Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
—Rainer Maria Rilke—
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand
Monday, September 26, 2005
Friday, September 23, 2005
City Blues and Brights City Lights
About a decade ago I crafted this poem. City Blues is an urban funk familiar to most of us; City Lights derives from many sources, but for me it especially comes from the response of one of the kids in the summer program at the church I served in Boston. When I asked, "What does it mean for us to be the Body of Christ?" surprisingly and unpredictably, one little boy answered, "That we can be City Lights!!!" As much as it sounds like my theology, this kid was not in my Bible class—really! In fact, besides being site director, I was teaching art and not Bible.CITY BLUES AND BRIGHTS – CITY LIGHTS
It's a morning glow—the kitchen at dawn.
City blues. The kitchen at dawn.
Come on, get up, wake up!
It's a brand new morning!
Look out the window, look at the sky...
Watch the stars fade
the night stars
lights of night fade
take some stars into your heart
Quick! Look up in the sky—look quickly.
quietly, softly, look
while still there's time
Circle some stars
circle some stars
to bring them into your heart
You're up, you're awake. You’re ready
You're ready, you're alive
It's a brand new morning!
It's a beautiful morning!
Hold onto the morning, day is breaking
night is over
This is the sunshine place
It's a city bright
Take that heartful of stars you've
borrowed from the sky
there's a basket over there
set some of those stars
into that basket
You'll need them in the darkness of your night.
Day's breaking
Day's broken all over the city
City blues the city at dawn
Sit and savor the sunrise
savor the day
bask in and savor the kitchen at daybreak
Watch that basket of stars
guard that basketful of stars
Are the stars still in your heart?
Delight in them Hold them dear
And share them
Share them...
City blues, urban blues that is.
Sun's up
Morning's here
Morning's ready!
There's a city out there
A big city out there
A Great City
get on out there and scratch for
life
hold on, hold on
hold on.
Don’t let go.
Keep those stars in your heart
and give all of them away.
There’s lots more where those came from.
This city will be a sunshine place.
Day's done, it's end o'day
Watch those stars in your heart,
in that basket
Morning's over, so's afternoon
it's evening now
night's closing in...
It's sundown. Night's right at hand
Watch those stars in that basket,
on that table
Watch them closely
night's...almost...here
What promise will you offer the night?
What answer will you give to the night?
Night has dawned upon all of us
Night's here now
Now is the season of night
sleep
You made a covenant with the day
The stars you show are its sign
Will your covenant enfold the night
as well?
It's night now, darkness time
Stars in the basket on the table
Stars in your heart
In your heart
Sleep quietly
...now...
Morning's on the way
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Signifying Seasons
>I'll begin by quoting from another blogger--this blog inspired what I'm writing today:
Great blog topic! I resonate particularly to the paragraph beginning "Another way they get it right..." and need to respond to the idea of marking this l-o-n-g Pentecost season (another segment of so-called Ordinary Time, in itself a challenging designation) in something resembling cruciform style while acknowledging my experiences in the world. These days I'm full of turmoil and its closest kin, and wondering whether to post this on my theology blog or on my testimony site... but initially it's going on this far by faith.
We've arrived at autumnal equinox eve, and with the falling season so near on this year 2005's horizon, I need to consider the fruits of the growing and harvesting seasons immediately past and assess what does not merit carrying forward from spring and summer 2005 and what else I truly need to rid myself of as part of the challenge of journeying ahead into fall and then winter, which both hold promise as creative, productive times--at least according to my past experience! The death that is necessary to sustain life (and to produce new life).
From my undergrad years at Boston University, and the years immediately following, when I served in the Lutheran Church in America as a musician, I've kept fresh memories of my early journeys through the liturgical year with its colors, symbols, and texts; those rituals excited me, helped engrave meanings and started shaping an actual understanding of the Heilsgeschichte into my life and purpose.
But creating my own "ritual actions" illustrating my own inventory process, and in Christocentric form!? God calls us to live as servants, to live exactly the kind of life for others Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated. Especially now, I'm exquisitely conscious of God's calling us to total stewardship, which includes living in response to the level of our gifts and education--of course! Remember the liturgical year's older designations and observations: from the first word for the introit for those Sundays, "Gaudete," rejoice for the third Sunday of Advent and "Laetare," which also means rejoice, for the fourth Sunday in Lent. Although every Sunday is considered a celebration of Easter's risen glory and joy (with each Sunday during the season of Lent consequently being "in" but not "of" Lent), the liturgies and lections for Advent 3 and Lent 4 focus on measured exultation at the midpoint of somewhat somber seasons. Ages ago, at a women-only Bible study that met at my home every Monday evening, I suggested "people have seasons," and though the concept hardly is originally mine, the entire group immediately responded in agreement. Like the Church, people have major seasons and shorter seasons within those greater, more expansive and more readily recognizable seasons.
Differentiating seasons in what some might consider a not-religious manner, just like the Church I ritually go with changes of clothing colors and sometimes fabrics, though not always in a conventional what's-current-in-local-retail-establishments way. I love all kinds of colors and their permutations, from natural to pale through pastels and brights to jewels and sometimes even darker hues, and typically I alternate between deciding this is a day for intense colors or today asks for pale or desert tints or whatevers, based both upon my life's ambience and the ambient weather. Erik Erikson spoke about "the furniture of self," and said to lose the sum of our belongings, our material possessions is to lose evidence of who we are! Thinking again about Katrina and now Rita in that context...but I'm also imaging the physical aspects of our lives such as food, clothing and decorative home textiles, furniture, and wall décor as accoutrements reflecting our inner selves.
From one of my old Commonplace Books and posted in a more-or-less recent blog:
Body Image, where:
What I truly need to get rid of? These days I only want to be able to embrace the community of faith and the world outside the church with the gifts I'd started preparing for them so long ago, but I know I need to give up some of my feelings of pain, loss and devastation...
Before we fully can acknowledge the losses and freely face the future, we human creatures typically need in our "possession" (I considered that word carefully before writing it down) something to take the place of whatever we've lost, but I haven't yet received the restitutions I knew would be coming my way! Here's another quote:
from Darrell Evans' CD, Freedom:
Wait! This is supposed to be about making a new ritual process for my own life, but I've been rambling on about liturgy, loneliness, Church, churches and aloneness. On my theology blog I've written about the liminal, threshold events, rituals and liturgies in our individual lives and in the Church, the principal one being baptism. I'll confidently quote my insisting:
But, even these days, from my profoundly changed perspective, I think that my old [pagan] friends get it right in some ways. One of those ways is their acknowledgment that, as enfleshed creatures on this planet, we live according to the rhythm of days and months and seasons. Many Christians, especially spiritual children of the Reformation, seem so terrified by anything even remotely capable of suggesting pantheism that any talk of integrating the rhythms of earthly existence into our spiritual lives sounds dangerously syncretic...Signifying Seasons
Another way they get it right, I think, is in recognizing the power of mindful, integrative, full-participation ritual. The first days in August are a time, on the pagan calendar, to simultaneously celebrate the firstfruits of the harvest and to recognize the death that is necessary to sustain life...You spend time thinking about the things in your life that have borne good fruit, that should be celebrated and nurtured, as well the plans and activities and attitudes in your life that haven't been fruitful, that shouldn't be held onto into the darkening of the year, that need to be let go of now; you create ritual actions that illustrate this process of personal inventory.
With all that in mind, my question to readers: What are your ideas for ritually marking the time during the long Pentecost season in a Christocentric, cruciform manner that also acknowledges the world as we experience it (and as Jesus experienced it) in creative, evocative ways? How do we keep the green in the green and growing season, and help it bear more fruit in our individual and corporate lives?
Great blog topic! I resonate particularly to the paragraph beginning "Another way they get it right..." and need to respond to the idea of marking this l-o-n-g Pentecost season (another segment of so-called Ordinary Time, in itself a challenging designation) in something resembling cruciform style while acknowledging my experiences in the world. These days I'm full of turmoil and its closest kin, and wondering whether to post this on my theology blog or on my testimony site... but initially it's going on this far by faith.
We've arrived at autumnal equinox eve, and with the falling season so near on this year 2005's horizon, I need to consider the fruits of the growing and harvesting seasons immediately past and assess what does not merit carrying forward from spring and summer 2005 and what else I truly need to rid myself of as part of the challenge of journeying ahead into fall and then winter, which both hold promise as creative, productive times--at least according to my past experience! The death that is necessary to sustain life (and to produce new life).
From my undergrad years at Boston University, and the years immediately following, when I served in the Lutheran Church in America as a musician, I've kept fresh memories of my early journeys through the liturgical year with its colors, symbols, and texts; those rituals excited me, helped engrave meanings and started shaping an actual understanding of the Heilsgeschichte into my life and purpose.
But creating my own "ritual actions" illustrating my own inventory process, and in Christocentric form!? God calls us to live as servants, to live exactly the kind of life for others Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated. Especially now, I'm exquisitely conscious of God's calling us to total stewardship, which includes living in response to the level of our gifts and education--of course! Remember the liturgical year's older designations and observations: from the first word for the introit for those Sundays, "Gaudete," rejoice for the third Sunday of Advent and "Laetare," which also means rejoice, for the fourth Sunday in Lent. Although every Sunday is considered a celebration of Easter's risen glory and joy (with each Sunday during the season of Lent consequently being "in" but not "of" Lent), the liturgies and lections for Advent 3 and Lent 4 focus on measured exultation at the midpoint of somewhat somber seasons. Ages ago, at a women-only Bible study that met at my home every Monday evening, I suggested "people have seasons," and though the concept hardly is originally mine, the entire group immediately responded in agreement. Like the Church, people have major seasons and shorter seasons within those greater, more expansive and more readily recognizable seasons.
Differentiating seasons in what some might consider a not-religious manner, just like the Church I ritually go with changes of clothing colors and sometimes fabrics, though not always in a conventional what's-current-in-local-retail-establishments way. I love all kinds of colors and their permutations, from natural to pale through pastels and brights to jewels and sometimes even darker hues, and typically I alternate between deciding this is a day for intense colors or today asks for pale or desert tints or whatevers, based both upon my life's ambience and the ambient weather. Erik Erikson spoke about "the furniture of self," and said to lose the sum of our belongings, our material possessions is to lose evidence of who we are! Thinking again about Katrina and now Rita in that context...but I'm also imaging the physical aspects of our lives such as food, clothing and decorative home textiles, furniture, and wall décor as accoutrements reflecting our inner selves.
From one of my old Commonplace Books and posted in a more-or-less recent blog:
Body Image, where:
- body,
- mind,
- psyche,
- spirit and
- culture
- mental,
- physical,
- emotional and
- spiritual.
What I truly need to get rid of? These days I only want to be able to embrace the community of faith and the world outside the church with the gifts I'd started preparing for them so long ago, but I know I need to give up some of my feelings of pain, loss and devastation...
Before we fully can acknowledge the losses and freely face the future, we human creatures typically need in our "possession" (I considered that word carefully before writing it down) something to take the place of whatever we've lost, but I haven't yet received the restitutions I knew would be coming my way! Here's another quote:
"...a free future must begin with the right to talk freely about the past."Talking about the past? I've been doing that--writing and theologizing about it, too! A Christocentric or Christ-centered observance and recognition needs to include the vertical upreach and the horizontal outreach of the cross, but exactly how? I need to trash my imagined self-reliance and fall back upon God's gracious mercies and provisions, and again fall back into community. Recently I've been listening a lot to a song by Darrell Evans:
--George F. Will, quoted in [print, of course!] Newsweek, June 19, 1989, page 72.
from Darrell Evans' CD, Freedom:
Your Love Is ExtravagantPaul Tillich suggested "sin" and "asunder" come from the same origin. What seems like forever I've been feeling and living too, too asunder and broken-off from familiar community and from the work that gave my life meaning and rooted my everyday's rhythms. My grief remains much too heavy for my body to bear. After more than a decade of reaching out in friendship and making the initial overture in terms of trying to get musical opportunities and plain old social friendships, where do I turn now? The love of Jesus Christ, found - and maybe even experienced - in Christian community is love that can cover pain and span distances of almost every type.
Your love is extravagant
Your friendship intimate
I find I'm moving to the rhythms of your grace
Your fragrance is intoxicating in our secret place
Your love is extravagant
Spread wide in the arms of Christ
Is the love that covers sin
No greater love have I ever known
You considered me a friend
capture my heart again
Wait! This is supposed to be about making a new ritual process for my own life, but I've been rambling on about liturgy, loneliness, Church, churches and aloneness. On my theology blog I've written about the liminal, threshold events, rituals and liturgies in our individual lives and in the Church, the principal one being baptism. I'll confidently quote my insisting:
Feeling rootless is part of the nature and reality of living the gospel; exactly like the Israelites of the Exodus, in Jesus Christ we live in the precariousness of nomadic, unsettled existence, daily undergoing baptism's departure from that old life and entrance into the new, each day recalling and reliving the perilous and risk-filled underwater moment in that watery font of death that at the same time is sustaining womb of new life, the fragile instant in which we need totally to trust the baptizer, who represents God, the One Who really baptizes.Cruciform ritual? Acknowledging and emphasizing both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the cross? My only answer for this evening is first, to keep on keeping on centering and immersing myself in the wisdom of the Church's worship, hymns and liturgical texts, which connect horizontally to the contemporary churches world-wide and connect vertically to the expressions of the Church throughout history; to keep on keeping on the scary reaching out to others, and to keep on keeping on grounding myself in constant prayer of every kind. May we all live under the cross, living baptized as person for others in Jesus Christ!
The early church baptized in the flowing water of a river: just as every life moment is different, you can't step into the same river more than once! Living baptized means balanced on the threshold between our old lives of slavery to sin and self and our new lives of Eastered freedom for others, and living baptized means some times we also fleetingly experience the fullness of gospeled community. Many times I've pointed out for Israel the River Jordan had been the barrier separating them from the Promised Land and then became the boundary and border of their Promise Landed lives. Likewise, for us, baptism keeps defining us as different from those outside the community of the church at the same time baptism is an event that counts us into the covenanted people of God of all generations. Paul addresses his letter to the Corinthian Church "...together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours! Wherever we go we can find an assembly of Christians who call Jesus Lord, so we always can continue journeying together.
Saturday, September 17, 2005
City or Country? Part the first
A blogger colleague, F3 recently blogged about Country or City, so I decided to take a cue from him and blog about City or Country, as well.
citylinks from my blogs; a few from elsewhere:
On Saturday, January 3, 2004, sun country living, first saw light-of-day; SCL is more online storage space than real blog, and aside from sometimes updating content and date on my list of Beethoven Sonatas, I haven't been posting there. However, in the past I've done some urban stuff on that site, so check it out:
ekistic units
Ekistic Units
a few urban attributes
City, cities--plus one on Body Image.
Erik Routley's hymn about the city
All who Love and Serve Your City
in addition, on Tuesday, October 19, 2004, I started city safari | city delights; at first thinking it mainly would be notes from my old Commonplace Books, too; there I'm posting the same kind of stuff I'd been leaving on sun country living, with the addition of some genuine blogs; the template, content and general style is funkier, sometimes with irregular font colors and sizes within a single post.
An urban imagining from my Photoshop class.
A few urban-related phrases.
city whimsy from city safari
way to go! And Way To Go!!!!! one more time, with title in caps.
Then, my newest and latest blog with only a single post (yet!), is ecumenopolis. In my introductory post I wrote,
Urban Daydreams by David Benoit
citylinks from my blogs; a few from elsewhere:
On Saturday, January 3, 2004, sun country living, first saw light-of-day; SCL is more online storage space than real blog, and aside from sometimes updating content and date on my list of Beethoven Sonatas, I haven't been posting there. However, in the past I've done some urban stuff on that site, so check it out:
ekistic units
Ekistic Units
a few urban attributes
City, cities--plus one on Body Image.
Erik Routley's hymn about the city
All who Love and Serve Your City
in addition, on Tuesday, October 19, 2004, I started city safari | city delights; at first thinking it mainly would be notes from my old Commonplace Books, too; there I'm posting the same kind of stuff I'd been leaving on sun country living, with the addition of some genuine blogs; the template, content and general style is funkier, sometimes with irregular font colors and sizes within a single post.
An urban imagining from my Photoshop class.
A few urban-related phrases.
city whimsy from city safari
way to go! And Way To Go!!!!! one more time, with title in caps.
Then, my newest and latest blog with only a single post (yet!), is ecumenopolis. In my introductory post I wrote,
ecumenopolis is the largest ekistic or household unit--check out this list of ekistic units on sun country living--it refers to the whole, known inhabited world. This blog title, city! life! style! is a favorite phrase from one of my long-ago artistic or literary (probably both) micro-endeavors.one of my favorite CDs
Urban Daydreams by David Benoit
more city-centered activities
I've done reviews of urban restaurants and reviews of city schools. Besides, long ago, (and genuinely far away, approximately 3,000 miles from here worth), at The University of Massachusetts at Boston, I majored in economics with a concentration in Urban Studies. Finally at least for now, during 2001-2002, at San Diego State University I completed a mini-MBA in Community Economic Development.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Father of Night
From New Morning
Bob Dylan
Many years ago I did a series of (a couple dozen or so) graphics to illustrate this song; I need to scan them and post them here!
© 1970 Big Sky Music
Bob Dylan
Many years ago I did a series of (a couple dozen or so) graphics to illustrate this song; I need to scan them and post them here!
- Father of night, Father of day,
Father, who taketh the darkness away,
Father, who teacheth the bird to fly,
Builder of rainbows up in the sky,
Father of loneliness and pain,
Father of love and Father of rain. - Father of day, Father of night,
Father of black, Father of white,
Father, who build the mountain so high,
Who shapeth the cloud up in the sky,
Father of time, Father of dreams,
Father, who turneth the rivers and streams. - Father of grain, Father of wheat,
Father of cold and Father of heat,
Father of air and Father of trees,
Who dwells in our hearts and our memories,
Father of minutes, Father of days,
Father of whom we most solemnly praise.
© 1970 Big Sky Music
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Katrina: this far by faith
aching
How deeply I hurt over hurricane Katrina's destruction and especially over the way the United States government treated (not!) the poor and the poorer folks who lived in the storm's path and the surrounding area. Over on my theology blog I've posted several times about Katrina:
a bit of my own backstory
Returning way back into the deep, deep South of this United States, my grandfather of William Faulknerian-style Mississippi upbringing told me he (meaning me, as well) had an ancestor who was a circuit rider, eons before I was born...probably most of my readers know circuit-riders were guys, always guys (but weren't there a few notorious exceptions?) who rode across the terrain evangelizing with a horse and Bible. Maybe you've heard, "When the Presbyterians wanted to evangelize they sent to Scotland for a scholar who came to this country and established a college; when the Baptists wanted to evangelize, they gave a guy a horse and a Bible and sent him off..." though another interesting tidbit is that during the 19th century the highly intellectually theological Lutherans had a renowned horse-borne circuit rider in Henry Muhlenberg--so go figure! Nonetheless, one of the strange things about my grandfather was he not only grew up Southern Presbyterian, he was raised Southern Presbyterian (another note to my readers, Southern Presbyterian refers not to churches of the now-former PCUS in the American South who organically belong to today's PC(USA) but to the current member churches of the Presbyterian Church in America); I'll make a radical assumption and call that church body conservative to the point of reactionary. From everything I can figure, it was a Southern Church far more than a Reformed Church, meaning it was ethnic! Over on Desert Spirit's Fire I recently posted about ethnic congregations and hope to continue thinking and writing more about that subject.
But again regarding Katrina, I was born in Mobile, Alabama and lived in Bay Minette and Stapleton--check out this map of the area, before moving to Starkville on the Mississippi Delta...it's been a long, densely longing time since I've been in the American deep South, but once a Southerner, always a Southerner! Here's a blog I did for sun tree river on October 26, 2005: The New South.
That's all for now. May you know the love of God expressed in community; may you forever be safe and feel safe. Please be well!
How deeply I hurt over hurricane Katrina's destruction and especially over the way the United States government treated (not!) the poor and the poorer folks who lived in the storm's path and the surrounding area. Over on my theology blog I've posted several times about Katrina:
a bit of my own backstory
Returning way back into the deep, deep South of this United States, my grandfather of William Faulknerian-style Mississippi upbringing told me he (meaning me, as well) had an ancestor who was a circuit rider, eons before I was born...probably most of my readers know circuit-riders were guys, always guys (but weren't there a few notorious exceptions?) who rode across the terrain evangelizing with a horse and Bible. Maybe you've heard, "When the Presbyterians wanted to evangelize they sent to Scotland for a scholar who came to this country and established a college; when the Baptists wanted to evangelize, they gave a guy a horse and a Bible and sent him off..." though another interesting tidbit is that during the 19th century the highly intellectually theological Lutherans had a renowned horse-borne circuit rider in Henry Muhlenberg--so go figure! Nonetheless, one of the strange things about my grandfather was he not only grew up Southern Presbyterian, he was raised Southern Presbyterian (another note to my readers, Southern Presbyterian refers not to churches of the now-former PCUS in the American South who organically belong to today's PC(USA) but to the current member churches of the Presbyterian Church in America); I'll make a radical assumption and call that church body conservative to the point of reactionary. From everything I can figure, it was a Southern Church far more than a Reformed Church, meaning it was ethnic! Over on Desert Spirit's Fire I recently posted about ethnic congregations and hope to continue thinking and writing more about that subject.
But again regarding Katrina, I was born in Mobile, Alabama and lived in Bay Minette and Stapleton--check out this map of the area, before moving to Starkville on the Mississippi Delta...it's been a long, densely longing time since I've been in the American deep South, but once a Southerner, always a Southerner! Here's a blog I did for sun tree river on October 26, 2005: The New South.
That's all for now. May you know the love of God expressed in community; may you forever be safe and feel safe. Please be well!
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Genesis 12 blog
This sure does ramble indeed, and has turned into something much more for me than for my readers, but this is my testimony blog, so here goes:
Genesis 12:1-10
1 Now the LORD had said to Abram:
"Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father's house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
4 So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. [Alon Moreh] And the Canaanites were then in the land.
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. 9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South [Negev].
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. NKJV
Blog Beginning
Today turned out to be another too-early (3:00 a.m.) morning (still far too many 4:00 a.m.'s lately, but these days I also can attest to quite a few proud 6:00 of-the-clock mornings!) For the past too many years I've been agonizing about my immediate and distant futures; Sunday and Monday consecutively two friends advised me to list my goals; then on Tuesday, a third friend told me to make what she calls a "Treasure Map," and showed me the one she'd put together about her own goals and desires. After all the needed and welcome advice, immediately I told myself I had to begin with the visual representation, since I'd long considered myself a visual person (but all those assessments and evaluations always place me as word person). Okay. This was an early morning, and the very first thought coming into my life and world was God's call to still-Abram: Go to a country I will show you--however could I not have noticed that before? I mean, this is one of the most familiar passages in the entire Bible! Look at the word, will: it encompasses both volition and a time in the future, meaning not exactly right now.
Abram and some God-Talk
I won't reprise the earlier portion of Abram's well-known story, except again to mention the Bible's asserting Abram was an Ivri, a Hebrew, meaning one from the other side--very parallel to God's position - geographically and attributively – in being from a place the other side of earth. God's call to leave settled nomadic living (at least "settled" in the sense of wandering from place to place being the lifestyle Abram had become comfortable with) almost definitely took Abram by surprise! Most likely Abram didn't consider himself particularly unique or religious, more moral or less determined to succeed in commerce, trading or bartering than anyone else around him. That's exactly the way it is between us and God: when we seek God's call to us within ourselves and look for something with the same shape and general outline as the experiences we've already known and lived, even those experiences God clearly has revealed to us and faithfully shepherded us through, most likely we will not hear God's voice at all, because God's call originates outside of us, in a place we dare not imagine ourselves worthy to enter; God's call begins, continues and holds us safely within God's mercy, grace and endless provision. That sounds pretty much theological, and that's the way I usually think, but, as I insisted in my opening disclaimer, I'm writing this blog for myself. Particularly when I visit my own theology blog, the scriptures and insights I've posted always amaze me, but when I leave the computer screen most of my awareness of my own thinking and writing evaporates in approximately a nanosecond.
Treasure Map
As I start thinking about the process of assembling my Treasure Map collage-montage, I need to remember and celebrate the many times I ventured out in trust without knowing where I was going - or at least not knowing more than a step or two - as in not having a particular destination, location or goal in mind because God had not revealed one to me. Am I going to claim I was younger and dumber those times? That's not really a valid reason to make an exception for today, when I'm older and smarter...well, older even than yesterday but not smart. Like Jane, my friend and neighbor who said Treasure Map at exactly the right time, I love color! Line, design, pattern, spot, contrast and all those other graphic and design elements are fun to play with, but color is central.
Verse 8: And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
In standard Nomad Style, Abram pitched his tent, indicating this indeed was a temporary place where he'd find needed shelter and also near-instant mobility to quickly respond to God's next direction. Bethel, west, Ai and east also are heavy words, but I'm almost done blogging for this evening.
Verse 10: Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
Because of a horrific food shortage, Abram left for the land of slavery--both those words, famine and Egypt, haul substantial literal and metaphoric freight.
Obedience
The Bible's witness to God's calling Abram and Abram's response is a through-the-ages renowned example of trusting faith, cited most appropriately in the New Covenant scriptures several times. Once again, there's no point in my recounting the entire Abram/Abraham narrative, since at least the people I know read this blog are biblically literate, but just as later on Israel became a named, essentially identified people as in trust they wandered without much of a map (you've heard of "constitutive experiences?" That's what you'd call the Exodus from slavery into freedom), in typical Hebrew style, God's Spirit literally re-constituted Abram into Abraham as a result of his obedience to God's Word (yes!) and also partly as a result of his dis-obedience in not trusting and consistently walking the straight line of faith, but in his ultimately learning from his mistakes?! Like us!?
I've called this section obedience. Most likely I've mentioned Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann's insistence on the Church, the community of faith, being obedient. In probably more than one place, WB (I've read enough of his writing I'll risk familiarity) insists the Church is the assembly that faithfully observes the commandments, the tithe, and the Sabbath. In addition, WB cites the example of that consummate Theologian of Grace, Martin Luther, beginning his Small Catechism - typical instruction and, in days of old, required memorization, before First Communion - with the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. WB essentially comments, "Make no mistake about it! It is the God of the Commandments with Whom we commune!" Except for the link to the English version of Luther's Der Kleine Catechismus, which I already knew was easy to find on UCC.org, I'm not compulsively linking this evening. However, when I was searching to find out if Catechismus was die or der, I found a Dutch version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which also includes the Ten Commandments; here it is:Westmunsterse Godgeleerden! This definitely is becoming a ramble, so I'm going to publish and log off for the evening. I'd like to apologize, but this blog's for me; in a day or so I'll write about the progress of my Treasure Map.
Genesis 12:1-10
1 Now the LORD had said to Abram:
"Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father's house,
To a land that I will show you.
2 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
4 So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. [Alon Moreh] And the Canaanites were then in the land.
7 Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. 8 And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. 9 So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South [Negev].
10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land. NKJV
Blog Beginning
Today turned out to be another too-early (3:00 a.m.) morning (still far too many 4:00 a.m.'s lately, but these days I also can attest to quite a few proud 6:00 of-the-clock mornings!) For the past too many years I've been agonizing about my immediate and distant futures; Sunday and Monday consecutively two friends advised me to list my goals; then on Tuesday, a third friend told me to make what she calls a "Treasure Map," and showed me the one she'd put together about her own goals and desires. After all the needed and welcome advice, immediately I told myself I had to begin with the visual representation, since I'd long considered myself a visual person (but all those assessments and evaluations always place me as word person). Okay. This was an early morning, and the very first thought coming into my life and world was God's call to still-Abram: Go to a country I will show you--however could I not have noticed that before? I mean, this is one of the most familiar passages in the entire Bible! Look at the word, will: it encompasses both volition and a time in the future, meaning not exactly right now.
Abram and some God-Talk
I won't reprise the earlier portion of Abram's well-known story, except again to mention the Bible's asserting Abram was an Ivri, a Hebrew, meaning one from the other side--very parallel to God's position - geographically and attributively – in being from a place the other side of earth. God's call to leave settled nomadic living (at least "settled" in the sense of wandering from place to place being the lifestyle Abram had become comfortable with) almost definitely took Abram by surprise! Most likely Abram didn't consider himself particularly unique or religious, more moral or less determined to succeed in commerce, trading or bartering than anyone else around him. That's exactly the way it is between us and God: when we seek God's call to us within ourselves and look for something with the same shape and general outline as the experiences we've already known and lived, even those experiences God clearly has revealed to us and faithfully shepherded us through, most likely we will not hear God's voice at all, because God's call originates outside of us, in a place we dare not imagine ourselves worthy to enter; God's call begins, continues and holds us safely within God's mercy, grace and endless provision. That sounds pretty much theological, and that's the way I usually think, but, as I insisted in my opening disclaimer, I'm writing this blog for myself. Particularly when I visit my own theology blog, the scriptures and insights I've posted always amaze me, but when I leave the computer screen most of my awareness of my own thinking and writing evaporates in approximately a nanosecond.
Treasure Map
As I start thinking about the process of assembling my Treasure Map collage-montage, I need to remember and celebrate the many times I ventured out in trust without knowing where I was going - or at least not knowing more than a step or two - as in not having a particular destination, location or goal in mind because God had not revealed one to me. Am I going to claim I was younger and dumber those times? That's not really a valid reason to make an exception for today, when I'm older and smarter...well, older even than yesterday but not smart. Like Jane, my friend and neighbor who said Treasure Map at exactly the right time, I love color! Line, design, pattern, spot, contrast and all those other graphic and design elements are fun to play with, but color is central.
Verse 8: And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD.
In standard Nomad Style, Abram pitched his tent, indicating this indeed was a temporary place where he'd find needed shelter and also near-instant mobility to quickly respond to God's next direction. Bethel, west, Ai and east also are heavy words, but I'm almost done blogging for this evening.
Verse 10: Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land.
Because of a horrific food shortage, Abram left for the land of slavery--both those words, famine and Egypt, haul substantial literal and metaphoric freight.
Obedience
The Bible's witness to God's calling Abram and Abram's response is a through-the-ages renowned example of trusting faith, cited most appropriately in the New Covenant scriptures several times. Once again, there's no point in my recounting the entire Abram/Abraham narrative, since at least the people I know read this blog are biblically literate, but just as later on Israel became a named, essentially identified people as in trust they wandered without much of a map (you've heard of "constitutive experiences?" That's what you'd call the Exodus from slavery into freedom), in typical Hebrew style, God's Spirit literally re-constituted Abram into Abraham as a result of his obedience to God's Word (yes!) and also partly as a result of his dis-obedience in not trusting and consistently walking the straight line of faith, but in his ultimately learning from his mistakes?! Like us!?
I've called this section obedience. Most likely I've mentioned Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann's insistence on the Church, the community of faith, being obedient. In probably more than one place, WB (I've read enough of his writing I'll risk familiarity) insists the Church is the assembly that faithfully observes the commandments, the tithe, and the Sabbath. In addition, WB cites the example of that consummate Theologian of Grace, Martin Luther, beginning his Small Catechism - typical instruction and, in days of old, required memorization, before First Communion - with the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. WB essentially comments, "Make no mistake about it! It is the God of the Commandments with Whom we commune!" Except for the link to the English version of Luther's Der Kleine Catechismus, which I already knew was easy to find on UCC.org, I'm not compulsively linking this evening. However, when I was searching to find out if Catechismus was die or der, I found a Dutch version of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which also includes the Ten Commandments; here it is:Westmunsterse Godgeleerden! This definitely is becoming a ramble, so I'm going to publish and log off for the evening. I'd like to apologize, but this blog's for me; in a day or so I'll write about the progress of my Treasure Map.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Come, the New Jerusalem
Let the River Run – Carly Simon, 1988 –
from film, Working Girl
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.
Silver cities rise, the morning lights the streets that meet them,
and sirens call them on with a song.
It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking. Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
We the great and small stand on a star
and blaze a trail of desire through the darkening dawn.
It's asking for the taking.
Come run with me now,
the sky is the color of blue
you've never even seen in the eyes of your lover.
Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.
from film, Working Girl
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.
Silver cities rise, the morning lights the streets that meet them,
and sirens call them on with a song.
It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking. Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
We the great and small stand on a star
and blaze a trail of desire through the darkening dawn.
It's asking for the taking.
Come run with me now,
the sky is the color of blue
you've never even seen in the eyes of your lover.
Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.
We're coming to the edge, running on the water,
coming through the fog, your sons and daughters.
Let the river run, let all the dreamers wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.
Sunday, August 14, 2005
sunday afternoon blog
This morning we heard a guest preacher, Pastor Danilo Morales; this morning I heard and need to believe some much-needed theology of glory, too! Here are portions of the texts (NIV):
Jeremiah 32:6-15; 24-27
8 "Then, just as the LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, 'Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.'
"I knew that this was the word of the LORD; 9 so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver...
15 For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.'
...26 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 27 "I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
Matthew 20:1-16
1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
13 "But he answered one of them ...14 I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' 16 "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
Isaiah 42:1-4
1 "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
A few quotes from Pastor Danilo and some comments from me:
As the preacher said near the start, "against all human logic!" Look at that l-word, logic - same linguistic and conceptual root as the L-word, Logos! Is anything impossible for God? Then he mentioned an "entire life demolished..." and I thought, yes, I know! That's what has happened to me! For me it's embarrassing, because it's not as if doing radical social and political activism had cost me—I simply had been trying to more than survive my own demons I'd actually lived with and thrived in spite of for a long, long time! Pastor Danilo said grace is "not a deserved gift," "beyond our own logic and understanding"; it does seem as if having a little too much control over outcomes is one our many too-human desires?! A while ago I read that being irresponsible is character disorder, while being over-responsible is neurosis, and I'll admit I tend toward over-responsibility (though neurosis and neurotic have no real currency these days). Although I am reasonably bright, often I'm not very intelligent, but I do know my control side is something God needs to work hard to break.
A little more from this morning: God's responds with mysterious grace—once again, beyond our logic, beyond our tameness and timidity. But when we live in Christ, God's logic/Logos/word/Word becomes ours, as our way of thinking and speaking turns reasonable human expectation inside out and upside down as we plan for and wait for the logically improbable and even impossible! The Word of Liberation seems impossible for me today, as does the Word of restoration and the Word of renewal. Pastor Morales' phrase: to redeem all that seems unrecoverable. To buy back—in another economic reality from the Bible. You know about the kinsperson-redeemer? Jeremiah's right to redeem it and possess it...like taking a cents-off or dollars-off coupon down to the store (though these days unless a coupon's worth at least $5.00 it does not seem at all worth my while to redeem it); like the right God assumes for each of us and for all creation in the Redeeming and Reconciling Christ Event.
Isaiah 42 and bring forth justice—no self-restoration; no self-generation or self-regeneration and I'll add (please forget John Smith's theologically regrettable history) no self-baptism!
I feel totally stripped of my identity, but not in the good way God peals off unneeded (try adiaphoric) layers. In one of the Narnia books there's a wonderful account of the tightly paired pain and delight in Aslan's de-draggoning; since I don't have it right in my mind (no double meaning intended there) maybe I'll find and reference it later. Those non-essential layers of remembered experience and assumed self are not necessarily immoral or bad in any way, just interfering with the diaphoric essentials—sounds like a hint of the San Diego Presbytery's Essential Tenets, or as we always refer to them, Essential Tenants, as in those necessary lodgers who regularly get their rent in by due date.
I was a Daughter of the Church, daughter of the churches. Drowned, then raised to new life in the waters of baptism, sustained by the Word of Life and the Bread of Life. Here's a passage from one of my July blogs on Desert Spirit's Fire (and here's the entire post):
This morning I heard and need to believe some much-needed theology of glory: God's Logos-Word, Jesus Christ, is not always logical and rational like the human logos-word—but then again, sometimes it is! Above all God's Word is a faithful Word, as it graciously encompasses and redeems – as it buys back – our brokenness and unfaithfulness, not with pennies-off coupons but with more-than tokens, with realities of infinite value.
Jeremiah 32:6-15; 24-27
8 "Then, just as the LORD had said, my cousin Hanamel came to me in the courtyard of the guard and said, 'Buy my field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. Since it is your right to redeem it and possess it, buy it for yourself.'
"I knew that this was the word of the LORD; 9 so I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel and weighed out for him seventeen shekels of silver...
15 For this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: 'Houses, fields and vineyards will again be bought in this land.'
...26 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah: 27 "I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?
Matthew 20:1-16
1 "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
13 "But he answered one of them ...14 I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' 16 "So the last will be first, and the first will be last."
Isaiah 42:1-4
1 "Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
A few quotes from Pastor Danilo and some comments from me:
As the preacher said near the start, "against all human logic!" Look at that l-word, logic - same linguistic and conceptual root as the L-word, Logos! Is anything impossible for God? Then he mentioned an "entire life demolished..." and I thought, yes, I know! That's what has happened to me! For me it's embarrassing, because it's not as if doing radical social and political activism had cost me—I simply had been trying to more than survive my own demons I'd actually lived with and thrived in spite of for a long, long time! Pastor Danilo said grace is "not a deserved gift," "beyond our own logic and understanding"; it does seem as if having a little too much control over outcomes is one our many too-human desires?! A while ago I read that being irresponsible is character disorder, while being over-responsible is neurosis, and I'll admit I tend toward over-responsibility (though neurosis and neurotic have no real currency these days). Although I am reasonably bright, often I'm not very intelligent, but I do know my control side is something God needs to work hard to break.
A little more from this morning: God's responds with mysterious grace—once again, beyond our logic, beyond our tameness and timidity. But when we live in Christ, God's logic/Logos/word/Word becomes ours, as our way of thinking and speaking turns reasonable human expectation inside out and upside down as we plan for and wait for the logically improbable and even impossible! The Word of Liberation seems impossible for me today, as does the Word of restoration and the Word of renewal. Pastor Morales' phrase: to redeem all that seems unrecoverable. To buy back—in another economic reality from the Bible. You know about the kinsperson-redeemer? Jeremiah's right to redeem it and possess it...like taking a cents-off or dollars-off coupon down to the store (though these days unless a coupon's worth at least $5.00 it does not seem at all worth my while to redeem it); like the right God assumes for each of us and for all creation in the Redeeming and Reconciling Christ Event.
- Right/Righteous
- Justice/The Just - Zeddakim (not sure the transliteration works, but there it is)
Isaiah 42 and bring forth justice—no self-restoration; no self-generation or self-regeneration and I'll add (please forget John Smith's theologically regrettable history) no self-baptism!
I feel totally stripped of my identity, but not in the good way God peals off unneeded (try adiaphoric) layers. In one of the Narnia books there's a wonderful account of the tightly paired pain and delight in Aslan's de-draggoning; since I don't have it right in my mind (no double meaning intended there) maybe I'll find and reference it later. Those non-essential layers of remembered experience and assumed self are not necessarily immoral or bad in any way, just interfering with the diaphoric essentials—sounds like a hint of the San Diego Presbytery's Essential Tenets, or as we always refer to them, Essential Tenants, as in those necessary lodgers who regularly get their rent in by due date.
I was a Daughter of the Church, daughter of the churches. Drowned, then raised to new life in the waters of baptism, sustained by the Word of Life and the Bread of Life. Here's a passage from one of my July blogs on Desert Spirit's Fire (and here's the entire post):
However, Israel became Israel, receiving the identifying name, not in the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey but in the desert of the trek toward that promised-landed freedom. In the desert's sparse economy, with surprising gifts like water from the rock and manna from the sky, Israel and Yahweh encountered each other into the kind of relationship that later would enable God's people to recognize God's paradoxical self-revelation in the preached Word and proffered sacraments...The theological truth remains we are baptized into the vertical and horizontal life of the Church at the same time we are baptized into Jesus Christ's birth, life, death and resurrection. Part of my own truth remains I have no regrets whatsoever about not finishing seminary, despite frequent "what ifs" coupled with that occasional "if only" about not doing an academic theology degree. Literally no one who knew me more than slightly disagreed with me (yep, I do like having the final word but more than that I want to be right) that God had not called me to become a generic pastor. My call to serve in the inner city was so strong and so overwhelming...what now? Talking about truth?! I remain forever both God's daughter and still the Church's Daughter.
Now and here, like Christ Jesus, face-to-face with the world, the church is the incarnation of the fullness of the time of salvation, the era of the Reign of Life; as persons of the ekklesia, of the church, our sacramental liturgies and lifestyles replay God's paradoxical self-revelation in the exodus desert, recognizing and celebrating God's sustaining presence in, with and under creation's commonest stuff, the utmost essentials for life produced from the heart of the earth.
This morning I heard and need to believe some much-needed theology of glory: God's Logos-Word, Jesus Christ, is not always logical and rational like the human logos-word—but then again, sometimes it is! Above all God's Word is a faithful Word, as it graciously encompasses and redeems – as it buys back – our brokenness and unfaithfulness, not with pennies-off coupons but with more-than tokens, with realities of infinite value.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Service of Light
Here in San Diego it has been mega-warm and humid, and the blog I've been writing for desert spirit's fire just isn't ready yet. But to maintain reader interest, here's one of my favorite songs--I so wish I could include the music that goes with it.
© 1990 GIA Publications, Inc.
To begin, a story:
When I planning to leave Boston for Salt Lake City, the Church was in the season of Advent. The senior pastor I served with suggested we needed to have a weeknight party for my "friends from ministerium and anyone else - like any of your classmates - who can't be here on Sunday." Then he asked what I wanted to do for the worship portion that'd happen before the food and drink fest, suggesting, "we can celebrate Eucharist and you can preach." I replied, "No, I want to lead vespers!" I particularly love the opening Service of Light, so here's Marty Haugen's version of the ancient liturgical text:
- Joyous light of heavenly glory, loving glow of God's own face,
you who sing creation's story, shine on every land and race.
Now as evening falls around us, we shall raise our songs to you,
God of daybreak, God of shadows, come and light our hearts anew. - In the stars that grace the darkness, in the blazing sun of dawn,
of the light of peace and wisdom, we can hear your quiet song.
Love that fills the night with wonder, love that warms the weary soul,
Love that bursts all chains asunder, set us free and make us whole. - You who made the heaven's splendor, every dancing star of night,
make us shine with gentle justice, let us each reflect your light.
Mighty God of all creation, gentle Christ who lights our way,
Loving Spirit of salvation, lead us on to endless day.
© 1990 GIA Publications, Inc.
Sunday, August 07, 2005
prayer for the road
~~Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926~~
I am praying again, Awesome One.
You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.
I've been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.
In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.
I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.
I am a city by the sea
sinking in toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though some unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.
It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that I now find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart--
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God--spend them however you want.
I am praying again, Awesome One.
You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.
I've been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.
In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.
I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.
I am a city by the sea
sinking in toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though some unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried me.
It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that I now find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart--
oh let them take me now.
Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God--spend them however you want.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Rollin' Home
Eric Andersen | Deep Fork Music, Inc., ASCAP
From one of Eric Andersen's:
Truth, with all its far out schemes, lets time decide what it should mean;
It's not the time but just the dreams that die.
And sometimes when the room is still, time with so much truth to kill,
Leaves you by the window sill so tied
Without a wing, to take you high, without a clue to tell you why.
Now, I just want to keep my name, not bother anybody's game
Without ideas of gold or fame or insane heights...
Well, I see the ones who crawl like moles who for a front would trade their souls,
A broken mirror's the only hole for them;
And for you who'd exchange yourselves, just to be somebody else,
Pretending things you never felt or meant--
Hey, you don’t live what you defend; you can't give so you just bend.
There's nothing big I want to prove, no mountains that I need to move,
Or even claim what's right or true for you.
My sights, my songs are slightly charred, you might think they miss their mark,
But for me, I think they’ll do.
Well, I can see a king and queen, a beggar falling at my feet;
They all must see the same sad dreams at night;
Futility and senseless war, pit the rich against the poor,
While cause is buried long before the fight
For what was wrong, for what was right,
It's just the strong, who ever says what's right...
eric anderson dot com
From one of Eric Andersen's:
Truth, with all its far out schemes, lets time decide what it should mean;
It's not the time but just the dreams that die.
And sometimes when the room is still, time with so much truth to kill,
Leaves you by the window sill so tied
Without a wing, to take you high, without a clue to tell you why.
Now, I just want to keep my name, not bother anybody's game
Without ideas of gold or fame or insane heights...
Well, I see the ones who crawl like moles who for a front would trade their souls,
A broken mirror's the only hole for them;
And for you who'd exchange yourselves, just to be somebody else,
Pretending things you never felt or meant--
Hey, you don’t live what you defend; you can't give so you just bend.
There's nothing big I want to prove, no mountains that I need to move,
Or even claim what's right or true for you.
My sights, my songs are slightly charred, you might think they miss their mark,
But for me, I think they’ll do.
Well, I can see a king and queen, a beggar falling at my feet;
They all must see the same sad dreams at night;
Futility and senseless war, pit the rich against the poor,
While cause is buried long before the fight
For what was wrong, for what was right,
It's just the strong, who ever says what's right...
eric anderson dot com
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