Category: Hope

Anger, Conflict, Culture, Ethics, Forgiveness, Hope, humanity, Love, Manners, Modern Life4 Comments

Cynicism and Forgiveness

Gary Furr

“Forgiveness” is my wife’s favorite song on my new CD.  (Click HERE to listen to the song)  The chorus goes:

It’s impossible to give forgiveness

It’s even worse to have to ask

If letting go is the answer

Living like it’s gone is the task.

How else you going to deal with the past?

Lance Armstrong and General Petraeus in one year are maybe more than we can take, even in our jaded time.  I find myself turning it all off more and more just to preserve my soul.  Cynicism can cripple the spirit.  It can rest on the belief that everything is a con, everybody is out to get you, all politicians are evil, and all human beings’ motives are bad.  While Christians might be seen to have a lot in common with that, what with the fall of humanity and all, I’m here to say, “Not really.”

The Christian gospel is not as much about how bad we are as that God knows it and loves us anyway.  Sin is not what lives on at the end of the day.  Its moment is the middle of a Friday with a dark sky and a rugged cross and a man yelling, “It is finished.”  But the last word is an empty tomb, followed by a hopeful church, a Holy Spirit, and a kingdom to come.

So as Thanksgiving approaches, it might do well for us to think about how to defeat it in our lives.  I want to offer two helpful practices from our faith that can be an antidote to cynicism. Continue reading “Cynicism and Forgiveness”

Art, Bluegrass, Country Music, Culture, Death, Family, Gospel music, Grief, Hope, Hymns, Music, music therapy, Spirituality6 Comments

Grief Work in the Basement Garden 2: Songs for the Journey

Gary Furr

I once heard someone say that Loretta Lynn described country music as consisting of three kinds of songs:  “Songs about love, cheatin’ songs, and songs about Jesus.”  That may be so, but I don’t know of anything that a good song can’t touch.  In my last post, I mentioned songs that had spoken to me in my own grief through the years.  Usually they are songs that simply “find us,” a synchronicity of expression and need.  You hear it and it unearths sorrow or whatever from the deepest part of you, puts it up where you can feel it and … Continue reading Grief Work in the Basement Garden 2: Songs for the Journey

Art, Death, Faith, Family, Family, Gospel music, Grief, Hope, Hymns, Memory, Music, music therapy12 Comments

Grief Work in the Basement Garden

Gary Furr

This blog is drawn in part from some chapters I’m writing for a forthcoming book on prayer from Insight Press.  I’ll announce it when it is available for purchase on this site. Moments of sensitivity to God’s presence happen in the oddest places—foxholes, pinned in a car wreck, hospital waiting rooms, lying in bed when you can’t sleep.  People report God’s presence when life is unraveling, but also sitting on the porch on a quiet afternoon.  Holding a baby.  Counting blessings.  Waking up and drinking coffee.  Chance encounters.  Prison cells, torture rooms, earthquakes and financial ruin.  A meal with friends, … Continue reading Grief Work in the Basement Garden

Death, Hope, Literature, Love, Memory, Poetry, Theology and Life, Writing5 Comments

Say Hello to Porky for Me…

Gary Furr

In 2001 I was invited to speak at my college, which fulfilled a dream from my college days.   It was, in fact, a “two-fer,” since I was a co-presenter with Dr. Milburn Price for the Ball Institute AND spoke in the chapel.  When I was a student, I heard speakers who impressed me mighty well—Dr. Frederick Sampson, a magnificent preacher who held us spellbound for 65 minutes one day, the great Grady Nutt, and others.  I imagined that I might someday, after graduate work, be important enough to come back and be one of those speakers.  Now it was at … Continue reading Say Hello to Porky for Me…

Cancer, Death, Faith, Forgiveness, Holly Week, Hope, Jesus, Love, Suffering, Thankfulness, Theology and Life

The Four Things That Matter Most

Gary Furr

  Please forgive me.  I forgive you.  Thank you.  I love you. The wonderful New Testament scholar George Beasley-Murray once wrote that what the gospel of Mark imparts to us in nine verses, the gospel of John spends five chapters.  John 13-17 is the home of some of the richest, most direct and powerful sayings of Jesus.  It is called by scholars, “The Farewell Discourse.”  Words from a dying man to his beloved friends.  He says, “I love you,” again and again in many ways.  He tells them things that need saying.  Death concentrates the mind and focuses life. My … Continue reading The Four Things That Matter Most