Walk Through the Valley: Rich Mullins and St. Francis
When I began writing about my friend Richard, I aspired to write three books about him. I'm pretty sure it wasn't because trilogies are all the rage. Perhaps it's because I've sat through so many three-point sermons, or maybe I was remembering Richard's interest in Aristotle's three parts of rhetoric: Ethos, Pathos and Logos. After completing the first book (clearly representing Pathos, or feeling), I'd already written quite a few pages that seemed worth reading, but that didn't fit with the theme of Singing from Silence. The next theme that sprang to mind when I thought of Richard was creativity, so I began to assemble my writings on that theme to write a second book, Let the Mountains Sing. In my mind, the Word, or Logos, represents creativity. " Through (the Word) all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." I guess I figured the third theme would come to me over time.
But a funny thing happened on my way to completing the second book. In September of 2012, I had an acute ischemic stroke. My paternal grandmother had a disabling stroke in her fifties. The stroke I had in my fifties was nowhere near as bad. I can walk, and talk. But if God wanted to get my attention, he got it. I'm still in the process of recovering, but I'm no longer taking my abilities for granted. I know I'll be around just as long as God wants me to be here, but I had to be open to the possibility that I was being called immediately to write about that third theme, one I had to put before anything else--healing.
Which of the three parts of rhetoric is represented by healing? I believe it's ethos. Because Christ's greatest teachings on ethics are the Beatitudes. They are more than a list of laws or virtues; the Beatitudes act with the transformational dynamic of blessings. My Hebrew professor, Dr. Stephen Hooks, taught that "to bless" meant "to vocally call into existence the power for a thing to become what it was intended to be." The effect of following the Beatitudes is blessing: the personal recovery of that power of becoming--in other words, healing. Richard and I were fascinated with the Beatitudes, and over several years, we spent hours discussing them.
Richard's understanding of practicing the ethics laid out in the Beatitudes was based to a large degree on his admiration of St. Francis of Assisi--who he came to call St. Frank. Richard wanted to live as closely as he could to St. Francis' principles, so those who want to know more about Rich Mullins will benefit from learning something about Richard's favorite saint. In this study of St. Francis, my focus is to draw attention to his efforts to mirror Christ, and to show how Richard, in following Francis, echoed both of them.
So here's an excerpt from Walk Through the Valley:
Late in March of this year, I felt spring calling me and took my half hour lunch to walk to the System Parking garage at 222 W 7th Street, downtown Cincinnati. I walked around the city block that encompasses the outside of the garage, passing Covenant First PresbyterianChurch at the corner.
When I rounded the next corner where the Plum Street Temple stands, I passed by St. Peter in Chains Cathedral. Some worship experiences take place in churches made with hands, built under the cerulean sky. Others, as I recall, take place in dusty parking garages when two people huddled at the exit booth can’t stop talking about the Beatitudes between customers paying out. As I approached the western exit, I encountered a balmy gust of spring, and more than air came to me on the wind. My eyes stung, shut; I choked on abreath of dust stirred by renovations to the garage. It smelled the same as ever: chocolate; oily Cincinnati grit; spent cinnamon; exhausted auto fumes. The memories climbed like a dust cloud, settled. The visits I’d made so often thirty four, thirty five years ago.
In my next breath, I’m standing back there by the exit booth, watching the dust leap as he pushes a broom. He’s wearing his blue work uniform with the name “Richard” embroidered on the pocket.
My approach to the Beatitudes as a very new Christian is rather rigid and pietistic. I see them as a higher law, an inner torah built of stumbling blocks that reveal our need for salvation. But Richard’s view has been enriched by his years of Christian living. He embraces the power of the blessings of the Beatitudes and the spiritual freedoms they unleash with enthusiasm and appreciation.
A remembered conversation with Richard comes to mind. I love to argue with Richard just for the sheer joy of seeing how he solves a problem I throw at him. When I challenge him, he’s not in the prophetic mode like when he speaks at a concert, he’s just a man trying to work things out: pulling the answers to my questions out of the depths of his own truth, working to articulate them.
“I’m having trouble with the sixth Beatitude, Richard: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’Any given day, my heart is so corrupt, how could I even want to see God? I’d far rather run and hide. I have no idea how I’m going to learn to be pure in heart!”
He laughs. Just laughs in his easy way.“Congratulations! A natural fear of God. . . that’s the beginning of wisdom.”
He smiles. He knows me quite well. He thinks about my question seriously for a moment, then his face lights up.
“God knows you’re not ready to look him in the eye. That’s why he shows himself to you in a sunset, or when someone makes an extra effort to show you're loved. Is your heart pure enough to see God then?
Hesitantly, I admit that I once in a while it is. I listen as he brings his intuition on the subject to light. “Those are the moments when you’re pure in heart. God won’t show up somewhere in our peripheral vision while we’re staring at our own hearts. A heart can be a pretty dark place, and self-absorption is only one of the barriers that can keep us from seeing him. The more we look only at God, the more of him we’ll see. Focus on God, not your own barriers to seeing him: that’s when he’ll show up."
For an excerpt from Walk Through the Valley derived from a story of Jesus' life, click here.
But a funny thing happened on my way to completing the second book. In September of 2012, I had an acute ischemic stroke. My paternal grandmother had a disabling stroke in her fifties. The stroke I had in my fifties was nowhere near as bad. I can walk, and talk. But if God wanted to get my attention, he got it. I'm still in the process of recovering, but I'm no longer taking my abilities for granted. I know I'll be around just as long as God wants me to be here, but I had to be open to the possibility that I was being called immediately to write about that third theme, one I had to put before anything else--healing.
Which of the three parts of rhetoric is represented by healing? I believe it's ethos. Because Christ's greatest teachings on ethics are the Beatitudes. They are more than a list of laws or virtues; the Beatitudes act with the transformational dynamic of blessings. My Hebrew professor, Dr. Stephen Hooks, taught that "to bless" meant "to vocally call into existence the power for a thing to become what it was intended to be." The effect of following the Beatitudes is blessing: the personal recovery of that power of becoming--in other words, healing. Richard and I were fascinated with the Beatitudes, and over several years, we spent hours discussing them.
Richard's understanding of practicing the ethics laid out in the Beatitudes was based to a large degree on his admiration of St. Francis of Assisi--who he came to call St. Frank. Richard wanted to live as closely as he could to St. Francis' principles, so those who want to know more about Rich Mullins will benefit from learning something about Richard's favorite saint. In this study of St. Francis, my focus is to draw attention to his efforts to mirror Christ, and to show how Richard, in following Francis, echoed both of them.
So here's an excerpt from Walk Through the Valley:
Late in March of this year, I felt spring calling me and took my half hour lunch to walk to the System Parking garage at 222 W 7th Street, downtown Cincinnati. I walked around the city block that encompasses the outside of the garage, passing Covenant First PresbyterianChurch at the corner.
When I rounded the next corner where the Plum Street Temple stands, I passed by St. Peter in Chains Cathedral. Some worship experiences take place in churches made with hands, built under the cerulean sky. Others, as I recall, take place in dusty parking garages when two people huddled at the exit booth can’t stop talking about the Beatitudes between customers paying out. As I approached the western exit, I encountered a balmy gust of spring, and more than air came to me on the wind. My eyes stung, shut; I choked on abreath of dust stirred by renovations to the garage. It smelled the same as ever: chocolate; oily Cincinnati grit; spent cinnamon; exhausted auto fumes. The memories climbed like a dust cloud, settled. The visits I’d made so often thirty four, thirty five years ago.
In my next breath, I’m standing back there by the exit booth, watching the dust leap as he pushes a broom. He’s wearing his blue work uniform with the name “Richard” embroidered on the pocket.
My approach to the Beatitudes as a very new Christian is rather rigid and pietistic. I see them as a higher law, an inner torah built of stumbling blocks that reveal our need for salvation. But Richard’s view has been enriched by his years of Christian living. He embraces the power of the blessings of the Beatitudes and the spiritual freedoms they unleash with enthusiasm and appreciation.
A remembered conversation with Richard comes to mind. I love to argue with Richard just for the sheer joy of seeing how he solves a problem I throw at him. When I challenge him, he’s not in the prophetic mode like when he speaks at a concert, he’s just a man trying to work things out: pulling the answers to my questions out of the depths of his own truth, working to articulate them.
“I’m having trouble with the sixth Beatitude, Richard: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’Any given day, my heart is so corrupt, how could I even want to see God? I’d far rather run and hide. I have no idea how I’m going to learn to be pure in heart!”
He laughs. Just laughs in his easy way.“Congratulations! A natural fear of God. . . that’s the beginning of wisdom.”
He smiles. He knows me quite well. He thinks about my question seriously for a moment, then his face lights up.
“God knows you’re not ready to look him in the eye. That’s why he shows himself to you in a sunset, or when someone makes an extra effort to show you're loved. Is your heart pure enough to see God then?
Hesitantly, I admit that I once in a while it is. I listen as he brings his intuition on the subject to light. “Those are the moments when you’re pure in heart. God won’t show up somewhere in our peripheral vision while we’re staring at our own hearts. A heart can be a pretty dark place, and self-absorption is only one of the barriers that can keep us from seeing him. The more we look only at God, the more of him we’ll see. Focus on God, not your own barriers to seeing him: that’s when he’ll show up."
For an excerpt from Walk Through the Valley derived from a story of Jesus' life, click here.