Rev. Clarence McConkey, long-time pastor in the Nebraska conference, also spent 10 years leading a congregation in Latin America. Reverend McConkey is the author of books published by Abingdon and Westminister presses, and of articles appearing in The Christian Century and Journal of Pastoral Counseling. He has taught previous at Florida State University and now teaches in Extended Learning at Central Community College. Two poems, “Steeples” and “A Winter Remembered” from his volume of poetry, The Measure of Life (1971, Exposition Press) are included in An Anthology of Best Poems.
I got to wondering the other day why the word "blog" is so loosely defined in the nomenclature of internet language. We know what an email is, we know what 'Send' means and we know precisely how to Spell Check. What we don't seem to know is how to define "blog" except to say it is an exercise in opionating (which is a word not found in my dictionary so that's consistent with the nebulous nature of "blogging."). All this has to do, if indeed it has to do with anything, with getting something off our chests (which hasn't anything to do with chests but with our brains because that's where ideas are). I like to think there's something really profound back of all this, but for the life of me I can't think of what it is.
That's the joy of blogging you see, a blog can mean whatever the blogger wants it to mean and whatever the reader of the blog thinks it means. One thing I do know, it's what's written on page 42 of WHIRLWINDS AND SMALL VOICES, (Robbins-McConkey; Wordplay.ca, 2008:
Waters of mountains, waters of God
Cleanse us, renew us, so shabbily shod
Rios de Chile, streams of burnt snow
Melt us, toe us, beyond friend or foe.
Currents so fast, pools deep and clear
Tune us, quiet our hearts still to hear
Lord of the River, God of the Stream
Teach us your song, our dryness redeem.
-Carla Piette
My love for you, Sister Piette, is saddened by your death by drowning in El Salvador while rescuing a political prisoner.
My music calendar shows me that this is the 218th anniversary of the premier of Mozart's "The Magic Flute" in Vienna, with Mozart himself furnishing the background music from the harpsichord. After 218 years the music from this opera, however many times we've heard it, still inspires, thrills and even sometimes brings tears of laughter and sadness to our eyes. Music does this, poetry does this, a good book can do this and certainly love can do this. I like to think that music that "hath charms to soothe the savage breast" is something that comes directly from God as a part of faith's consolation and therapy. My daughter Amy and I will be speaking at a conference in Scottsdale, Arizona over the weekend and one of the things I want to say in my "brief hour on the stage" is music was created in the heavenly realm to compensate for our inability, or refusal, to hear the Divine Voice in any other way, such as through art, literature or the wisdom of children.
I think Mozart knew a thing or two about God that we, who are less than he himself or Beethoven or John Denver, have trouble hearing. A child born deaf or who loses hearing through a childhood disease may very well hear celestial things hidden from those of us who have “normal hearing." In our book Whirlwinds and Small Voices, Amy and I write of ways in which the Creator/creating God uses music to do the soothing of our distresses. As the troubled Saul looked to the singing of David for rest and peace so in like manner can we use such divine therapy for our own inner harmony. It works; try it! Sing, hum, whistle, croak it out, make a sound, the whole world will hear you and thank you. Perhaps you’ll share with us a way that music has led you to an inner harmony.
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