Contents:
It is my belief that in the Presence of God there is neither male nor
female, white nor black, Gentile nor Jew, Protestant nor Catholic, Hindu,
Buddhist, nor Moslem, but a human spirit stripped to the literal substance
of itself before God
Surely, of the Believers, the Jews, the Christians and the Sabians, those
who truly believe in Allah and the Last Day and act righteously, shall have
their reward with the Lord and no fear shall come upon them nor shall they
grieve . . . Indeed We gave Moses the Book and caused a number of Messengers
to follow after him; and to Jesus son of Mary, we gave manifest Signs and
strengthened him with the Spirit of holiness
. . . We believe in Allah and in that which has been sent down to us and
that which was sent down to Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and his
children and that which was given to Moses and Jesus, and that which was
given to all other Prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between
any of them and to him do we wholly submit ourselves . . . We make no
distinction between any of his Messengers; we have heard Allah’s command and
we have submitted ourselves wholly to him. He has sent down to thee the
Book, comprising the truth, which fulfills the revelations that preceded it;
and he sent down the Torah and the Gospel before this as a guidance..
All religions, all this singing, is one song. The differences are just
illusion and vanity. The sun’s light looks a little different on this wall
than it does on that wall…but it’s still one light . . .For those in love,
Moslem, Christian, and Jew do not exist . . Why listen to those who see it
another way? –
if they’re not in love their eyes do not exist.
I believe there is no such thing as conversion from one faith to another
. . . Having reverently studied the scriptures of the world I could no more
think of asking a Christian or a Musalman, or a Parsi or a Jew to change
faith than I would think of changing my own . . . Our innermost prayer
should be a Hindu should be a better Hindu, a Muslim a better Muslim, a
Christian a better Christian.
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She saw the feet, bruised and dusty, stretched out behind him –
worn, working feet. Audacity and need coalesced. A single impulse
precipitated her into a precarious moment of hope. A dam of saline
grief burst, making clear rivulets in a grimy flesh wiped clean with
hair.
Elizabeth Canham, “The Anointing”
Tentatively, she entered. She knew she was not welcome
here. She could care less about their kind, the unkind way they ogled
her. She had her own world, her own dreams, her own enveloping despair. And
then she saw him sitting there. Smashing her alabaster jar, she poured its
fragrance on his feet and wept in defiance, not defeat, as he caressed her
hair. “What a waste!” they said. He knew they meant her life. They meant the
money spent, the times they went to sleep one hour with her. She did what she
had to. Stay alive. She and her child and her guilt survived on the lust and
disgust of the likes of them. The poor who are always with us would do things
differently if they could. She knew he knew and understood. Jesus looked at
her, looked right through her, and saw that she was good.
Miriam Therese Winter
I don’t know how my
mother walked her trouble down
I don’t know how my
father stood his ground
I don’t know how my
people survive slavery
I do remember, that’s
why I believe . . . .
I don’t know how the
angels woke me up this morning soon
I don’t know how the
blood still runs thru my veins
I don’t know how I
rate to run another day
Standing in a
rainstorm, I believe
My God calls to me in
the morning dew
The power of the
universe knows my name
Gave me a song to sing
and sent me on my way
I raise my voice for
justice I believe
Bernice Johnson Reagon, “I Remember, I Believe”
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Sufi teacher Hafiz offers more names for God including: Sweet Uncle,
the Generous Merchant, the Problem Giver, the Problem Solver, the Friend,
the Beloved, Ocean, Sky, Sun, Moon, Love. He warns us that, whatever
our names for God, we ought not settle for too small a god.
Dear ones, Beware of the tiny gods frightened folks create
To bring an anesthetic relief to their sad days.
In the Christian mystical tradition, Meister Eckhart offers the following
prayer:
I pray to God to rid me of God.
What images and projections of Divinity do we need to move beyond and let
go of?
St. Thomas Aquinas offers a litany of names for God, all of which are taken
from the Scriptures. To read and pray this list and meditate upon it does
indeed offer liberation for ourselves and our God-understanding. It is one
way of responding to Eckhart’s and Hafiz’ challenges to move beyond too
small a naming of Divinity. How might the following names, all taken from
Scriptures, give us imagination and freedom to move on in our naming of
divine experiences?
Even the very ones who were experienced concerning Divinity, such as
the apostles and prophets, praise God as / as the Cause of all things / as
good / as beautiful/ as wise / as beloved / as God of gods / as holy of
holies / as eternal / as manifest / as the cause of the ages / as the
bestower of life / as wisdom / as mind or intellect / as reason / as the
knower / as the one possessing in advance all the treasures of universal
knowledge / as virtue / as the powerful / as King of kings / as the Ancient
of days / as without age and unchanging / as salvation / as justice / as
deliverance or redemption / as magnitude exceeding all things / as in the
light breeze / as in minds or hearts / as in spirits / as in bodies / as in
heaven and on earth / at the same time in the same place / in the world /
involved in the world / above the world / supersubstantial / as the sun / as
a constellation, that is, a star / as fire / as water / as air / as dew / as
cloud / as stone / as rock / and all the other beings attributed to God as
cause.
Such a litany! And these are only names of God from the Scriptures . . .
Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells:
Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
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Divinity comes by many names. We live in a time when we can hear many
ancient and many new-sounding names for God. That is a good thing, for it
can open our own souls up to great possibilities. As Meister Eckhart puts
it, All the names which the soul gives God it receives from the knowledge
of itself. In each spiritual tradition, there are numerous, indeed
infinite ways by which we can name God. There are also severe warnings not
to name God in any definitive way . . .
We might call Divinity God or Allah or Yahweh or Buddha or Christ or Tao
or the Goddess or the Great Spirit or Creator or Redeemer or Liberator or
Supreme Being or Rama, or Ground of All Being or Ra or Aten or Vishnu or
Brahmin or Godhead or Nothingness or Mooramoora or Mystery or Beauty or
Justice or Goodness or Wisdom and many more. The Hindu tradition says that
there is only one Rama and he has a thousand names. Still others say
that there are an infinite number of names for God . . . And they make it
possible to reimagine ourselves and to let Divinity continue to evolve and
cease making Divinity into our own projections. The Muslim tradition
provides a practice in which the practitioner recites and meditates on
ninety-nine of “the most beautiful names for God . . .
It expands the mind and soul to grant Divinity a diversity of names. It
is a way into understanding our own depths and of expanding ourselves to let
God be known – and ourselves be known – by a myriad of names. We too can
recognize ourselves as fashioners, makers, creators, majestic,
compellers, mighty, protectors, givers of peace, authors of safety, holy,
sovereign, merciful, compassionate, all-hearing, dishonoring, honoring,
exalting, abasing, expanding, constricting, all-knowing, judging, providing,
bestowing, dominant, forgivers, maintainers, preservers, great, sublime,
appreciative, patient, aware, subtle, just, all-seeing, trustworthy, truth,
witness, awakeners, noble, loving, wise, all embracing, responsive,
watchful, generous, glorious, reckoning, noble, finding, self-subsisting,
alive, giver of life, restoring, beginning, counting, praiseworthy, a
protecting friend, firm, strong, a source of goodness, most exalted,
governing, hidden, manifest, last, first, deferring, forward-bringing,
powerful, able, eternal, one, withholding, enriching, self-sufficient,
gathering, equitable, lords of majesty and bounty, lords of the kingdom,
pardoning, avenging, accepting repentance, patient, guiding, inheriting,
everlasting, originating, light, profiting, distressing.
-- Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom
Springing from Global Faiths
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Jesus’ followers,
many having fled on the day of his crucifixion, steadily had become aware of
his resurrection, and finally had gathered together fifty days afterward . .
. . Acts 2 refers to the Spirit of God descending upon them and
infusing them with power. The very word spirit is defined by
Random House College Dictionary in ways that characterize this
all-important day: “the animating principle of life; an attitude or
principle that pervades thought, stirs one to action; a vigorous,
courageous, or optimistic attitude; vigorous sense of membership in a group;
to encourage; urge on or stir up.”
Thus, the Spirit of
God, fiery, sweeping, enters Jesus’ followers individually and collectively,
raising them to ecstatic heights, enabling them to embody themselves
the ministry that Jesus had begun. Now they could go forth and live out the
love they had experienced through Jesus Christ. Now they could be his
vicars, together and scattered. The formation of the church had begun
through the power of the Spirit . . . .
--
Imaging the Word: An Arts & Lectionary Resource
A primary key to achieving this altered state or non-ordinary
reality where we find the God of spontaneous prayers and non-written liturgy
is our willingness to surrender, to let go of control over outcomes, to see
things differently, to value risk, and to live willingly with ambiguity.
This arena, of pursued, has the greatest potential to show us the missing
parts of ourselves, the self that Jesus said will do more than he did; the
hidden self that knows God intimately and wholly, without reserve. This
knowing is akin to the mountaintop experience of conversion, filling with
the Holy Spirit, baptism, healing, gift of tongues, spiritual visions,
forgiveness, reconciliation, and other ecstatic experiences of the spirit.
When we make these connections to direct knowing in the
setting of the church and faith community, what joy we feel in the corporate
consciousness that shares spiritual unity and power. We feel the presence
of the early church and the Spirit power Jesus promised at his ascension.
This unity enables us to give birth to the creative artist within us, to
recover our unique gifts, and to release them for the glory of God, our own
spiritual fulfillment, and the blessing of the earth.
-- Beverly J. Shamana, Seeing in the
Dark: A Vision of Creativity & Spirituality
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The intensity of the fundamentalist
movement in the 20th century is in part due to the anthropocentric
simplicity of biblical cosmologies in contrast with the mind-boggling evidence
cited by contemporary scientific cosmologies. Yet even when scientifically
accurate descriptions of the universe are accepted, the language of God-up and
death-down echoes in our speech and the 3-tiered universe remains in our
imagination . . . Narratives suggest that God resides up and that communication
between humankind and God is conducted between two layers of reality, the earth
and the heavens . . . Luke indicates that Jesus must go up to be with God. In
the heavens is God’s throne, where from God’s right hand Christ will reign as a
kind of prime minister . . . The church fathers taught just the opposite: that
as Christ went to God, his body became available to all the church . . . In
Christ we too will conquer death . . . .
-- Gail
Ramshaw
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
I was miserable and aching at the way the news kept breaking
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
I felt broken into compromise with nothing left to hope or prize
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
I was searching for a reasonable reason for my smile
I was finding what I want washed out completely in denial
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
. . .
And the earth began to Rumble and Roar
and buildings began to crumble and fall
and there was no house
and there was no highway anymore
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
I was searching for a reasonable reason for my smile
I was finding what I want washed out completely in denial
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky!
-- June Jordan
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May 6, 2007
“Living with Justice at Home,” MaryJane
Pierce Norton
As a family/household discuss justice. What is justice? Justice is all
God’s creation (the Earth, animals, people) living with fairness and
impartiality and love. When there is justice on Earth, all creatures have what
they need, no one is left out, and the Earth is clean and safe. When there is
injustice on Earth, some of God’s creatures do not have what they need (food or
shelter); the Earth is harmed; there is inequality because of culture,
ethnicity, or religion . . . On your dining table place cards with
discussion/reflection starters. Choose one a week to stimulate thought and
conversation -- An act of justice you’ve read about in the paper or seen on TV
and why it is important. -- Something you’ve seen this week you feel is unjust
and why. -- Where you saw someone taking care of God’s Earth this week . . .
Where is justice on the school yard when children are bullied by other
children because of race, religion, gender, orientation, appearance, or size?
Where is justice for those who have been abused and their abusers are free to
abuse again? Where is justice when in our nation there are those who work hard
each day and still do not have enough money to support their families? Where is
justice when older adults who can no longer care for themselves suffer abuse at
the hands of caregivers? Where is justice when those seeking freedom in a new
land are ignored or vilified? Where is justice for families when loved ones are
randomly shot and killed in street violence?
Establish a Family/Household Covenant for Living with Justice. Renew every
three months while keeping same basic elements – promises of love, forgiveness,
acceptance, honesty, growth, and witness. So that this family/household may
promote justice as we learn to live in this world together, we promise one
another and ourselves to –
- Seek God’s presence through regular Bible study, reflection & prayer;
- Love one another and ourselves unconditionally – even when our behaviors might
need changing;
- Be truthful to all members of the family/household;
- Spend time deciding ways we/I can do our part to care for God’s Earth and
people in it – recycle, take food to food banks, provide clothes for clothing
closets.
- Learn about hunger. Eat with, prepare, and/or serve a meal for homeless
persons.
- Learn about justice issues in church and community. Write a letter to any
official in local/state/federal government praising efforts for justice or
asking for action taken for justice and peace.
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God chose David to serve, and took him away from the sheepfolds. God brought
him from tending the sheep, to be shepherd over Jacob, the chosen people, and
over Israel, the chosen inheritance. So David shepherded them with a faithful
and true heart and guided them with the skillfulness of his hands.
Psalm 78:70-72
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we
commend your servant (_______). Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a
shepherd of your own fold, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive
(_______) into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of
everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints
in light.
Commendation, Burial of
the Dead
The Lord’s my shepherd; I’ll not want. He makes
me down to lie
in pastures green; he leadeth me the quiet waters
by.
My soul he doth restore again, and me to walk
doth make
within the paths of righteousness, e’en for his
own name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale, yet will
I fear no ill;
for thou art with me, and thy rod and staff me
comfort still.
My table thou hast furnished in presence of my
foes;
my head thou dost with oil anoint, and my cup
overflows.
Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely
follow me,
and in God’s house forevermore my dwelling-place
shall be.
Edinburgh
Psalter
Understand, therefore, beloved, how the
exodus is new and old, perishable because of the slaughter of the sheep,
imperishable because of the life of the Lord. O strange and inexpressible
mystery! The slaughter of the sheep was found to be Israel’s salvation, and the
death of the sheep became the people’s life, and the blood won the angel’s
respect. Tell me, angel, what did you respect? The slaughter of the sheep or
the life of the Lord? The death of the sheep or the model of the Lord? The
blood of the sheep or the Spirit of the Lord?
Melito, On Pascha
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Czeslaw Milosz, from “Six Lectures in
Verse”
Lecture V
“Christ is risen.” Whoever believes that
should not behave as we do,
Who have lost the up, the down, the right, the left, heavens, abysses,
And try somehow to muddle on, in cars, in beds,
Men clutching at women, women clutching at men,
Falling, rising, putting coffee on the table,
Buttering bread, for here’s another day.
And another year. Time to exchange presents.
Christmas trees aglow, music,
All of us, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Catholics,
Like to sit in the pew, sing with others,
Give thanks for being here together still,
For the gift of the echoing Word, now and in all ages.
We rejoice at having been spared the misfortune
Of countries where, as we read, the enslaved
Kneel before the idol of the State, live and die with its name
On their lips, not knowing they’re enslaved.
However that may be, The Book is always with us,
And in it, miraculous signs, counsels, orders,
Unhygienic, it’s true, and contrary to common sense,
But they exist and that’s enough on the mute earth.
It’s as if a fire warmed us in a cave
While outside the golden rain of stars is motionless.
Theologians are silent. And philosophers
Don’t even dare ask: “What is truth?”
And so, after the great wars, undecided,
With almost good will but not quite,
We plod on with hope. And now let everyone
Confess to themselves. “Has he risen?” “I don’t know.”
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April 8,
2007 -
Easter Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
“And,
Not Crying in Vain”
And,
not crying in vain
About
father and mother – you must arise, God save you,
On
the highways,
In
the night – without a dog or lantern.
Night
has a thievish maw.
It
will swallow or shame and cut you off from God.
Yet
it will teach you
To
sing and, smiling into someone’s eyes, to steal.
And
to call someone
With
a long whistle, at black crossroads,
And
to kiss others’ submissive
Wives
under the trees.
Whether the field fills up with ice
Or
grain – still on the roads, it’s wonderful! –
Only
in the story does the prodigal
Son
return to his father’s house.
Marina Tsvetayeva, 10 October 1916
“Flowers, and tall-stalked grasses, and a bee”
Flowers, and tall-stalked grasses, and a bee,
and
azure, blaze of the meridian . . .
The
time will come, the Lord will ask his prodigal son:
“In
your life on earth, were you happy?”
And
I’ll forget it all, only remembering those
meadow paths among tall spears of grass,
and
clasped against the knees of mercy I
will
not respond, choked off by tears of joy.
-- Ivan Bunin, 14.VIII.18
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April 8, 2007
-
Easter Sunday at 8:00 a.m.
“Three
Days”
Friday:
When you agree to be the mother
of God
you make no conditions, no
stipulations.
You flinch before neither cruel
thorn or rod.
You accept the tears; you endure
the tribulations.
But, my God, I didn’t know it
would be like this.
I didn’t ask for a child so
different from others.
I wanted only the ordinary
bliss,
to be the most mundane of
mothers.
Saturday:
When I first saw the mystery of
the Word
made flesh I never thought that
in his side
I’d see the callous wound of
Roman sword
piercing my heart on the hill
where he died.
How can the Word be silenced?
Where has it gone?
Where are the angel voices that
sang at his birth?
My frail heart falters. I need
the light of the Son.
What is this darkness of the
face of the earth?
Sunday:
Dear God, He has come, the Word
has come again.
There is no terror left in
silence, in clouds, in gloom.
He has conquered the hate; he
has overcome the pain.
Where, days ago, was death lies
only an empty tomb.
The secret should have come to
me with his birth,
when glory shone through
darkness, peace through strife.
For every birth follows a kind
of death,
and only after pain comes life.
-- Madeleine L’Engle
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“Return of the Prodigal
Son,” Leopold Sedar Senghor, Senegal
I.
And my heart once again on the threshold of stone under the portal of
honor. And a tremor Stirs the warm ashes of the lightning-eyed Man, my
father. On my hunger, the dust of sixteen years of wandering and the
uncertainty of Europe’s many roads and the noise of sprawling cities, and
towns lashed by the waves of a thousand passions in my head. My heart is
still pure as the East Wind in March.
II.
I challenge my blood in this head empty of ideas, in this belly abandoned by
courageous muscles. Guide me by the golden note of the silent flute, guide
me, Herdsman, brother who shared my household dreams, naked under his milk
belt and with the flame tree’s flower on his brow. And pierce, herdsman,
just pierce with a long surreal note this tottering house where termites
have eaten away windows and inhabitants. And my heart once again under the
great dwelling built by the Man’s pride. And my heart once again on the tomb
where he has piously laid his ancient lineage to rest. He needs no paper,
only the troubador’s musical page and the red-gold stylus of his tongue.
III.
How vast, how void is the courtyard smelling of nothingness, like the plain
in the dry season trembling with emptiness, but what woodcutting storm
felled the secular tree? An entire people had subsisted on its shade on the
round terrace, a whole household with stableboys and artisans and family
herdsmen on the red terrace that protected the surging sea of herds on the
great days of fire and blood. Or is it now a district struck by four-engined
eagles and by lions of bombs with such powerful leaps?
IV. And
my heart once again on the steps of the high house. I lay on the ground at
your feet in the dust of my respect, at your feet, Ancestors who are
present, who proudly dominate the great room of your masks defying Time.
Faithful servant of my childhood, here are my feet caked with the mud of
Civilization. Only pure water on my feet, servant, and only their white
souls on the still mats. Peace, peace, peace, my Fathers, on the Prodigal
Son’s head.
V. You among
them all, Elephant of Mbissel, shower your troubadour poet with friendship
and he partakes with you the dishes of honor, the oil highlighting the lips,
and the river horses, gifts from the Sine kings, masters of millet, Masters
of palms, the Sine kings who had planted in Diakhaw The legitimate force of
their lance. And among them all, This Mbogou, of desert-colored skin, and
the Guelwars Shed libations of
tears at his departure Pure rain of dew as when the Sun’s death bleeds on
the ocean plain and on the waves of dead warriors.
VI. Elephant
of Mbissel, through your ears invisible to our eyes, Let my Ancestors hear
my reverent prayer. May you be blessed, my Fathers, may you be blessed!
Merchants and bankers, lords of gold and the outskirts of town Where a
chimney forest grows -- They have bought their nobility and blackened their
mother’s womb The merchants and bankers have banished me from the Nation.
And they have carved “Mercenary” on my honorable weapons And they knew I
asked for no pay, only ten cents To cradle the smoke of my dreams and milk
to wash away my blue bitterness. If I have planted my loyalty back in the
fields of defeat, It is because God has struck France with his leaden hand.
May you be blessed, my Fathers, may you be blessed. You who have endured
scorn and mockery, polite offenses, Discreet slurs and taboos and
segregation. And you have torn from this too-loving heart The ties that
bind it to the world’s pulse. May you be blessed, you who refused to let
hatred turn a man’s heart To stone. You know that I have made friends with
the forbidden princes Of intellect and the princes of form, that I have
eaten the bread That brings hunger to countless armies of workers And those
without work, that I dreamt of a world of sun In fraternity with my
blue-eyed brothers.
VII.
Elephant of Mbissel, I applaud the emptiness of shops around the noble
house. I Applaud joyfully! Long live the merchant’s bankruptcy! I applaud
this strip of sea abandoned by white wings – The crocodiles now hunt deep in
the woods And the sea cows graze in peace! I burn down the
seco! The pyramid of peanuts
towering above the land And the hard wharf, an implacable will upon the
sea. But I bring back to life the sound of the herds,their neighing and
bellowing, The sound modulating the flutes and conch shells in the evening
moonlight I bring back the procession of servant girls on the dew And the
great calabashes of milk, steady, on their rhythmic, swaying hips. I
bring back to life the caravan of donkeys and camels Smelling of millet and
rice In the glittering mirrors, in the tolling of faces and silver bells. I
bring back to life all my earthly virtues!
VIII. Elephant of
Mbissel, hear my reverent prayer. Give me the skilled knowledge of the
great Timbuktu doctors, Give me Soni Ali’s strong will, born of the Lion’s
slobber – A tidal wave to the conquest of a continent. Blow upon me the
Keitas’ wisdom. Give me the Guelwar’s
courage gird my loins with the strength of a
tyedo. Give me the chance to die
for the struggles of my people, And if necessary in the odor of gunpowder
and cannon. Reserve and root in my freed heart the foremost love of my
people. Make me your Master Linguist; No, no, Appoint me his ambassador.
IX. May you be blessed, my Fathers,
who bless the Prodigal Son! I want to see again the room on the right where
the women worked, Where I played with the doves and my brothers, sons of the
Lion. Ah! to sleep once again in the cool bed of my childhood Ah! to have
loving black hands once again tuck me in at night, And see once again my
mother’s white smile. Tomorrow I will continue on my way to Europe, to the
embassy, Already homesick for my black Land.
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March 25,
2007
“The Prodigal Son,” Leah Goldberg
1. On the Road
And the stone on
the roadside said then,
“How heavy your
steps have grown.”
And the stone
said, “Will you return now
To your forgotten
home?”
And the bush on
the roadside said then,
“Your tallness is
bent low.
How,” said the
bush, “will you get there,
Stumbling as you
go?”
And the sign-post
by the roadside
Cried “Stranger!”
in its scorn;
And the sign-post
by the roadside
Stabbed him like a
thorn.
“Your lips are
dry,” cried the fountain;
And called from
the roadside near.
And he knelt and
drank of the water,
And a tear touched
a tear.
2. In the House
“I have
forgotten,” the sister said.
The brother said,
“I do not recall.”
“I’ll never
forgive,” the father said.
The bride said,
“I’ve forgiven all.”
Silent the mother
peeped through the blinds:
Long is the road
and far it winds.
“The wind is
rising,” the sister said
The brother said,
“O hear the rain.”
“Locked is the
door,” the young bride said.
“None,” said the
father, “shall lock it again.”
Silent the mother
walked to and fro:
God in heaven, how
the winds blow.
“There are five of
us,” the sister said.
The brother said,
“Let us sit and dine.”
“Come,” said the
bride, “the table is laid.”
The father said,
“I shall pour the wine.”
Silent the mother
bowed her head,
In five parts
broke the Sabbath bread.”
The sister nibbled
her crumbs like a mouse,
The brother sopped
his bread, the bride
Toasted the
mistress of the house,
The father ate his
bread and sighed.
Then up rose the
mother and drew back the chain,
And opened the
door to the wind and the rain.
3. Repentance
“I am not
guiltless, my hands not blameless,
But my heart
repents in no wise.”
And he knelt down
at the threshold,
Lay down and would
not rise.
“Seven times have
I proved my falseness,
Seven times
blasphemed the Name,
And the heavens
above bear witness
That I was always
to blame.
“The heavens above
bear witness
That sin is bone
of my bone,
And that I shall
still prove faithless,
For I am the
prodigal son.”
The sister stood
in the doorway
And weeping bowed
her head;
The bride in the
open doorway
Wrung hands as if
for the dead.
The brother stayed
in his chambers,
For what he had to
say,
And spied from his
dark chamber
On his brother
where he lay.
But the mother
raised he face,
And her face like
sunlight shone,
“What matters
whether evil or good,
Since you have
returned, my son.
“Your father will
never forgive you
Who chose the
forbidden path,
But rise and
receive the blessing
Of your father’s
loving wrath.”
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“The
Prodigal Son,” Edwin Arlington Robinson
You are not merry, brother. Why
not laugh,
As I do, and acclaim the fatted
calf?
For, unless ways are changing here
at home,
You might not have it if I had not
come.
And were I not a thing for you and
me
To execrate in anguish, you would
be
As indigent a stranger to
surprise,
I fear, as I was once, and as
unwise.
Brother, believe, as I do, it is
best
For you that I’m again in the old
nest –
Draggled, I grant you, but your
brother still,
Full of good wine, good viands,
and good will.
You will thank God, some day, that
I returned,
And may be singing for what you
have learned,
Some other day; and one day you
may find
Yourself a little nearer to
mankind.
You have hated me till you are
tired
You will begin to see, as if
inspired,
It was fate’s way of educating us.
Remembering when you were
venomous,
You will be glad enough that I am
gone,
But you will know more of what’s
going on;
For you will see more of what
makes it go,
And in more ways than are for you
to know.
We are so different when we are
dead,
That you, alive, may weep for what
you said;
And I, the ghost of one you could
not save,
May find you planting lentils on
my grave.
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March 11, 2007
“The
Prodigal” -Elizabeth Bishop
The brown enormous odor he
lived by
was too close, with its
breathing and thick hair,
for him to judge. The
floor was rotten; the sty
was plastered halfway up
with glass-smooth dung.
Light-lashed,
self-righteous, above moving snouts,
the pigs’ eyes followed
him, a cheerful stare –
even to the sow that
always ate her young –
till, sickening, he leaned
to scratch her head.
But sometimes mornings
after drinking bouts
(he hid the pints behind a
two-by-four),
the sunrise glazed the
barnyard mud with red;
the burning puddles seemed
to reassure.
And then he thought he
almost might endure
His exile yet another year
or more.
But evenings the first
star came to warn.
The farmer whom he worked
for came at dark
to shut the cows and
horses in the barn
beneath their overhanging
clouds of hay,
with pitchforks, faint
forked lightnings, catching light,
safe and companionable as
in the Ark.
The pigs stuck out their
little feet and snored.
The lantern – like the
sun, going away –
laid on the mud a pacing
aureole.
Carrying a bucket along a
slimy board,
He felt the bats’
uncertain staggering flight,
his shuddering insights,
beyond his control,
touching him. But it took
him a long time
finally to make up his
mind to go home.
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from “The
Prodigal Son,” W. S. Merwin II
And the silence on
the hills might be an echo
Of the silence
here in the shadow of the white wall
Where the old man
sits brooding upon distance
Upon emptiness.
His house behind him,
The white roofs
flat and domed, hushed with the heat
And the hour,
making what it can of shadow
While no one
stirs, is it in fact the same
In which lifelong
he has believed and filled
With life, almost
as a larger body, or is it,
Now suddenly in
this moment between mirage
And afternoon,
another, and farther off
Than the herdsmen,
oh much farther, its walls glaring
White out of a
different distance, deceiving
By seeming
familiar, but an image merely
By which he may
know the face of emptiness,
A name with which
to say emptiness? Yet it is the same
Where he performs
as ever the day’s labor,
The gestures of
pleasure, as is necessary,
Speaks in the name
of order, and is obeyed
Among his sons,
except one, except the one
Who took his
portion and went. There is no distance
Between himself
now and emptiness; he has followed
The departing
image of a son beyond
Distance into
emptiness. The flies crawl
Unnoticed over his
face, through his drooping
Beard, along his
hands lying loose as his beard,
Lying in his lap
like drying leaves; and before him
The smeared stalls
of the beasts, the hens in the shade,
The water-crane
still at the well-head, the parched
Fields that are
his as far as the herdsmen
Are emptiness in
his vacant eyes.
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“The Departure of the Prodigal Son” - Rainer
Maria Rilke
Now to
depart from all this complication
that’s ours
without ever being our own
and like
the water in old well springs
reflects a
trembling us and ruins the image;
from all
this, that again attaches
to us like
thorns – and, in departing, give
to odds and
ends
which you
no longer really see
(they were
so normal, ordinary
re-examination: gently, reconciled,
like some
beginning, from nearby,
and to
divine just how impersonally,
how over
everyone the sorrow came
that filled
childhood right to the brim --:
and then to
still depart, slipping out of hand
as if you
wrenched the newly healed,
and to
depart: where to? to the unknown,
and on into
a warm and steadfast land
that will,
for all transactions, be behind
as an
indifferent backdrop – garden, wall;
and to
depart: but why? from impulse, character,
impatience,
vague anticipation,
from not
perceiving and the unperceived:
And to
absorb all this and then,
perhaps, to
needlessly give up,
and die
alone not knowing why –
Is this the
entry into a new life?
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O Christ, the healer, we have come / to pray
for health, to plead for friends.
How can we fail to be restored / when reached
by love that never ends?
From every ailment flesh endures / our bodies
clamor to be freed;
Yet in our hearts we would confess / that
wholeness is our deepest need.
In conflicts that destroy our health / we
recognize the world’s disease;
Our common life declares our ills. / Is there
no cure, O Christ, for these?
Grant that we all, made one in faith, / in your
community may find
The wholeness that, enriching us, / shall reach
and prosper humankind.
• Fred Pratt Green
Wounded world that cries for healing / hear we
hold each other’s pain,
Wounded systems, bruised and bleeding, / bear
the load, the scars of strain;
Dollars ration out compassion, / hard decisions
rule the day,
Jesus of the healing Spirit, / free us for
another way!
Through our nation’s spent frustration, /
through the corridors of stress
May there move a kinder wisdom / all may feel,
and all may bless;
Tax and tithe are for a purpose /shared to
shield the poor and weak;
Pas the symptoms of our sickness / let the
voice of justice speak.
Honor those whose loving spirit / nurses, hope,
restores and heals,
Towel and basin use in service / like the
Christ who comes and kneels;
In the tending, in the mending / may we see the
right and fair,
In our common quest for wholeness / heal each
other by our care.
• Shirley Erena
Murray
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Continued from last week
Yet they gave birth
to the Harriet Tubmans.
Yet they gave birth
to the Martin Luther Kings.
Yes, they gave birth
to the Langston Hugheses.
Yes, they gave birth
to kings and queens.
THIS IS A SONG FOR MY
MOTHER.
THIS IS A SONG FOR MY
FATHER.
Oh, Black women of
Ethiopia. Black father of Nelson Mandela.
Black mother of
Emmett Till. Black men down in Brazil –
We hear your story,
we feel your pain. We see the blood pouring like rain.
And if thy will be
done, to South Africa, FREEDOM WILL COME!
THIS IS A PRAYER FOR
MY MOTHER.
THIS IS A PRAYER FOR
MY FATHER.
Calling all people in
North America. Calling all people in Northern Ireland.
Calling all people in
the Himalayas. Calling all people down under in Australia.
Calling all people in
the Soviet Union. Calling all people in the People’s Republic.
Calling all people in
the Middle East. Let’s come together for World Peace.
ALL SHALL NOT BE LOST
IF WE SAVE OURSELVES
FROM NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST.
THIS IS MY PRAYER FOR
MY MOTHER.
THIS IS MY PRAYER FOR
MY FATHER.
AND FOR ALL LIVING
CREATURES AROUND THE WORLD.
SONG FOR MY MOTHER, PRAYER FOR MY FATHER
(A Praise Song) – Linda Goss
Jesus and the crowds! This is where God’s secret for the world is
revealed. But it is not the size of the crowd that inspired Jesus . . .
. It was their sorrow and hunger that moved him. –
C. S. Song
In
those moments of self-giving, inmost desire and outward deed overflow
together. Our divided selves are made whole, and we experience God’s
blessing.
It is
when we are pushed to the edge of human possibility by our poverty or
our grief, by our thirst for righteousness or our search for peace, by
our suffering or our love that God meets us. In these moments, which
are our perfection and our peace, God comes to us as sure as the taste
of salt on our tongues.
–
Barbara A. Gerlach
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SONG FOR MY
MOTHER, PRAYER FOR MY FATHER
(A Praise Song)
-- Linda Goss
My mother was
no Harriet Tubman.
My father was
no Martin Luther King.
She was a mother
to ten sisters and brothers.
She was a mother
to my brother and me.
She was a wife
and friend to my father.
She was a teacher
for the whole community.
My mother was
no Harriet Tubman.
My father was
no Martin Luther King.
He had no time
for fun and foolishness.
He had no time,
sometimes, to take a rest.
He had no time to
complain or weep.
He was a
storyteller who rock me to sleep.
My mother was
no Harriet Tubman.
My father was
no Martin Luther King.
Yet she was a
midwife to my aunt Sally.
He was a preacher
to Little Willie Jones.
She was a mother
who cared and who suffered.
He was my father,
Black and strong.
She was a mother
who kept the lights burning
So her lost
children could find the way home.
He was a father
who kept the fires warming
So his little
children would never be cold.
You won’t find
them in the history pages.
Yet they have
lived down through the ages.
There will be no
“TV Special.”
There is no
Mother’s Day card. There is no Father’s Day card.
About the people
I’m speaking of.
About the people
who’ve been through it all.
They’ve lost
babies in the womb.
They’ve lost
babies to the hanging tree.
They’ve lost
babies to the battlefields.
They’ve lost
babies to drugs and pills.
(to be
continued)
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Luke’s report brings the starry-eyed Christian down to earth with a
thud. It previews something that will take place often in Jesus’
lifetime: his words will fall on deaf ears. Nor is the rejection of
Jesus’ message a phenomenon peculiar to his day alone. Many centuries
later, Thomas Carlyle wrote:
If Jesus were to come today, people would not crucify him.
They would ask him to dinner, hear what he had to say, and make fun of
him.
Why haven’t 2,000 years changed things?
A high-school boy volunteered his answer:
Why don’t I take Jesus’ words more seriously? I guess because if I did,
most of my friends would reject me, just as many of Jesus’ friends
rejected him. And I guess I couldn’t take that just now.
Jesus left Nazareth with a deeper awareness of not only what lay ahead
of him, but also what it meant to be a prophet. To be a prophet meant
to expose himself to rejection – even death.
-- Marc Link,
“Rejection”
I must love the questions themselves as Rilke said
like locked rooms full of treasure to which my
blind
and groping key does not yet fit.
and await the answers as unsealed letters
mailed with dubious intent and written in a very
foreign
tongue. and in the hourly making of myself
no thought of Time to force, to squeeze the space
I grow into. – Alice
Walker, “Reassurance”
God, forgive me for calculated efforts to serve you only when it is
convenient to do so, only in places where it is safe to do so. Creator
God, forgive me, renew me, and send me out as a usable instrument, that
I may take seriously the meaning of Your Cross.
-- United Methodist Women’s Caucus, 1976
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I Thank You for Those Things That Are yet Possible . . .
Thank you / for work which engages me in an internal debate between
right and reward and stretches me toward responsibility to those who pay
for my work, and those who cannot pay because they have no work; for
justice which repairs the devastations of poverty;
for liberty which extends to the captives of violence; for healing
which binds up the broken bodied and the broken hearted; for bread
broken for all the hungry earth; for good news of love which is stronger
than death; and for peace for all to sit under fig trees and not be
afraid; for my calling . . . my life. . . .
– Ted Loder
I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll sit at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed, --
I, too, am America.
-- Langston Hughes
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It is not by accident that the Gospel of John weaves into the very
earliest period of Jesus’ public life this human-interest story of the
wedding that comes across with the lilt of springtime. The intention is
to depict a contrast with the winter of his austerities in the
forbidding wilderness of Judea.
The story shows in bold relief how Jesus had survived the shortcomings
of the wilderness and how he had moved beyond the ill-humored
image of God upheld by the sectarians there. Jesus thoroughly
enjoyed the wedding party of the young lovers.
It is worth our while to compare his laughing face . . . with the face
of
John the Baptist, the man . . . haranguing people forever about the
wrath of God. The story discovers to us the beaming joie de vivre of
Jesus.
– Shusaku Endo
ERNESTO: In the Old Testament the messianic era had often been
described as an epoch of great abundance of wine. The prophet Amos has
said that when the Messiah came there would be great harvests of wheat
and grapes, and that the hills would distill wine. By this miracle
Christ is making it clear that he is the promised Messiah.
MARCELINO: He was coming to bring unity and brother/ sisterhood among
people. That’s the wine he brought. If there’s no solidarity among
people there’s no joy. A person’s birthday or saint’s day is not a
happy party if there’s division.
TERESITA, William’s wife: But it wasn’t at any old party that he
performed the miracle. It was at a wedding party.
ERNESTO: It had often been prophesied also that the messianic era
would be like a wedding with God.
FELIPE: No one will be excluded from that wedding. That will be true
social justice. – Esperanza Guevara
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When we read the
story of the Magi, we are caught up again in the mystery
and wonder of
their amazing expedition. All kinds of honest questions
pop into our
minds: How did they know? Where did they get the courage to
travel such a
long, long way?
What happened
to them after they met Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child?
Do you suppose
they ever heard of Jesus again? Did this visit touch their
lives in any
special way? . . .
Muriel Tarr Kurtz
I am waiting for my
case to come up and I am waiting
for a rebirth of
wonder and I am waiting for some
to really discover
America and wail and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle to really spread its
wings and
straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the
world safe for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
. . .
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the human crowd
to wander off a
cliff somewhere
clutching its
atomic umbrella . . .
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the
earth without taxes . . .
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all
nationalisms without killing anybody . . .
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of
wonder
Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
“I Am Waiting”
Remembering was
fearing; doubt helped. I had to face it all as true the day John
baptized him. Then he knew.
Madeleine L’Engle, “Mary: after the baptism”
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