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Contents:
Madeleine L’Engle, “Sarah: before Mount Moriah”
Like a small mouse / I am being played
with. / Pushed around, sent from home
passed off as a sister, / free to be the
sport of others / (nobody asked me).
Nobody asked if I wanted / to leave home
and all my friends
(the cat never asks the mouse). / Would my
womb have filled
if we had stayed where we were / instead
of following strange promises?
My maid, giving my husband a child for me,
/ then made a mock of me.
So when the angel came / announcing –
promising – A child in my womb long dry what could I do but laugh? / And
then warmth came again, and fullness,
and my child was born, / my laughter, my
joy.
But do not play with me any more! / What
kind of logic lurks in your promise
that the sky full of stars / is like the
number of our descendents
and then demand the son’s life who
makes / that promise possible?
Can I trust a breaker of promises? / What
kind of game is this?
Are you laughing at my pain / as I watch
the child and his father
climb the mountain? / Am I no more than a
mouse / to be played with?
I am a woman. / You – father-God -- / have
yet to learn what it is to be a mother,
and so, perhaps, have I. / And if you give
me back my laughter again,
then, together we can learn / and I will
say – oh, I will sing! --
that you have regarded the lowliness / of
your handmaiden.
Madeleine L’Engle,
“Abraham: with laughter”
Unlike the other gods / you are not
satisfied with holocausts
and the sweet smell of smoke. / Unlike
the other gods / you do not let us be
but come and pitch your tent / with
ours and sniff out all we do.
You are not satisfied / to have us
satisfied, / to leave well enough alone.
No, you sent me out, / an old man, with
your interfering / and your promises,
and all your countings / of the stars
and my son’s son’s sons.
You might have picked a better man / to
fall before the terror of great darkness.
Twice, fearing for my life / passed my
wife off as sister. / Why not with her barren womb? / And then a son. In my
old age a son. / You do nothing like the other gods
and so I know you are my God / and my
son’s God and my son’s sons’.
I do not understand the stars /
uncountable in number; / nor do I understand you.
I wept. And when, / after all, you did
not accept my sacrifice,
the ram brought laughter home.
top of page
“Baptized into New Life”
We awaken in Christ’s body / as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ, He enters / my foot, and is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully / my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly / whole, seamless in His Godhead).
I move my foot, and at once / He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? – Then / open your heart to Him.
and let yourself receive the one / who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love Him, / we wake up inside Christ’s body
where all our body, all over, / ever most hidden part of it,
is realized as joy in Him, / and He makes us, utterly, real,
and everything that is hurt, everything / that seemed to us dark, harsh,
shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably / damaged, is in Him transformed
and recognized as whole, as lovely, / and radiant in His light
we awaken as the Beloved / in every last part of our body.
n
Symeon the New Theologian,
949-1022
Sometimes I wonder, in most of our celebrations of baptism, if we
reduce the waters of baptism to a mere sprinkle and cover it up with
rosebuds and lace and talk about cute babies and “God loves you and we love
you” because we dare not speak about the strange and wonderful work which is
beginning in this child on this day. You know how we always try to avoid
DEATH.
Baptism is death which leads to life.
n
William Willimon
Once a fortnight / over formica counter or teak table
in my basement or your kitchen / with mint tea or decaf
under children’s screams or low TV / you and I – his present and ex –
hold the summit of wives / to compare & sort & match
misplaced belongings of shared siblings. . . .
Years from now / our children grown / with underclothes stored
in the drawers of strangers, / we will meet no more – never to finish
sorting the remnants / of what we hold / in joint custody.
-- from Joey Kay Wauters, “The Summit of Wives”
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It suddenly dawned on them that the wildest dreams they’d ever had
hadn’t been half wild enough.
– Frederick Buechner
from Judy Gattis Smith, “Sarah Laughed,” a rhythmically
spoken piece --
Part 4: Old Sarah / Weak Sarah / Elderly / Ancient / Geriatric
/ Gray-haired
Wrinkled / Fading / Wasting / Weakening / Getting on in years / Over the hill
Yes! She shall bear a son
And Abraham fell on his face . . . and laughed!
Ha-ha (continues) / Ho-ho (adding to above) / Yuk-yuk (adding to above)
Part 5: Time went by. The Word came again
to Sarah / by three angels / behind a tent / out of sight
A child shall be born!
Part 6: And it began to bubble up . . . that laugh again
She giggled / she shook / she tittered / she snickered
she chortled / she cackled / she crowed / she held her sides
She burst out laughing!
Ha-ha (continues) / Hee-hee (adding to above)
Ho-ho (adding to above) / Yuk-yuk (adding to above)
Part 7: Limp with laughter / rolling on the floor / rejoicing
/ delighted
exulting / jubilant / elated / flushed / whooper / hurrah
huzzah-huzzah
yippee / yea rah / hosanna / hallelujah
hallelujah
Is anything too wonderful for God?
I meant to give you a small a surprise. . . . Old people, as well
as young, must have a little fun at times. If I have frightened you, I
beg that you will forgive me all the same.
-- Isak Dinesan
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“What Song, Then?”
When my life is alien soil / and a wind / like fear
makes restless ground of all I have done –
what song, then, / to send out roots/
that will drink the rain / that does not come –
how could I sing?
Watch light come / from dark and mist rise / from waters
as sky and shore / emerge out of night,
and a tree half-green, / half-bare.
Half-afraid of what is in me
(though God has called it good)
I sob over nothing,
desires I cannot name.
Sing us, they say, / a song you remember . . .
from “Little Girls in Church”
I worry for the girls. / I once had braids
and wore lace that made me suffer.
I had not yet done the things / that would need forgiving.
Church was for singing, and so I sang.
I received a Bible, stars / for all the verses; / I turned and ran.
The music brought me back / from time to time, / singing hymns
in the great breathing body of a congregation.
And once in Paris, as / I stepped into Notre Dame
to get out of the rain, / the organist began to play:
I stood rooted to the spot, / looked up, and believed.
It didn’t last. / Dear girls, my friends,
May you find great love / within you, starlike
and wild, as wide as grass, / solemn as the moon.
I will pray for you, if I can.
-- Kathleen Norris, Little Girls in Church
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June 1, 2008
For tens of thousands of years cultures developed in close attunement
with the elemental energies of the cosmos. The Chinese recognized the five
primal elements: Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. Native Americans
included Sacred Sound while the ancient Greeks identified the four energies
of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. These weren’t simply idea or metaphors.
Their power was experienced as real. Rivers, mountains, fire, hurricanes,
lightning all spoke of the grandeur of the universe and the importance of
living in right relation with these elemental forces. To stay in touch with
this power, it was common to celebrate or pray to these basic elements of
life.
My words are tied in one / With the great mountains, / With the great
rocks,
With the great trees, / In one with my body / And my heart.
What are you? What am I? Intersecting cycles of water, earth, air and
fire, that’s what I am, that’s what you are. Water – blood, lymph, mucus,
sweat, tears, inner oceans rugged by the moon, tides within and tides
without. Streaming fluids floating our cells, washing and nourishing
through endless riverways of gut and vein and capillary. Moisture pouring
in and through and out of you, of me, in the vast poem of the hydrological
cycle. You are that. I am that. Earth – matter made from rock and
soil. It too is pulled by the moon as the magna circulates through the
planet heart and roots suck molecules into biology. Earth pours through us,
replacing each cell in the body every seven years. Ashes to ashes, dust to
dust, we ingest, incorporate and excrete the earth, are made from the
earth. I am that. You are that. Air – the gaseous realm, the
atmosphere, the planet’s membrane. The inhale and the exhale. Breathing
out carbon dioxide to trees and breathing in their fresh exudations. Oxygen
kissing each cell awake, atoms dancing in orderly metabolism,
interpenetrating. That dance of the air cycle, breathing the universe in
and out again, is what you are, is what I am.
Fire – fire from our sun that fuels all life, drawing up plants and
raising the waters to the sky to fall again replenishing. The inner furnace
of your metabolism burns with the fire of the Big Bang that first sent
matter-energy spinning through space and time. And the same fire as the
lightning that flashed into the primordial soup catalyzing the birth of
organic life. You were there, I was there, for each cell of our
bodies is descended in an unbroken chain from that event.
-- John Seed and Joanna Macy, from Earth
Prayers
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May 25, 2008
“stones and bones,”
Lucille Clifton
here is a country where old men / gather in
the capital and
speak their language filled with / stone /
their syllables are chips of bone
they speak of lifting up a creed / while
cold and still there under
their tongue is somebody else’s child / or
mine / bones and stones
our ears bleed / red and white and blue
“Memorial Day,” William
Marr
At Arlington, someone / Unknown goes down
The thousands, the thousands / Who have
gone down in faraway fields
But who won’t die in the heart-- / How do
we bury / The thousands
Jane Hirshfield, “The
Dead Do Not Want Us Dead”
The dead do not want us dead; / such petty
errors are left for the living.
Nor do they want our mourning. / No gift to
them — not rage, not weeping.
Return one of them, any one of them, to the
earth,
and look: such foolish skipping, / such
telling of bad jokes, such feasting!
Even a cucumber, even a single anise seed:
feasting.
Gail Wronsky, “O Alive
Who Are Dead”
They’re fighting in deserts and caves:
we must conquer / in ourselves / what
causes war.
Patience, patience, patience:
we must conquer in ourselves what / causes
war.
In snow, some on crags, some in /
quicksand. Some whom we love, / whom we know—
and woundbearings and bloodshed. / Nothing
can be so defeating
as inwardly doing nothing.
All poems from Sam Hamill, editor, Poets
Against the War
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May 18, 2008
O Light! / Divine and one Holy Trinity, / we, born of the earth,
glorify you always / together with the heavenly hosts.
At the raising of the morning light / shine forth upon our souls
your intelligible light.
● Armenian Sunrise Service
God is far off, unapproachable, / mysterious, uncontrollable;
and yet, amazingly, / this same unapproachable / and mysterious
God
draws near and / touches us. . . . These two, / the beyondness and
the nearness, are always / held together in tension.
● Edmund Steimle
In mystery and grandeur / we see the face of God
in earthiness and the ordinary / we know the love of Christ.
In heights and depths / and life and death:
the spirit of God / is moving among us.
Let us praise God.
I will light a light / in the name of God
who lit the world / and breathed the breath of life into me.
I will light a light / in the name of the Son
who saved the world / and stretched out his hand to me.
I will light a light / in the name of the Spirit
who encompasses the world / and blesses my soul with yearning.
We will light three lights / for the trinity of love:
God above us, / God beside us, / God beneath us:
the beginning, the end, the everlasting one.
● In Spirit and in Truth
Today is Trinity Sunday in the Christian Year and Peace with
Justice Sunday on the UMC program calendar. These two belong together
as long as we focus primarily on the worship and teaching of the triune
God who calls us into Eternal Community of love, justice, and peace with
Godself -- both here and now and in the age to come.
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May 4, 2008
Poems From New Orleans
“Arise,
Arise, All is not lost. Now is the time to rebuild.
Arise, Arise, gather together. Look to the Lord
to be filled.”
“Stand up! Stand up, the sun is still shining.
God has brought us a new day!
Stand up! Stand up, give thanks to the Lord. He
is the Potter, we are the clay.”
“Let us pray and look up to the Lord. Stand firm
on His blessed foundation!
Let us pray and unite as one people, in this time
of sorrow and devastation.”
“Hold the hand of our brother and sister as we
walk across the stormy land.
Hold the hand of a neighbor in need, helping each
other to rise and stand.”
“In our soul, in our soul there is pure hope,
faith, courage and light.
In our soul, in our soul our Lord has prepared us
not to lose sight.”
“Be strong, oh be strong! Every day brings us a
new song.
Be strong, Yes, be strong. The Lord will guide us
all the day long.”
“Arise, Arise, All is not lost. Now is the time
to rebuild.
Arise, Arise, gather together. Look to the Lord
to be filled.” - - - - Shawn Zehnder
When Katrina Made Herself Welcome
(Written
by a child after Hurricane Katrina destroyed everything at
the Boys Hope Girls Hope Homes)
Like a thief in the night, she crept upon
us.
Taking everything we own, nothing
remained but dust. Lives were shattered in Katrina’s pathway, leaving
little babies and kids all alone, with nowhere to be happy,
no place to call home.
No one knew that she would bring this
much hurt and pain, no one knew until after she came.
Now we know we must live every day like
it is our last.
Cherish every hour, every minute, every
second of our past.
God brought this storm to us for a
reason, one reason only by all means.
It was time for a change in the city of
New Orleans.
Thank you Katrina for giving me a strong
faith in God, for making me closer to my family, for helping me cherish
each day that passed, for giving me a new outlook on life, and for not
taking my life away from me.
Thank you Katrina for making yourself
welcome.
2 Corinthians 8:7
“But just as you excel in everything—in
faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love
for us — see that you also excel in this grace of giving.”
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April 27, 2008
Whatever else the disciples would come
to understand about what had happened, they knew from the start that the
resurrection was not simply about what happened to Jesus; it is about what
happens to all who trust in Jesus, and about what can happen to all who
claim this story as their own. The resurrection is not simply the assurance
that Jesus was victorious over death; it is also a promise that we can share
that victory with him. The resurrection does not mean only that Jesus was
triumphant over evil; it also assures us that evil will not be ultimately
triumphant in our own lives. The resurrection is a promise offered to all.
Saint Jean Vianney said of Easter: “Today one grave is open, and from it has
risen a sun which will never be obscured, which will never set, a sun which
bestows new life.”
Martin Copenhaver
I believe that behind the mist the sun waits.
I believe that beyond the dark night it is raining stars.
I believe in secret volcanoes and the world below.
I believe that this lost ship will reach port.
They will not rob me of hope, it shall not be broken.
My voice is filled to overflowing
with the desire to sing, the desire to sing.
I believe in reason, and not in the force of arms;
I believe that peace shall be sown throughout the earth.
I believe in our nobility, created in the image of God,
and with free will reaching for the skies.
They will not rob me of hope, it shall not be broken.
It shall not be broken.
Chile, Confessing Our Faith Around the World
Christ lives; now we too
may dance.
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April 13, 2008
Hazel Barkham, “Housewarming Blessing”
(Our homes should be places of security, safety, comfort, hospitality, and
humor. They are places where we should be able to be ourselves.)
(GATHER IN THE FRONT
HALL OR MAIN ROOM)
Early on a Sunday morning women discovered that Jesus was risen. They were
given a message for his disciples . . . “He is gone before you to Galilee.”
And he goes before us, too, and is here to greet us, to welcome us as host.
Christ is here. God is with us.
This is the place for new beginnings, but time past is a part of time
present. In the past lie causes of joy and sorrow. Let us acknowledge the
past with joyful hearts.
This home is a place of welcome, a place
of celebration, a place of meeting, a place of joy and sorrow, a
place of rest and peace.
(MOVE TO THE KITCHEN)
What else will this home be?
This home is a place of
work, the work of hands and head.
What else is this home?
This is a part of the
church, the people of God.
(MOVE TO THE DINING
AREA)
What else is this home?
This is a place for
sharing – in worship, in caring, in learning, in eating.
(PLACE BREAD AND WINE
ON THE TABLE)
Gracious God, we offer to you ourselves, our minds and bodies, our home and
possessions, our strengths and weaknesses, to share in the life and service
of your larger Home and World House. We ask your blessing on everyone and
everything that passes through this home.
AMEN!
(SHARE A MEAL!)
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April 6, 2008
Who dares re-call this man, when
all the plagues he fought are still among us, standing in the way of “the
America we hope to be”? . . . How shall we re-call him when the America
which has been is still protected and justified by Bible-quoting presidents
and supine legislators who offer to visionary leadership to a spiritually
crippled people?
Who dare rededicate themselves to the causes of
this hero? Who is there now, when major portions of his black middle class
have made their peace, found equal opportunity in the America that is?
Someone.
Who is there now, when the overwhelming
experience of the church is still focused on an individualistic religious
experience, breaking faith with the Tubmans, the Turners, the Truths, and
the Kings (and
the
King?)?
Someone.
Who is there now when so many of the youth in
whom the fire once burned are now being cooled out by drugs, by jail, by
military lies, by poisoned cultural opium in music and on screens, by big
money for playing small games?
Someone.
Who is there when so any of his comrades now
stand back in cynicism, fear, success, and puzzlement?
Someone.
Who is there when so many of the poor (and
recently poor) now compete for crumbs across racial and ethnic lines, rather
than standing together to vision, to pray, to re-collect,
to plan, to struggle?
Someone.
Who stands with a hero who insist on living for
the broken and exploited, who refuses to deny nightmares, who will not let
dreams die, and is not afraid to go on exploring, stumbling, trembling,
wherever visions lead him?
Someone.
Who will open the door for the children, to let
them see him, feel him, as he was, to re-call him as he is, perhaps to
expose their hungry, directionless lives to the flaming vector of his
passion for the poor?
Someone.
Is he safely dead? Perhaps we should re-call
him and see.
-- Vincent
Harding, Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero
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March 30,
2008
Jesus Appears
by
Susan R. Andrews
Susan R. Andrews is pastor of Bradley Hills Presbyterian
Church in Bethesda, Md. This article appeared in the Christian Century,
March 24-31,l999; copyright by the Christian Century Foundation and used by
permission. Current articles and subscription information can be found at
www.christiancentury.org.
This text was prepared for Religion Online by John C. Purdy.
In the Gospel of John, the first appearance of the resurrected Jesus to the
disciples is both intense and focused. The scene is set with realistic
detail. It is the evening of the first day of the week, and the doors are
locked. The anxious disciples are shut tightly inside. The suspicious world
is shut tightly outside. The whole of creation is missing Jesus. Then, all
of a sudden, he appears. Defying locked doors and locked hearts and locked
vision, Jesus simply appears. A dead God is resurrected. A dead faith is
re-created. A dead hope is born again.
I remember once seeing such locked-up hope. It was coffee hour, and a
parishioner was fussing with the food table, hunched over and preoccupied
despite the hubbub of voices swirling around her. It had been six months
since her husband had died, and we had yet to touch base in an unhurried
way. As soon as I approached, her eyes welled up with tears. She tried to
smile and be brave, but the ragged edges of grief had ravaged her face.
After a few moments, she looked around to see if anyone was nearby and then
she began to whisper.
"I had a terrifying experience last week. You'll probably think I'm nuts, I
but I have to tell someone. You know," she went on, "the nights are the
worst. I hear noises in the house, and I can't get used to sleeping in bed
alone. It must have been three o'clock in the morning and I was staring at
the ceiling, willing myself back to sleep, when all of a sudden it happened.
Bob came back. He came back and crawled into bed with me. He didn't say a
word. He just appeared--and then faded away. I felt immediate peace and
warmth and hope, and now I don't feel so alone." Then, glancing up in pink
but eager embarrassment, she asked, "You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"
No. I don't think she was or is crazy. Instead, she is blessed with a God
who just appears--in dreams, in visions, in people, in words, in
institutions. The truth of Easter is that all of humanity is blessed with a
God who defies the locks of logic and grief and prejudice and fear, a God
who blesses us and then sends us, fresh and filled with hope, back into a
hopeless world.
In John's Gospel, Easter coincides with Pentecost. Jesus appears, breathes,
sends and commissions -- all in one burst of holy energy. God's warm and
palpable presence startles and unsettles and stirs up the disciples. And
they are never the same. There is
almost a sense that God is of control, spilling over with an emphatic
affirmation of life, filling the world with both urgency and joy. In Luke's
version of Pentecost, Peter captures the moment perfectly: This is Jesus
whom God raised up, "having freed him from death, because it was impossible
for him to be held in its power" (Acts 2:24).
The Christian faith is the only world religion that takes as its logo an
emphatic symbol of death. And yet the central affirmation of Christianity is
hopeful life. Jesus just keeps appearing -- again and again -- to unlock the
barriers between faith and doubt, between life and death, between past and
future, between fear and joy. Jesus keeps appearing, a dependable reminder
of our dependable God.
It is a Jesus kind of joy that fuels the faith of Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
and shaped the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in its efforts to heal
post apartheid South Africa. It is a Jesus kind of justice speaking truth in
Jasper, Texas, resurrecting community out of the ashes of racial hatred. It
is a Jesus kind of faith filling the Christian churches in Palestine,
attempting to pour prophetic patience onto the troubled waters of the Middle
East peace process. Wherever it seems as if death has demolished life, Jesus
just appears, and fresh hope abounds.
I still admire the Unitarians. But I cannot escape the mark of my baptism.
Jesus is an "imperishable, undefiled and unfading" inheritance (1 Pet. 1:4),
a living hope that keeps appearing in the locked corners of this defiled
world. Again and again Jesus comes to where we are, startling us and
breathing on us and sending us to be embodied hope for others. Like Thomas,
we can miss the moment if we are so intent on proving God or playing God or
pushing God that we don't actually ponder the presence of God. We can gather
in community, joined by our common fear and our common vulnerability. As the
resurrected body of Christ in the world we can experience God, and then
become together what we can never be alone.
The Good News of the gospel is clear. When we least expect him, and when we
most need him, Jesus just appears. May it be so.
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The way we stand, you can see that we have
grown this way together, out of the same soil, with the same rains, leaning
in the same way toward the sun. See how we lean together in the same
direction. How the dead limbs of one of us rest on the branches of
another. How those branches have grown around the limbs. How the two are
inseparable. And if you look you can see the different ways we have taken
this place into us. Magnolia, loblolly bay, sweet gum, Southern bayberry,
Pacific bayberry; wherever we grow there are many of us; Monterey pine,
sugar pine, white-bark pine, four-leaf pine, single-leaf pine, bristle-cone
pine, foxtail pine, Torrey pine, Western red pine, Jeffrey pine, bishop
pine.
And
we are various, and amazing in our variety, and our difference multiply, so
that edge after edge of the endlessness of possibility is exposed. You know
we have grown this way for years. And to no purpose you can understand.
Yet what you fail to know we know, and the knowing is in us, how we have
grown this way, why these years were not one of them heedless, why we are
shaped the way we are, not all straight to your purpose, but to ours. And
how we are each purpose, how each cell, how light and soil are in us, how we
are in the soil, how we are in the air, how we are both infinitesimal and
great and how we are infinitely without any purpose you can see, in the way
we stand, each alone, yet none of us separable, none of us beautiful when
separate but all exquisite as we stand, each moment heeded in this cycle, no
detail unlovely.
-- Susan Griffin
the green of Jesus / is breaking
the ground / and the sweet smell of delicious Jesus
is opening the house and / the
dance of Jesus music / has hold of the air and
the world is turning / in the body
of Jesus and / the future is possible
n
Lucille Clifton, “spring song”
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Who is this riding
among us? Jesus the
Prophet of Nazareth.
Blessed is he who comes
in the name of God
Hosanna, may his Way be
victorious.
Who is this riding the
animal of peace? Jesus
. . .
Blessed be the freedom
he brings. Hosanna . .
.
Who is this carrying
the palm of peace?
Jesus . . .
Blessed be our leader,
the Prince of Peace.
Hosanna . . .
Who is this that
destroys the weapons of war?
Jesus . . .
Blessed is he who comes
in the name of God.
Hosanna . . .
Who is this that frees
the oppressed from prison?
Jesus . .
Blessed is he who
releases all captives.
Hosanna . . .
Who is this that makes
wars to cease in all the world?
Jesus the Prophet of
Nazareth.
Blessed is he who
restores the Paradise of Eden.
Hosanna, may his Way be
victorious.
“The
Covenant of Peace – A Liberation Prayer”
Little grey donkey, Little grey
donkey, Little grey donkey, Ho. / Do you know just who it is you
carry on your back?
‘Tis no ordinary load, no mean
or common pack. / You are blessed of all beasts to carry into town /
Christ the Lord of Galilee; He wears no earthly crown.
Little grey donkey, Little grey
donkey, Little grey donkey, Ho. / Once you were a simple beast of
poor and lowly state.
Christ himself hath chosen you
and honored is your fate.
Though your path with palms is
spread, make haste along the way;/ You were destined here to ride on
this triumphal day.
Little grey donkey, Little grey
donkey, Little grey donkey, Ho. / Yonder is a grassy hill; it’s
known as Calvary.
Up against the cloudless sky a
barren cross you see.
Little grey donkey, Little grey
mare, don’t hide your head in shame. / For you bear the Lamb of God,
and Jesus is his name./ For you bear the Lamb of God, and Jesus is
his name.
Natalie Sleeth
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March 9, 2008
Beseeching the breath of the
divine one, His life-giving breath, His breath of old age, His breath of waters,
His breath of seeds, His breath of riches, His breath of fecundity, His breath
of power, His breath of good fortune, Asking for his breath And into my warm
body drawing his breath, I add to your breath That happily you may always live.
– Zuni Chant
I’ve been
singing over my bones / but first I had to collect them.
I found my
skull so far from the rest of me, / sitting on top of a windy mountain, /
thinking there was no more of my pieces left to find.
I found my
arms and ribs / wrapped around a tree, / so tight, / my heart was left
inside.
Inside the
tree / my heart grew roots of all colors / and the roots grew down deep /
into the Earth.
I found my
pelvis and legs / in an ocean wave. / I had forgotten about this part of me
/ until the Truth-wave slapped me in the face, nine times, / leaving my
bone-feet kicking for a cause. / The ocean was a safe place, originally, /
but then the sand settled / and anyone could see through the waves, to the
rocky ocean floor.
I arranged
my bones in new patterns and sang for flesh. / With each bit of my new
flesh, / a Goddess-bone appeared.
I found Her
bones under my altar. / I found Her bones in books. / I found Her bones in
cooking fires. / I found Her bones in matehood. / I found Her bones in
church basements / and the crying-eyes of children, left alone.
Now Her
skeleton lies before me, inside me, around me. / I cannot sing Her back
alone. / When I sing, / I hear the voice of others / who know Her / and love
Her.
We are
singing back the Goddess / ahh! Here She is / to sing over all Our bones: /
to regenerate and renew.
-- Kira
Cassidy, “Singing Over Our Bones”
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We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the
honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my
teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one
hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly.
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers.
Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten – a thrill
of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to
me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that
was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light,
hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers
that could in time be swept away.
I left the house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave
birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I
touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with
the strange, new sight that had come to me. . . . I learned a great many new
words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that
mother, father, sister, teacher were among them – words that were to
make the world blossom for me, “like Aaron’s rod, with flowers.” It would
have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib
at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought,
and for the first time longed for a new day to come.
-- Helen Keller
Whenever I prayed your face appeared before me; when I was alone I thought
of your face imparting a blessing; when I was captured your face as it
appeared when you carried your cross gave me life. This face is deeply
ingrained in my soul – the most beautiful and the most precious thing in the
world has been living in my heart.
– Shusaku Endo
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You are like a
mountain spring, O Fountain of Living Water.
I sip from the deep down freshness of
Your never-failing love.
You are like a
summer rain, O Sudden Benediction.
drench my soul and quench my thirsting
spirit with Your peace
You are like a
raging sea, O Storm Upon my Ocean,
breaking into bits my fragile bark as I
learn to lean on You.
You are like a
waterfall, Oasis in my Desert:
source of my heart’s survival in the
press and stress of life.
You are like a
cleansing flood, River of Reconciliation:
washing away the selfish self-serving
signs of my sinfulness.
You are like a
bottomless well, O Cup of Lifegiving Water:
full up to overflowing. Praise be to
you, Shaddai.
--
Miriam Therese
Winter
My Lord is the source of Love; I the
river’s course.
Let God’s love flow through me. I will
not obstruct it.
Irrigation ditches can water but a
portion of the field;
the great Yangtze River can water a
thousand acres.
Expand my heart, O Lord, that I may
love yet more people.
The waters of love can water vast
tracts,
nothing will be lost to me.
The greater the outward flow, the
greater the returning tide.
If I am not linked to Love’s source, I
will dry up.
If I dam the waters of Love, they will
stagnate.
Can I compare my heart to the boundless
seas?
But abandon not the measure of my
heart, O Lord.
Let the waves of your love still billow
there.
--
Wang Weifan
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Reflection on
John 3, vs 1-16:
by Nan Stokes
Since Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, we
may have been wrestling with what to "give up" or what to "take on" during
this season of penitence. Whatever we decide to do or not to do, this is a
time of change, of movement, of going from what we are to the place or
condition where we want to be. In the Old Testament lesson, Abram heard the
call of God to move to a new land, and we can only wonder at the strength of
that call. What would it take to get us to move to a new land? Moving from
an old place to a new place in our spiritual lives may be what we are called
to do, and such a move will require an act of will, too. What will it take
to get us to make that move?
Jesus says to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it
chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes
from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."
Abram must have heard the "sound of the Spirit", and he picked up all his
family and possessions and went where that sound led him. The Gospel of
John doesn't tell us what happened to Nicodemus at that point in time, but
he, too, must have moved to new places, because he appears again to help
with preparations when Jesus is lifted down from the cross. As we move
deeper into Lent, it is time to begin our journey, and who knows where it
will lead?
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February 10, 2008
All the old primitive sins are not dead, but are
crouching in the . . . corners of our modern hearts.
– Carl Gustav Jung
The Satan of Jewish tradition is quite unlike the one found in the Christian
scriptures and in contemporary culture. Satan is one of God’s ministering
angels who, like other angels, possess power and status greater than human
beings. However, Satan, like other angels of the “divine court,” does not
possess power or status that approaches that of God. The figure of Satan in
Jewish tradition is the ultimate “devil’s advocate.”
Satan’s role is the same as that of the friend who egged you on by asking
questions that no one else would ask. Or who pushed you to do something or
think something that may be out of your comfort zone. Satan is a
troublemaker par excellence who stirs things up. His intent in the context
of Jewish tradition is not of pure evil, but of that energy and exuberance
of the rebellious spirit.
Such an attitude and presence has its place in human growth and evolution.
It is often when we are pushed outside our comfort zone that we learn more
about ourselves and are able to grow and evolve. Often that learning is
uncomfortable and even painful, but necessary to the human condition.
In Jewish tradition and rabbinic tradition, Satan is usually trying to get
the ear of God or other biblical figures and is stirring, being adversarial,
trying to egg them into straying from their true path. The Satan that the
gospel of Matthew presents is one not found in the Jewish realm. This image
is the precursor to the contemporary Satan who is filled with sinister
intent and malicious plans. While the Jewish Satan does create disorder and
upsets the apple cart, the evil figure found in the gospel of Matthew is
almost another character altogether. And while Judaism does deal with the
serious and important question of evil, it is not Satan who is its symbol.
So, the next time you are stirring up some trouble or posing questions that
challenge and confound those who know you, remember that you are embodying a
bit of the very important spirit of rebelliousness that helps us grow and
evolve. You are playing the role, at least from a Jewish perspective, of
that devilish angel known as Satan.
- Rabbi Adam Morris
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“You got a secret need,” the
blind man said. “Them that know Jesus once can’t escape Him in the
end.” “I ain’t never known him,” Haze said.
“You got at least knowledge,” the blind man said. “That’s enough.
You know His name and you’re marked. If Jesus has marked you there
ain’t nothing you can do about it. Them that have knowledge can’t
swap it for ignorance.”
Flannery O’Connor
When they
reached the mountaintop, Jesus with his arms extended was dancing
and laughing and calling out to Elijah to carry him home. The wind
was blowing and the dust he kicked up swirled around him like a
great cloud. The sun blazed behind him so that they had to squint
to see him. “I have never seen him like this,” Peter said to John.
“Nor I. Isn’t it wonderful?” John and James took Jesus by the hand
and they circled and danced together.
“Master,” Peter called to Jesus, “let us never leave this place.
Let’s stay here forever. Let us set up our tents . . . in Galilee.”
They sat down to rest. The effort had exhausted all of them. They
were still breathing heavily yet still relishing the magnificent
moment.
“Master,” Peter said again. “Why not stay here?” He tried not to
look in the direction Jesus had set his gaze, south toward
Jerusalem.
The sun was setting. It had been an extraordinary and eventful
day. They were tired and happy. Jesus stared toward Jerusalem.
“There is one more mountain to climb,” he said. “In Jerusalem.”
John Aurelio
God, transfigure our perception
/ With the purest light that shines,
And recast our life’s intentions
/ To the shape of your designs,
Till we seek no other glory /
Than what lies past Calvary’s hill
And our living and our dying /
And our rising / by Your will.
Thomas Troeger
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January 27, 2008
This is not a common sign one would find
around a church, yet the greatest barrier I have found in the church could
just as well be “No Trespassing” painted boldly on the front door.
It isn’t my body they’re telling to get lost,
but my mind. Too few beliefs, too many questions. Invitations to leave the
church have followed me most of my life. I experienced one of my first as a
college student. A few friends and I ventured to the Lutheran Church down
the street from the school, and although we had come for communion we were
told that to qualify to be served we needed to talk to the pastor to make
sure our minds were prepared to receive what our bodies and souls desired.
Even though we were confirmed Lutherans – confirmed in the confirmation
class sense, not in the lime Jello-marshmallow surprise sense – we were in
trouble because we had been confirmed in Lutheran churches of a different
stripe.
Yet, while my friends persevered, I took the
copout route and never returned. Confirmation had left me with enough
experiences of exclusion. While everyone was saying, “This is most certainly
true,” my breath prayer was more like, “I really don’t have a clue.” Then,
as now, I would rather skip the whole thing than to compromise my way to the
table.
The idea of a closed communion table has
always bothered me a great deal. It seems that the table that was opened to
all by Jesus, is now closed by those who claim to be his champion. When the
church starts to nail up ‘no trespassing’ signs, when it begins to exclude
seekers based on how pure we are, it becomes a church of unspoken barriers.
Are you gay, lesbian, bi or trans? “We love the sinner, but not the sin” is
nothing but unwelcoming condescending claptrap. Poor? Try harder. Poverty is
surely not an issue of public transit, affordable housing, universal health
care or, heaven forbid, a living wage, is it? Think the creeds are crazy?
Find another table. Or as my most recent invite to leave the movement was
spoken to me — “You oughta be a Unitarian.”
With such silent and not so silent signs
around our churches, is it any wonder we progressives have such a tough time
of it? Even our own United Methodist sign about open hearts, minds, and
doors backfires when viewed along with headlines in the newspaper about our
own Judicial Council. Not only is the Judicial Council’s reinstatement of a
minister who excluded a gay person from membership bad for his own United
Methodist congregation, it’s bad for the “brand.”
Who wants to buy such an outfit? All this
makes our own welcoming work all the more important, as we welcome the
stranger, each other, and ourselves to what ought to be one of the best and
most open tables in town. No trespassing? No thanks.
David Robinson is a member of Prospect
Park UMC in Minneapolis, MN; a Reconciling Congregation.
This is a reprint of his submission to the PPUMC Lenten Devotional 2006.
Used by permission.
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We have
inherited a large house, a great “world house,” in which we have to live
together – black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew,
Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu – a family unduly separated in
ideas, culture, and interest, who, because we can never again live apart,
must learn somehow to live together in peace . . .
We live in a day, said the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, “when
civilization is shifting its basic outlook; a major turning point in history
where the pre-suppositions on which society is structured are being
analyzed, sharply challenged, and profoundly changed.” . . The deep rumbling
of discontent that we hear today is the thunder of disinherited masses,
rising from dungeons of oppression to the bright hills of freedom. In one
majestic chorus the rising masses are singing, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn
us around...” You can hear them rumbling in every village street, on the
docks, in the houses, among the students, in the churches and at political
meetings. . . East is moving West. The earth is being redistributed.
One of the
great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain
awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its
protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are
notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But to today our very survival
depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain
vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we
live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a worldwide
sister and brotherhood. Together we must learn to live as brothers and
sisters together or we will be forced to perish as fools. . . The richer we
have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually .
. . We have allowed the internal to become lost in the external. We have
allowed the means by which we live to outdistance the ends for which we live
. . . Enlarged material powers spell enlarged peril if there is not
proportionate growth of the soul . . . Our hope for creative living in this
world house that we have inherited lies in our ability to re-establish the
moral ends of our lives in personal character and social justice.
-- Martin
Luther King Jr., “The World House”
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i am running into a new year
and the old years blow back
like a wind
that i catch in my hair
like strong fingers like
all my old promises and
it will be hard to let go
of what i said to myself
about myself
when I was sixteen and
twentysix and thirtysix
even thirtysix but
i am running into a new year
and i beg what i love and
i leave to forgive me
-- Lucille Clifton
Beatitudes for Friends and Family
Blessed are you who take time to listen
to difficult speech,
for you help us persevere until we are understood.
Blessed are you who walk with us in public
places and ignore the stares of others,
for we find havens of relaxation in your companionship.
Blessed are you who never bid us to “hurry up,”
and more blessed are you who do not snatch
our tasks from our hands to do them for us,
for often we need time – rather than help.
Blessed are you who stand beside us as
we enter new and untried ventures,
for the delight we feel when we surprise you
outweighs all the frustrating failures.
Blessed are you who ask for our help,
For our greatest need is to be needed.
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God is love. Love was the inspiration
for, the modus operandi of the Creation. Only with great love could as
much attention have been paid to the smallest detail of an atom as to the
organization of the Universe.
What joy God took in creating! God created sentient beings to share that joy.
(Like any artist, God wanted his/her work to be appreciated.) What great care
God takes in watching over his/her work.
Sometimes we human beings have grown too full of ourselves and have lost our
wonder and awe of God. Then God has sent us reminders of God’s love. Jesus was
a Great Friend sent by God to remind us that God’s love is unconditional and
will never fail. To remind us that the primary thing God expects of us is to
love one another as we love God – and as God loves us. Sometimes God bestows
that love upon us directly, One on one. At other times God counts on us to be
instruments of God’s love. To be a friend in the same way that Jesus is a
friend.
To be concerned. To share. To connect. To provide. To bring joy.
–
Paula McDonough, 2008 Stewardship Campaign
God of gold, we seek your glory:
the richness that transforms our drabness into color, and brightens our
dullness with vibrant light; your wonder and joy at the heart of all
life. God of incense, we offer you our prayer: our spoken and
unspeakable longings, our questioning of truth, our searching for your
mystery deep within.
God of myrrh, we cry out to you in our
suffering: the pain of all our rejections and bereavements, our baffled despair
at undeserved suffering, our rage at continuing injustice; and we embrace you,
God-with-us, in our wealth, in our yearning, in our anger and loss.
– Jan Berry,
Matthew 2, Job 24:1-12
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