Radiate: Tristan Mason’s blog

Here’s a “live bootleg” from one of our worship services.  ;)

Recently, I was searching for a Christmas song that I could sing during communion.  In the past, our church has done some great Christmas songs that have tied togther Jesus’ birth and the cross—but this time I was looking for something new.  It’s kind of funny, though, because I actually ended up with something old: the hymn “Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne” [note: beware the scary MIDI music at this link… if you leave your volume up, don’t say I didn’t warn you].

Sharon and I added a new verse (the “For my sin and shame…” part), updated some of the language, and added a kind-of-improvised ending to the song that was designed to allow all of us to respond to the song a little, and not just hear it.  So here it is, in all its echoey glory, recorded on my little voice recorder from the back of the room.  I think it has some potential; it just needs to be cleaned up a little, and I might change the ending.  What do you think?  Lyrics are below—the bad recording makes the words hard to understand sometimes.

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There Is Room (Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne)
Emily Elliot/Timothy Matthews; add’l words/music by Tristan & Sharon Mason

Lord, you left Your throne and Your kingly crown
When You came here to earth for me;
But in Bethlehem’s home was there found no room for Your holy nativity.

Chorus:
O come to my heart, Lord Jesus; there is room in my heart for Thee.

Heaven’s arches rang when the angels sang, proclaiming Your royal degree;
But of lowly birth, Lord, you came to earth, and in great humility.      (Chorus)

And You came, O Lord, as the living Word, that would set Your people free;
But with mocking scorn and with crown of thorn, they led you to Calvary.   (Chorus)

For my sin and shame, Heaven’s King was slain, crucified upon the Tree.
Lord, You took my place, Your atoning grace was poured out at the cross for me.   (Chorus)

There is room in my heart, Lord Jesus
You left your throne from heav’n above all because of Your great love
There is room in my heart
My sin and shame are gone forever, all forgiven in Your name
There is room in my heart
Come, Lord Jesus, quickly come…

In a post a while back I said I would write about what I called “an old-new foundation for living as creative artists in the Kingdom”.  I guess this post counts as one installment in that (slightly stretched out) series.

When I was on the recent missions trip to Arrowhead Bible Camp, I was again reminded of how beautiful parts of Pennsylvania are.  Here are a few pictures, which as usual do no justice whatsoever to the real experience of seeing a patchwork quilt of tree-colors warming a mountainside on a crisp autumn day.  It was breathtaking.

The trees were just beginning to turn when we were there:

These are hay bales in a field across from camp (I love the lines in this photo):

Beauty does something to us.  I can’t put my finger on it, but it seems to be closely connected to experiences of joy and transcendence.  It somehow yanks us from our musty, ingrown drudgery out into the wide-open spaces of joyful wonder.  We’ve all felt it somewhere, sometime; and once we’ve felt our reaction to beauty, we want to experience it again.  It’s fleeting, though—rushing at us in unexpected places, but too often just out of reach when we seek it or expect it.  Beauty doesn’t arrive on demand, and our pace of life leaves us with no time or patience to wait for it.

In 21st-century USAmerican culture, perhaps more than ever before, people are starving for the experience of beauty and transcendence, turning to every simulation they can find.  Too many people experience nature on the Discovery Channel, intimacy through porn videos, art at the poster store in the mall, and spirituality in the self-help aisle. (For you philosophers out there, think simulacra.) I’m convinced that many of our addictions are rooted in a misplaced search for escape, transcendence, beauty, or whatever—trying to feel something real, or occasionally, just to feel something other.

This is one of several reasons why the Church and the world need creative arts ministry so desperately.  I am convinced that our human longings for joy, transcendence, beauty, and freedom are signposts that evidence our need for God and will only ever be fully satisfied by him.  As the Church, we come alongside people who are consumed and driven by their deep, unmet longings and we point them to God.  We attempt to show them tiny but faithful glimmers of His unimaginable beauty and sufficiency through story, music, art, poetry, film, drama, dance—-every form we can imagine, every sense we can experience, always seeking new cracks through which we can peer at Him.  Sometimes we are just plain awful at it, and at other times we are astounded by the beauty of God’s glory inhabiting our little efforts (check out Annie Dillard’s “An Expedition to the Pole”).

These visceral ways of communicating often slip unnoticed though people’s walls and barriers, and to their surprise, transform a brief moment into a sacred space where they experience God. If just one person sees a ray of God’s beauty shining through and finds her or his deep longings met in Him, then we have ministered well.

The cabin is good to go! We inaugurated it last night with a bonfire and skewered hot dogs. We all feel like old guys groaning about our backs hurting, but a few muscle aches is well worth it. That cabin is going to be a great place for people to spend time pursuing God, away from the busyness and rush of everyday life.

So here’s the transport video…

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Well, the cabin is on the trailer. THAT was hairy. The video makes it look kind of easy because I couldn’t film while we were trying not to die. Okay, it wasn’t quite that bad, but what you don’t see on the video is that we had to turn the cabin after we got it on the trailer so that it would be in line with the trailer instead of perpendicular to it. So we jacked it up again, blocked it again, backed it under as much as we could, lowered it, drilled through some floor joists, ran tow straps through the joists, winched it further onto the trailer with a comealong, built a frame around it, and then strapped the frame to the trailer so the cabin wouldn’t move. Tomorrow morning the moment of truth will come when we move it…

Anyway, here’s the video.

[I was blinded this morning while sitting on this couch, and I saw]

You dwell in unapproachable light,
    and all the forces of night
    flee blindly from Your fiery gaze;

Yet the darkest soul of us all
    (left in tatters by the Fall)
    sees healing in Your gentle grace.