To the Chief Musician

    

     My dad, 82, is going back to work this Sunday on Father’s Day. Apparently, you never outlive your calling and Bill Colle was called many years ago to bring people to Jesus through song.

 

    It is a calling that has been a binding bridge for many to the throne room of grace and mercy. It is a calling that has gotten him fired from churches.

      Father’s Day is a fitting day to launch a new vision at his current church, First Baptist Church of Tellico Village in Tennessee. He is a father to many. There are three of us that call him dad by blood and countless others that call him a spiritual father. I remember our doorbell rang at night many times with people looking for his father’s heart. They always found a soft place to land.

 

     On Sunday, he will begin to lead a new congregation through praise and worship. It’s a traditional Baptist Church, so for many, this will be a new concept as they put down the hymnals and sing choruses. He may get some pushback. That doesn’t scare him because he knows he is called to do it. Why else would he choose to return to leadership in a church when he is enjoying retirement and the fruits of a 60-plus year career in ministry?

 

     He will begin by teaching about the Old Testament temple. He will lead them with joyful songs of thanksgiving as they think about the courtyard of the temple. Then he will lead them to where the teaching took place, The Holy Place. Eventually, the end goal will be entering into the Holy of Holies, where the focus will be resting with the Lord in awe and reverence.

      I was just into double digits as his daughter when the 70s Jesus movement swept through Houston, Texas. Friday nights, my parents’ version of date night was attending services at Redeemer Lutheran Church. There, they learned how to worship and lose themselves in abandon to their Lord. There, they could fearlessly praise Him without fear of standing out or repercussions.

 

     Once you’ve been there, in His presence, you are never the same. But it is a learned gift – moving beyond tradition to abandonment. Worship is relational not ritual.  

      It is also fitting that my daddy will begin on Father’s Day because he taught his family first how to worship. Then, as doors opened to churches that welcomed this style of worship, he taught many others about the Father’s heart and the need for us all to reach it through worship. His legacy, long after he retires again, will live on in two of his grandsons that also lead praise and worship at their churches.

 

     I pray for open hearts to the gift he will bring this Sunday. To all who have been in a pew and wondered if there is more to church, I’m here to tell you that there is. I’ve seen it manifested in my father, my chief musician here on earth. I’m grateful for having a father who taught me to worship and led me there with a father’s heart.

Yoga Makes me Cry

     Yoga makes me cry. Not the leaky tears of compassion, but dry heaving sobs without them.

      I have resisted the very classes I signed up to take because of the way it bares my deepest aches. Plus, I am not very good at it. I forget to breathe, and I try to muscle through the poses, only to cramp up and fall over.

      Instructors give me permission to fail. I am unable to do the same. I am frustrated that I cannot control any part of the process.

      My forward fold brings my head no closer to the floor. I am more likely to get my head on the floor in happy dancer pose when I fall over.

      Yoga makes me cry.

      The past two years have been a tumultuous spring storm. Tornadoes have touched down to destroy so much that I have known to be true. Golf ball sized hail has left dents and scars on my heart. I have had to dig deep through the rubble of who I am to search for what I want to be now, after the storm.

      I had just emerged from the debris and found a bit of firm footing when I found a new gym. Ready to feel my muscles grow again, the draw was strong towards the studio with the workout and yoga combo. I attended a yoga class first and I left wondering if I would ever get it right.

      When they added a slow flow yoga class, I decided this was my kind of yoga – stretching the muscles I had worked in the strength and conditioning classes. I stuck to those classes alone until the pandemic sent us all home to Zoom our sweat and poses. Slow flow classes were suspended. 

      It is not just my inability to pose like a seasoned yogi.  It is also the blow of walls coming down inside me while I do it that scares me. When is it enough? Haven’t I done enough hard things for now?

      No.

      I hear it plain. Go. I sent you here for a reason, God says.

      “I’m here to give you back your heart and set you free.” (Isaiah 61)

      You are not yet free, he says.

      I do not know how doing something like yoga will assist in the process, unless we go straight to Shavasana, the corpse pose. I only know that I am not yet free. There are deep wounds that still need to heal. My Jesus thinks I am strong enough to bear the weight of more walls coming down. I do not.

      Yoga makes me cry.

      But I will find my way through to the other side where my ragged breathing becomes a deeper healing balm. I will never be the yoga instructor, but I never want to stop learning. I never want to stop trying to be the version of me God saw from the beginning of time.

      So, I will do the poses. I will cry if I need to cry as the walls come down. And I will be grateful to the folks at Namaste Fitness Studio for allowing me to sweat and cry in a safe place.

 Life’s a journey. Pay attention.  

Rebels with a cause

Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of a Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk

     She had me at Runaway Nun. The daughter of a Baptist minister, I can relate to wanting to run away from the convent of legalism toward a promise of freedom from ‘habit.’

     I joined the “Katharina and Martin Luther” book launch project because, first of all, I find Michelle DeRusha’s blog a breath of fresh air. Also, I love history, and this year is the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther posting the Ninety-five Theses to the doors of the church. The combination of history, great writing, and a little-known story about a marriage between a runaway nun and a renegade monk caught me hook, line, and sinker.

  

     Katharina von Bora did not choose to be a nun. Her father chose this path for her after the death of his wife and her mother. She embraced the life for many years because options for women were few, especially for a woman who had never known anything but convent life as a school girl and young lady.

     Martin Luther chose to be a monk out of fear of not fulfilling a vow he made during a terrible storm. He left a promising path in life as an educated man, perhaps even a career as a lawyer and his father was furious. He became a model monk, sometimes confessing his sins for six hours straight.

     Both Katharina and Martin made vows and followed them to the best of their ability in humble service to God. But God began to stir their hearts. Martin’s extensive study of scripture made him begin to question the tactics of the Roman Catholic Church. Those questions led to the day he nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the Castle Doors of Wittenburg Church.

     His revolutionary ‘grace not works’ theology found its way behind the cloister doors where Katharina hid behind her habit and the rituals of the convent. God was stirring her heart as well. Through doors only God could have opened, she made her escape from the convent with the help of Martin, a man who didn’t even know her name.

     I think it is quite telling of God’s providence that their story together begins on Easter Eve, the night of her escape, because Easter is a time of resurrection and new life. As you will read in Katharina and Martin Luther: The Radical Marriage of Runaway Nun and a Renegade Monk, this husband and wife team will change the face of marriage for all time.

     I encourage you to read it and share it with friends. It would be a great book club choice because a love story that features rebelling against legalism in the church is fodder for many conversations. DeRusha’s book launches Jan. 31 and can be purchased wherever books are sold. Please follow Michelle’s blog at michellederusha.com.  

Let him sing

     Ask him to sing. 

     There aren’t many that do anymore. Most often it’s the dying 

that request hymns during his hospice rounds. Bill Colle is a great 

comfort to families and those on the verge of paradise. But it's a 

shame that his songs are only heard in dimmed rooms, because my 

dad is still anointed and still able to fill a church with his rich bass.

     A house filled with music and singing is how I remember it. 

Album covers stacked in piles and the careful drop of a needle on 

vinyl. Musicals, opera, the Bison Glee Club, or The Centurymen’s 

latest played regularly.

     Every time I hear “Eternal Life,” I think of my dad. Especially

the prayer at the end because he has not only sung this prayer, he 

has lived it.

Oh divine master grant

That I may not so much seek

To be consoled, as to console.

To be understood, as to understand.

To be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving, that we receive.

It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned.

It is in dying, that we are born to eternal life.

     

     He gave up a full ride at Louisiana State University as a drum 

major to pursue God’s call at Oklahoma Baptist University in 

Okmulgee, Okla. During those four years, he ministered music at 

every church that allowed him to sing. He did finally make it to 

Louisiana. He completed seminary there and wore the pink 

master's stole for musicians while already a husband and father.

     

     Valdosta, Ga., Palatka, Fla., Chamblee, Ga., Alief and LaPorte, 

Texas, and finally Titusville, Fla. God called and called and called 

and we moved and moved and moved. And there was always 

music. The miles traveled all over the southeast marked a 

wonderful career behind the pulpit as the chief musician before 

retiring at the age of 62.

     No matter where we called home, he made sure that we always 

knew where we would spend eternity. That there, too, would be 

music. That’s why every time I hear “Eternal Life,” which he 

recorded on an album of his own, I am reminded of my father’s 

great legacy. And I’m puzzled why no one asks him to sing 

anymore beyond the four walls of home where my mom sends him 

to the piano to sing for her.

     Ask him to sing. God gave him a beautiful instrument that at 78 

still draws me to a peaceful place, that encourages me to give more 

than I receive, and to be a light in the darkness.

Happy Birthday to the Chief Musician in my life. Next time I’m 

home, let’s sing.

“From the hymns that my daddy sang, I know I was made to glorify your name.”

Toby Mac ‘Undeniable’

Read the book, bought the tee

    

     During a weekend away at the beach, I devoured Erika Morrison’s book, Bandersnatch.

She encourages us to explore our unconventional soul and she asks us in a way that is 

poetic, lyrical, and forever outside the box.

     Life is not about “going out and fulfilling self-serving acts so that we can feel good 

about ourselves. It’s about being one, being whole, being a family, and being catalysts of 

love and healing back and forth.”

     I bought this book because I fell in love with Morrison’s words on her blog,

The Life Artist. I’ll read it again and again to keep the words fresh in my heart, especially 

when legalism rears up and stops me in my tracks.

     Buy it for yourself and then buy it for the friends who will inevitably come to mind as you 

read it. I know many who have been disappointed by man-made church life and they have 

walked away. I get it. I'm still too Protestant to walk completely away, but so many times 

I’ve felt like I was on the outside looking in through the pretty stained glass windows. I 

couldn’t live up to the expectations that put Jesus and God and Holy Spirit in a pretty box. 

Everything in me wanted to bust right out of the box and scream, “NO! He made me to be so 

much more than you allow me to be.”

     The words of Morrison’s heart echo that and put an exclamation point on abandoning 

boxes and heading straight to the source and saying to Him, “You made me. What now? 

Where are you leading me?” I dare say the answer will be astonishing and unlike anyone 

else's answer.

     

     Go check out this clip she asked me to share, then go buy Bandersnatch and unwrap your 

unconventional soul this Christmas. 

Bandersnatch Trailer