Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Questioning Writings 013125

On my 21st birthday, during my cousin’s funeral, I learned it was good to disagree with those who seek to represent God. As we sang the comforting hymn “our God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come…” my aunt said, “I hate that idea; it’s not true for me or helpful at all.”

The battle-line was “time like an ever-rolling stream bears every child away; they fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day.” Before the closing “Amen” my aunt leaned over to say, “My daughter is not and never will be forgotten!!!!” Grieving mothers, like all God’s creatures, need to speak their truth in love.

Soon, in addition to evaluating poems, God gave me the freedom to evaluate human ideas expressed in Biblical passages. Among the many views over the millennia of expressions I would question what was true in my experience, what was helpful and life-giving, what inspired beauty, compassion, equality, love, and what best expressed God’s vision for an abundant life for this planet. Sometimes a Biblical writer’s expression of God was “not true for me or helpful at all” but most of their insights transformed my life.

As Rainer Rilke taught me: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a foreign tongue. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” Living the questions has been helpful and true for me.

What questions do you live into without simple answers? How have you found God encouraging you to seek what is true and helpful from the writings of others? How do tyrants who don’t allow questions without retribution seem anti-Christlike to you?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 6 Comments

Omnipotence 012525

I returned home from college for my 21st birthday. Our family spent the day burying my cousin who was senselessly killed at 24 when a speeding car ran a stop sign. That was the day I began to let go of God being omnipotent (omni=all, complete, total + potent=power, influence, effect).

How could an all-powerful and all-loving God allow my cousin to be killed? She was a devoted Christian on her way to teach aphasia stroke patients how to speak again; she had a lot to live for and a lot of empathy, compassion, joy, and love to share.

If God is an uncaring, greedy, manipulative, vindictive, authoritative tyrant then we need no further explanations. But if God is love, compassion, seeking beauty, joy and abundance for the whole creation, then something is wrong.  I knew in the depths of my being that God was loving; maybe I miscalculated the all-powerful part. It was what I’d been told, but was it true? Did it fit the God of the Bible and experience?

The funeral home death march was when I first heard the 20 horrible things people say about God — rehearsed lines in funeral lines (trying to protect God’s reputation or be helpful to you, but failing at both). “God wanted her with him” (so did we); “she’s in a better place” (being here with us was good enough); “God only takes the best” (wish she’d been a little worse); “God has a plan” (well this plan sucks); “God is teaching you a lesson” (the lesson will never be worth the cost because the teacher needs a better lesson plan)……. 

Nobody was being cruel — just thoughtless — mindlessly repeating what they’d heard even when it hadn’t helped them. Maybe there’s a better way; maybe we can find it together. One teaser from my friends I share with you — what if we replace omnipotence with amipotence — the power of love (Huey Lewis more than Celine Dion). Come and see.

What life experiences impacted your views about God? What answers do you seek for bad things happening to good people and good things happening to bad people? Where is one example of real love ever being controlling?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 1 Comment

Light One Candle 122124

Today is the annual darkest day in northern hemisphere history. We the people wondered if everything would just get darker without hope. It takes a few days for us to notice that the light begins to return, which may be why the Christ Mass is celebrated a few days after Dec. 21.

“Light One Candle” is a 1982 song by Peter Yarrow (the short one). He said it was an exploration of his own Jewish heritage, a response to the 1982 Israel-Lebanon War, and a reminder to listeners to speak up for peace. 166 years before Jesus, when the emperor outlawed Jewish spiritual practices, the Maccabee rebels took back the Holy Temple and relit the flame of the Menorah. They had oil for one day; the oil and the light lasted eight days..

As I watched an old Peter, Paul, & Mary Hanukkah/Christmas Concert this morning I was moved more than I am each year by this song. We need each person’s candle lit for economic justice and shalom peace to shine through our love and our tears in each dark day ahead.

What candle are you lighting to dispel darkness? How do you keep your flame ablaze?

PS… As you dust off your album or watch the song on YouTube, here are the lyrics.

“Light One Candle” by Peter Yarrow

Light one candle for the Maccabee children – Give thanks that their light didn’t die! Light one candle for the pain they endured – When their right to exist was denied! Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice – Justice and freedom demand! Light one candle for the wisdom to know – When the peacemaker’s time is at hand!

Don’t let the light go out! – It’s lasted for so many years! Don’t let the light go out! – Let it shine through our love and our tears.

Light one candle for the strength we all need – To never become our own foe! Light one candle for those who are suff’ring – Pain we learned so long ago! Light one candle for all we believe in – Let anger not tear us apart! Light one candle to bind us together – With peace as the song in our heart!

What is the memory that’s valued so highly –  That we keep it alive in that flame? What’s the commitment to those who have died – When we cry out they’ve not died in vain, We have come this far, always believing – That justice will somehow prevail! This is the burning. This is the promise, – This why we will not fail!

Don’t let the light go out! – It’s lasted for so many years! Don’t let the light go out! -Let it shine through our love and our tears. Don’t let the light go out!

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Wo Bist Du?  Dec. 14, 2024

Last Sunday we worshipped in the New Cathedral — new being 1860 — in Linz, Austria. It’s the largest cathedral in Austria but it’s spire was forced 6 meters below the spire of St. Stephen’s in Vienna. The Habsburg family had the empire’s home field advantage after all.

The church is named “Mariä-Empfängnis-Dom” which translates “the church of the Immaculate Conception of Mary”. The English translation didn’t help my incomprehension of immaculate conceptions. That Sunday in the Roman Catholic Church calendar just happened to be Immaculate Conception Day – Dec. 8. If I was supposed to be enlightened by this confluence, it was lost in translation; I could barely hear the German echoing off the high stone walls.

I was moved by the organ, the choir, the “smells and bells”. We were warmly welcomed in a cold room where we watched our breath. During the scripture I tried to sense what I was hearing. The first clue was garten (garden), then der mensch (the man), but I knew it was Genesis 3, when I heard “Wo bist du?” (God asking the man “Where are you?”). 

German has a proper form of you — sie — for strangers, formality, etc. The intimate, friendly, familial form of you is du — where are you my friend is what God asks. While I didn’t understand a lot that day, I heard the first question in the Bible — God asking human beings “Where are you?” 

The second most important question happens a few verses later. Cain has just murdered his brother Abel, and God asks him, “Where is your brother?” Where are you in relation to God and where are you in relation to all your brothers and sisters? Jesus completes these two initial questions by teaching the whole Bible is summed up with the command to love God with all that you are, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

What are some teachings of some churches you can’t translate or comprehend? When you are hiding, how do you sense God asking, “Where are you my beloved?” When you are estranged, what steps do you take to seek reconciliation with your brother/sister/neighbor/human?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

A Thankful Life  November 26, 2024

In 1955, he had a wife, son 6, daughter 5 and a blossoming business career in his insurance agency. He was on a second honeymoon at Sea Island, Georgia, enjoying the sun, sand, and sustenance. One morning in the shower his legs gave out from under him; he couldn’t stand up. A doctor told him he had polio and needed to get home right away. Commercial airlines were out of the question, but a private plane pilot was willing to take the risk of the infectious disease. During the flight, the man considered jumping out the door of the plane in order to skip all the pain and uncertainty that accompanied his dreaded disease.

Polio affects different people in very different ways. The man learned his polio was not fatal, but it was crippling; there was a good chance he would never walk again. The man didn’t give up. Day after day he went through the hard work of therapy as he tried to make his polio-ravaged muscles work. After almost a year, the man was able to walk home. Ten months after therapy, he and his wife had a third child who was 8 and 7 years younger than his siblings; I was that child.

I never knew my father before he had polio; I believe he lived a thankful life before polio, but I certainly know he did afterwards. My father taught me about being thankful and appreciative for all that God gives us in this world. He taught me that life itself is a gift, a gift to be treasured, appreciated, and shared with others — a gift to be responded to by serving the one who gave you your life, and who gives you your salvation from violence, fear, and death. My father’s motto was from Athens, Greece: “Leave your city better than you found it.” Through his civic leadership and charitable work, he did just that. I don’t know how much my father’s illness affected his outlook but I do know the joy he had in living his life fully until he was 92.

Who inspired you to live a thankful life? Where do you find the joy in loving, giving, and being thankful? How do you respond to the challenges and gifts you’ve been given by living your life fully?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 1 Comment

Georgia Baptist 11/13/24

In 1980 my 23rd summer was spent experiencing a semester of Clinical Pastoral Education as a student chaplain. In days of yore when hospitals were not-for-profit, many were founded by religious communities. You didn’t have to be some flavor of baptist to be a patient at Georgia Baptist Hospital in Atlanta. I could stay Presbyterian and work there, too .

I encountered people of many faiths, personalities, and backgrounds when I entered a hospital room as their chaplain. My calling was to walk their path with them – not force them onto my path. It took weeks for me to grow from “I’m just one of the student chaplains here” to “I’m your chaplain.”

It was not easy for me to enter a stranger’s room uninvited. As someone else said, “I pray every time I visit a patient — sometimes out loud.” My worst fears were realized when I walked into one man’s room saying, “Good morning, my name is Wally and I’m your chaplain.” He bellowed from his bed, “Who let you in here? I don’t want a chaplain! I’m an atheist. Get lost.”  

I was so stunned I couldn’t move. Something happened that has only happened a few times in my life. My mouth started moving, but I wasn’t doing the talking. The words that came out of my mouth would never come from me alone. While my body was shaking my mouth asked, “What kind of God do you not believe in?”

The man began to tell me about the vindictive, judgmental, angry God he didn’t believe in. I said, “Wow…. I don’t believe in that God either.” After a few more exchanges, he invited me to sit down as he told me about his life and his father. We were united by a shared un-belief.

What kind of God do you not believe in?  What questions are you asking? How have you experienced a spirit speaking through you in ways you didn’t anticipate or control?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Bookends 110824

One bookend of my ministry is Frederick Buechner. In seminary I read Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who. After retirement, when I was discerning becoming a writer I was led to “Writing for your Life” with Brian Allain. This online community still brings together incredible spiritual writers and publishers as a community of help to authors who often feel isolated. During Covid, a week-long, in-person conference I wouldn’t afford, was available on Zoom; I took 4.

Brian had an MBA from Wharton school of business. He worked in technology and high tech. He was contacted by Frederick Buechner’s family to make his writings and insights available online. His teamwork in technology introduced him to this spiritual writer. In retirement, he used his teamwork and business skills to help other spiritual writers. The reason you can receive a daily quote from frederickbuechner.com is because of Brian’s work. He brought spiritual writers together to write essays in “How To Heal Our Divides” and the sequel. 

My first Buechner quote from that first book I read continues to get quoted most holy weeks:

Pilate told the people that they could choose to spare the life of either a murderer named Barabbas or Jesus of Nazareth, and they chose Barabbas. Given the same choice, Jesus, of course, would have chosen to spare Barabbas too.

To understand the reason in each case would be to understand much of what the New Testament means by saying that Jesus is the Savior, and much of what it means too by saying that, by and large, people are in bad need of being saved. (Mark 15:6-15) ~originally published in “Peculiar Treasures” and later in “Beyond Words”.

Who are the spiritual writers in your life? Who has inspired you to discover and do “what is yours to do”? What is one bookend on your life to this point in your journey?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally) · 1 Comment

Checkmate 110624 (100520)

{I wrote this on Oct. 5, 2020 for the church I served then. Recycling today…}

I’m not sure if it was 5th or 6th grade, but I remember the humiliation. I competed in my school’s chess tournament and I won each match until the finals!  The championship game was played in front of our entire class. My time in the spotlight ended in four moves.

Before it barely began, it was over; 4 moves — checkmate. While my classmates were spared the boredom of a long match, I was publicly defeated. Then it got worse. A friend said, “Don’t feel so bad, Wallis.  He beat everyone else like that. He learned those moves from the Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s called ‘Fool’s Mate’.”  After years of playing chess, I suffered the agony of defeat at the hands of a kid who looked up “chess” in an encyclopedia — making a fool out of me.

When I later learned the correct term is “Scholar’s Mate”, I still felt foolish. Furthermore, I felt frustration that no one had warned me. Why didn’t my friends inform me about how he’d beat them? Was anyone really my friend? Why hadn’t I looked up chess instead of playing it? Why couldn’t I have lost earlier before the finals? How would I live with my public and private humiliation?

Maybe that’s one of my early calls to ministry. In this version of “Scholar’s Mate”, I study the Bible, commentaries, and the teachings of spiritual leaders more than many. I spend a lot of my time warning my friends. I am sensitive to listening for the pride and humiliation in others because of my experience. I learned life lessons from the consequences of playing childhood chess; thankfully the cost of those lessons was low.

God offers us choices and consequences in our lives. We are given the choice to learn lessons from our experience, or to ignore them. I believe God allows us to suffer the consequences of our actions, because “we not punished for our sin as much as we are punished by our sin.”  Some lessons are learned when the cost of our choice is low. Some lessons are delayed until the cost is greater. Sometimes we suffer the consequences of the choices of others.

How have your past life lessons impacted your present?  What are the consequences of your choices and actions teaching you today?  How do you open your heart, mind, and body to what God is trying to teach you in your personal checkmate?

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Lincoln’s Greatest Speech (Part 1) 110524

Abraham Lincoln’s best-known speech is the Gettysburg Address. My favorite is his second inaugural address. It was March 4, 1865, one month before Lee’s surrender to Grant and Lincoln’s assassination. The country was exhausted after the bitter divisions and bloodshed.  623,000 Americans died fighting each other — one out of eleven of service age. The American death toll would surpass World War 1, 2, Korea, and Vietnam combined. 

Behind him was the new iron dome of the Capital building and 26 year old John Wilkes Booth.  In front of him was Frederick Douglas, the articulate African-American abolitionist leader and reformer. The speech is 703 words, 25 sentences, 4 paragraphs. 505 words are of one syllable. It lasted 6-7 minutes and those delayed by rain and mud missed it. 

He began the first half of the speech citing the one four years ago — before the war. He can’t predict the end of the war after so many predictions that “absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation.”

About the war: “ALL dreaded it, ALL sought to avert it, both sides deprecated” (expressed disapproval of) war. Yet there were differences shown by antithesis: 

first inaugural——-insurgent agents 

devoted to save the union without war——-seeking to destroy it without war

accept war rather than let it perish——–make war rather than let it survive

After alliteration in each sentence: directed, dreaded, delivered, devoted, destroy, dissolve, divide, deprecated; the last one changes to AND THE WAR CAME. And the war came; war is beyond our control to manage it.

June 29, 2008 was my fifth healing sermon after I returned from my nine-month disability (gestation?) to the same church as a changed pastor. It was the Sunday before the 4th of July. I used the book I’d read by Ronald J. White to preach about “Lincoln’s Greatest Speech”. The reason was how the speech ended more than how it began. I’ll share the ending tomorrow.

In case you’re still reading, here’s the first half of the text of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address….

At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement, somewhat in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention, and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself; and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it‑‑all sought to avert it. While the inaugeral [sic] address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war‑‑seeking to dissole [sic] the Union, and divide effects, by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.

Posted on by Wallis Landrum (Wally)

Law & Gospel 11/1/24

I had planned to not write today, but I couldn’t clear my thoughts during centering prayer. My mind would not let go of one of several conversations I’ve had since I wrote “Abortion Silence” last Monday. I felt scolded by a friend for what I did wrong, left out, and misinterpreted in sharing a past conversation with a rabbi. It dawned on me today that maybe he wanted to be in control of what she said and how I wrote. 

My mind went to 17 years ago when a church member started a petition to control my words. Back then I sleeplessly hyper-focused on “Law and Gospel” from the Apostle Paul’s letter to Galatians — we are no longer under the control of the law; for freedom Christ has set us free. When it suddenly occurred to me that Law & Gospel and Control & Freedom might be the same, I wondered if that was inspiration or insanity.

I then saw that control seems to be the theme of MAKE America, strongmen autocrats, the writers of Project 2025, silencing news or challengers you don’t like, threats of violence, white christian nationalism, etc. Many people want to blame someone else for things they can’t control, and trust forceful men to fix whatever is wrong in their lives and what they see as wrong in others. I get that; I’ve watched myself want that.

The other theme seems to have something to do with Freedom — freedom to choose, freedom from threats, freedom for better lives. I may be crazy, but freedom seems to be on the signs and in the written detailed plans. Many people want freedom in America “where at least we know we’re free.” I get that; I’ve watched myself want that.

I experience God’s relating love in my journey of faith as inviting freedom (from “let there” be light, allowing consequences to happen, to “follow me” if you choose); others experience God as controlling. Maybe like law/gospel or control/freedom it’s both/and more than either/or, but when there’s a choice which do you choose?

A famous prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr during the suffering of the second world war, (that has helped Alcoholics Anonymous and me in our daily walk) concerns what we can and can’t control in our lives. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Where do you hear themes of control and freedom in your life?