely distinct from apes, insects, or bacterium in her physical makeup. She smelled of sweat and fear as the others had. The pupils of her eyes were wide, the lungs increasing the rate of respiration, the cardiac muscle pumping more forcefully, the neural synapses firing rapidly in a vain attempt to grasp infinity with finite tools.

But this one was going to be the first to hold HIM.

Who was I, a mere messenger, to stand in the presence of one who would carry HIM, feed HIM, comfort HIM, be needed by HIM? Who was I to stand before one who would meet HIM as a fellow being?

I, who have spent all eternity in the unveiled Presence, had never before been so utterly humbled. So I did what is meet and right in the presence of the Holy. I bowed.

There we were, each of us terrified, prostrate, unable to raise our eyes to look at the other.

And then something even more terrifying happened to me.

There is a thing that humans do when they are overwhelmed, a thing no angel had done or understood until that moment, that you call “weeping”. It appears that this thing can happen when sorrow or joy, pain or awe, has become too great for the mind to contain, and so the body releases the overflow. The girl was weeping, and I found that I was too. Without physical eyes I wept, without lungs I sobbed, without nerves I felt the same harsh buzz and tingle.

Then the girl did something remarkable. She stood. She accepted what was asked of her. She looked at me, and was no longer afraid.

And she sang.

She sang of thrones falling, of the poor being raised up, of kingship and servanthood being returned to their rightful places, of a broken universe being healed. She sang as no angel ever had, and I wept all the more to hear it.

Then she held out a hand to me.

O most highly favored! Until then I had not truly understood why HE lavished such attention on beings that were so seldom grateful, so seldom even aware. But here was a mortal whose finite brain had room for compassion towards an immortal’s fear. Here I saw what HE was turning them into – beings like HIM, beings who could love the Other, beings who could both reign and serve. And her Son would show them how.

For a moment – the universe could only sustain such a thing for one moment – we grasped hands, and smiled upon each other. For that moment, there was no mystery or fear, only understanding between fellow children of the same Father.

Then the laws of physics caught up and I was returned to my own plane of existence.

But I look forward to renewing the friendship when the Day comes.

© John M. Munzer

Drums and worship

I’ve played the drums in a variety of worship settings: on a set at Pentecostal revivals, on a cabasa during youth group missionary trips, on timpani with an orchestra in an affluent Long Island church, on cowbells and congas in Spanish-speaking churches in downtown Chicago, on a log at campfire sing-alongs, walking around a Celtic labyrinth playing a bodhrán, banging on the stairs and bannisters in a stairwell with a few friends at college, and even accompanying an organ in my Episcopalian church with my doumbek.

Worship is about connection with God. How to describe that connection when it happens? I can only borrow Biblical language. It feels like being on fire. It feels like being filled with light, with living water, with a mighty rushing wind. It feels like being filled to overflowing with raw POWER. It is wonderful, it is terrifying, it makes me think I have an inkling of why our wiser ancestors spoke of "holy fear". To invite in the Source of all power is to invite something powerful, something dangerous, to happen.

But the most powerful worship experience I've ever had wasn't in church. It was at work.

I had just started a new job working one-on-one with a man who had autism. I didn't know much about him except that he was twice my size, couldn't pronounce words, used some sign language to communicate, liked music, and didn't like big changes (such as having new staff). We'd gotten off to a rocky start - he'd bitten himself and slapped me several times over the first few weeks - so I was hoping to find a way to connect with him and get him to associate me with positive experiences. I'd heard that Christmas music was his favorite, and figured it was worth trying out some drums along with the singing to see if he enjoyed it. One of my own favorite songs has always been "The Little Drummer Boy", naturally, so I sang that for him and played along on my little bongos.

And he sang along.

No words, still, but he was nodding and saying "Buh...Buh...Buh..." with the rhythm, and even did his best with "Pum-pum-pum". As I sang the last line - "Then He smiled at me, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum, me and my drum", I remembered Christ's words "What you have done for the least of these my brothers, you have done for Me."

And the guy who'd never smiled for me before was smiling.

I had to fight an urge to drop the drum and fall to my knees. Instead, I held out the drum so he could play. He tapped on it a few times, smiled again, and signed "Ride". So we went for a ride. And we sang Christmas songs as I drove.

That is, to me, what worship is about. When something like music, or laughter, or touch, or food, or tears, brings us together, lets us connect and experience the same thing at the same time; when we become one body with our fellow humans; when we find common ground with those that had been strangers to us; that's when we most truly become one with God. Every religion has at its core the truth that God is love. And love simply means that we work for the happiness of others as hard as we work for our own. When we get that, we get God.

© John M. Munzer

Christmas music

I took several years off from listening to Christmas music on the radio. If you've ever worked retail from October to January, you understand why. But I always have loved certain songs. And now that I've got a two-year-old who loves music we're playing the Christmas station, and having a wonderful time dancing and singing along with her. She knows instinctively what I'd forgotten - Christmas music is about joy. I'm even rediscovering my affection for some songs that had paled from over-exposure.

And I'm rediscovering this: It's a mixed bag, Christmas music. As mixed as our feelings about Christmas, as mixed as all the things Christmas has come to represent for our culture.

Some of the songs are just fun, silly, nostalgic-for-simpler-times songs, like the ones about sleigh rides and snow and open fires and kids excited about presents and Santa. These are the ones my two-year-old likes best, the ones that set her shrieking with glee and tap-dancing around the room. And I'm glad, because that's got me liking them again too, even if they are silly and aren't about the capital T True Meaning of Christmas.

Still, I feel good about our parenting decision to not have the kid believe in Santa whenever I hear "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". I imagine the kid twenty years later telling his therapist "So I thought at first that I'd caught Mommy cheating on Daddy, and I was shouting "Oh God oh God oh God Mommy's kissing Santa Claus, where's my Daddy?!?!?!", and then "Santa" turned around and it WAS Daddy. Then they told me, 'See, honey, it's okay, we haven't been committing adultery, we've just been lying to you for the past six years...'"

I have, in some ways, a very unhealthy imagination.

Some songs are so bereft of either musicianship or joy that they make me want to vomit. "Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart" springs to mind. I've been pleased to note that even my two-year-old has good enough taste to know these songs for the crap they are. Tonight she said "I don't like that one, Daddy, play the Jingle Bell song". We switched stations to the "Reindeer Song" (Rudolph) and were content.

Some songs are incredibly dull, like "So This Is Christmas" (and by the way, doesn't it sound like the children in the chorus are singing "Ho-ly Mo-ses, this is bo-ring"? It always does to me...) Ironically, the songs that are deliberate attempts to waken my social conscience tend to make me LESS charitable - partly because I find the music tedious, and partly because I don't like pampered millionaires trying to make me feel guilty about other people's poverty and suffering. I walk away wanting to pick apart the stupid song rather than wanting to give to charity: "Oh, there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas, huh, Bono? What about on Mount Kilimanjaro? Always snow there, isn't there, you big liar-mouth? And why would they want snow in famine-stricken areas anyway? They need RAIN. Less genocide, and more RAIN."

...and so on. Not, I'm afraid, a song that inspires the best in me.


But the songs I've always loved, even when I was working in retail and hearing them TWENTY TIMES A DAY, EVERY DAY, FOR TWO MONTHS, are the hymns to the Christ-child, the true Christmas carols - O Holy Night, Handel's Messiah, Silent Night, Adeste Fideles. These are the ones that strip away the scar tissue of cynicism, touch the soul beneath, and remind me of the deepest truths - Love became a child, a child stronger than hate, stronger than sin, stronger than death, and will not only cleanse the world of these things but will cleanse me too.

One story goes that when Handel’s Messiah was performed before the royal court, the king was so overcome by the Hallelujah Chorus that he stood up in reverence, because the presence of a King greater than he was palpable in the room. This is why everyone stands whenever the Hallelujah Chorus is sung.

Whether or not that story is true about the king, it says something true about us, and about Christmas music at its best. We need something from Beyond to show up every once in a while. We need songs that tear away the veil and make God’s presence so real to the hearers that even cynical, irreligious old politicians suddenly realize that they are naked before the Infinite, the Real, the terrifyingly Holy, and that they damn well better stand up and show some respect. Comes the Messiah, and we don't need Lennon or Bono whining at us to tell us it's time to love our neighbor. Love Himself is here in all His beauty, all His awful glory, and His very presence rebukes our selfishness, demands that we become better - and promises that we WILL become better.

O come, let us adore.



© John M. Munzer

Really, $20K/year isn't poor?

Both conservative and liberal politicians and pundits talk an awful lot of bullshit, of course. But one of the most galling pieces of bullshit is when conservative pundits say that the people who receive financial help from the government don’t really need it.

It’s reasonable, if harsh, to say “I’m sorry, I know you need help but I can’t afford to help right now.” It’s reasonable, if harsh, to say to a drowning man “I’m sorry, I know you need help but I don’t have enough rope to get you out of the water and into the ship.”

But it’s not reasonable to say, “Dude, you’re not really drowning. Stop whining and get yourself out of the water! It’s only a ten-foot climb up the side of the sheer, wet, slippery iron ship, and only one of your arms is broken. I don’t see what your problem is.”

Likewise, it’s not reasonable to say “Dude, you’re not really poor. Stop whining and get a second job! So companies are cutting rather than hiring right now, you don’t have the education to get decent pay or the time and money to get the education, getting a second job would cost you more in childcare expenses than it would bring in, and odds are you have a physical disability or mental health problem that makes you unable to do most of the jobs that would pay enough to feed you and yours. I don’t see what your problem is.”

It’s possible that we will have to tell people to sink or swim on their own, in order to keep the ship afloat. But at least we should be honest about the fact that most of them will drown.

And we should have another look at the ropes we have aboard the ship, and see if it's actually true that there aren't enough to help those that are drowning. I suspect most of the rope we do have is in the hands of people who are holding onto it so they can use it for water-skiing.

On bin Laden’s execution

I felt some ambivalence at first.

Not about the fact that our military killed him – that clearly had to be done. Someone who thinks it’s a good idea to blow up innocent people he’s never met, just to give the finger to a country he doesn’t like, is dangerously insane. And I’m certainly not shedding any tears for the guy. He pulled the strings of an organization that destroyed many innocent people, and destroyed part of my hometown. He told people that these murders were a holy mission – a blasphemy so huge I’m amazed he wasn’t struck by lightning decades ago. (Clearly, God the merciful, the compassionate is more patient than I am). And while bin Laden sent people to kill and die for him, he didn’t have the balls to put his own life on the line – hid behind a woman in the end, to try and manipulate the SEALs into holding their fire. Certainly, this is someone who couldn’t be allowed to continue breathing, and I’m glad he’s gone.

I can hardly even think of this as the necessary killing of a fellow human. He’d already killed everything about himself that was human. Compassion, honor, love, courage, even the basic idea that human life is valuable… he’d systematically uprooted all these things from himself. What the SEALs shot was all that was left - a clever, malicious animal. It’s horrible to say this, but it’s as if his soul was already in Hell decades before his body joined it. The sooner such an existence is ended, the better.

No, it’s not the fact that our military executed bin Laden that I was ambivalent about. I was ambivalent about our response.

Certainly, we have a right to be relieved, and we have a right to feel satisfied that we did something that had to be done. But all-night parties to celebrate his death did look a little too much like the kind of thing his followers were doing 10 years ago in September.

And it’s not that I worry about how the Muslim world will see us. Certainly it’s not good that young, angry Muslims who’ve heard the guy’s rhetoric are watching us celebrate his death, and comparing it to how the terrorists celebrated the fall of the Towers. But: The sane Muslims already understand that the guy was crazy and needed to be removed, and understand why we’re glad he’s gone – many of them are probably glad too, since he’s no longer around to give decent Muslims a bad name. The ones on the fringe that want to find reasons to believe that he was right about us… they’d find reasons even if we declared a national day of prayer for his soul. The people who will treat him as a martyr would have done so even if he’d died in bed from kidney failure.

My only concern about celebrating is this: We ought to be better than what we’re fighting against. If we’re celebrating because we won and someone else lost, that’s a problem. If we’re celebrating because we are more efficient killers than our enemies, that’s a problem. If we’re celebrating revenge, that’s a problem.

But if we’re celebrating because we see this as a step closer to the day that the killing will stop – what’s not to celebrate?

Myself, the thing that makes me want to celebrate is this thought: In 1945, Germany was an enemy, bankrupt, and run by madmen. After the madmen were killed, Germany became an ally, prosperous, and run by sane people. There are still neo-Nazis, but they no longer get to speak or act on Germany’s behalf – the decent, sane people do.* I want to celebrate the hope that the same thing can happen for Iraq and Afghanistan over the next 50 years, now that their insane leaders have been destroyed and the decent, sane people will have a chance. Imagine our grandchildren going backpacking through the Middle East, and finding it a safe and welcoming place. It seems far-fetched right now. But then, our grandparents never would have expected American teenagers to be doing this in Germany.

I think we can and should express joy and relief that we’re a little bit safer now. I think we can and should celebrate that a long and costly battle, which we were unwillingly dragged into, is a tiny step closer to being over. I think we can and should treat his death the way we would treat the execution of any other sociopathic killer – as a necessary act, the sad culmination of the sad fact that there’s no other possible way to prevent this particular criminal from committing any more crimes. And perhaps Christians may even hold the hope that in the last moments of bin Ladin’s life, there was a second’s remorse, a moment when he had enough humanity to be sorry, maybe even enough time to repent. (They’d be better Christians than I am… but I hope there are Christians like that somewhere out there.)

I did start off feeling that dancing in the streets was going too far. We were horrified by this behavior when it was the other side doing it – is it okay now just because it’s us doing it? But thinking it over, I don’t think that those people were dancing for the same reason that jihadists danced when the Towers fell. The jihadists danced because they were glad that enemies died. Those college kids on the lawn of the White House danced because they were glad that a threat to their own safety, and the safety of their loved ones, has been removed. There’s a difference.
So really, I don’t think anyone needs to feel guilty about celebrating. Hatemongering, that’s something that needs to stop, no matter who does it. But celebrating a step towards ending a war – celebrating a step towards peace – that’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Even so, I really love this about our country: We may be the only people on earth who would even bother to ask ourselves whether it’s okay to celebrate killing an enemy. We as a society are asking the question, because it’s more important to us to be good people than it is to win. God bless America for that.


*As decent and sane as politicians get, anyway...

Copyright John M. Munzer

Next time they threaten a shut-down...

I think we should do to Congress what any other employers would do if their employees were striking and refusing to budge on negotiations.

We stop paying them, and we hire scabs to fill in for them.

But where to find the scabs? It may be difficult to find people willing to fill in at a job where the pay is quite decent, the benefits are huge, the interns are willing, your employers don't actually know what you do and don't really expect anything from you, and you can't get fired for at least four years unless you're actually caught on camera sacrificing children (and even then, it depends which children).

Still, in this economy, SOMEONE will be willing to take on the burden.

Tell them who to be

We tell each other who to become.

I have very clear memories from early childhood of particular times that people told me I was smart, or kind, or good. And at those critical moments, I began to identify myself as smart, kind, good. Sometimes it was a parent, sometimes it was another relative or authority figure, sometimes it was a peer. But wherever the message originated, after hearing that message at that critical point, I began to tell MYSELF that I was these things… and began working to become smarter, kinder, better.

I became who I was told to be.

Who knows what might have happened if I’d heard different messages? Might I have become athletic if someone had caught the right moment to tell me I was strong, or fast? And what would have happened if, when I made a mistake, someone had told me I was bad, or stupid, at a moment when I was prepared to believe it?

I know the answer to that question, because I’ve met those kids in the course of my job, the ones who were told they were bad and stupid. And they work as hard as they can to be what someone – maybe maliciously, maybe just thoughtlessly - told them to be, so long ago they probably don’t even remember it.

We tell each other who to become.

That gives us an unbelievable, God-like power. I can literally create a human being with a word. I can speak, and command a person to be a saint, or a sociopath - and it will be so, if I speak at the right moment. That is a terrifying responsibility. Who have I told you to be? Who am I telling my wife, my child, my co-workers, my clients, to be?

We must tell our fellow beings, especially children, to become the best that it is in them to be. And we must tell them ALL THE TIME. Because we never know which is that all-important moment when we can tell them who to be.

© John M. Munzer