Advent & Christmas Reflections

ADVENT 1 — DO NOT BE AFRAID

It is what the angel said, you know?
“Do not be afraid…”
I Wonder if this angel knows what it is to fear,
knows what it means to try to not be afraid
when the fear is sufficating you?
I wonder? Depending on your version,
in some form or another
the phrase, “Do not be aftaid,”
appears over 360 times in scripture.
That’s a lot of distress.
It is almost as if the future
of the whole world depended on the answer.
and so it does.
God keeps scaring us and
angels keep telling us
to not be scared.
From God’s perspective,
God needs us for God’s work
because we are the only ones who can do it.
On the human’s (our) side,
that work is always life-altering, scary, hard,
and, as finite beings, really beyond our
skill-set and pay grade.
Still God keeps asking, we keep being afraid.
and God keeps sending angels
to tell us not to have anxiety attacks,
and, still, we keep saying, “Yes.”
But without us saying, “Yes,” there would be
no BIG stories, no myths, no great sagas,
no heros, no successes-writ-large, and
by extension, no hope, no salvation,
no joy, and certainly no Jesus
The Advent stories, the Christmas stories:
these are our stories.
These stories are about who we are, not so much about God.
I like that, but it does put some weight on my answer
when I am the one called.
A “Yes” or a “No” does indeed mean
the future of the whole world.

# # #

ADVENT 2 — PRAYING WITH MARY

Praying with Mary is a strange concept for many
Free Church Protestants. We say things like,
it sounds really Catholic,
we pray on our own, we don’t pray like that,
and I wonder, Why not?
The answer probably lies
somewhere between
“I have no clue what you’re talking about,”
and
“Asking a dead person to pray with me
seems really yucky, so why should I?”
Well, we, as Christians,
do believe that we are not alone in the cosmos,
and that there is life after death,
and many of us have had experiences
of Presence in one way or another
that many times we pretend we haven’t had,
but nonetheless know full well ocurred.
My point here is that
there is something that makes us bigger
when we pray with others.
So praying with Mary as she
prays a prayer that engages the Power of God
within the human condition,
the God which has raised up
and delivered and made whole
the least of the least,
is a powerful and life-changing way to pray.
So I ask can we pray with Mary,
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”?
Can our souls do that? Can our spirits rejoice?
And then can we recognize
God’s power to change the conditions within the world?
This was Mary’s prayer of acceptance
to a world that would be forever changed by her Yes.
I think that it took an innordinate amount of courage for
her to pray that prayer. Can we find that courage
as well and pray with her, and how will our world be changed if we do?

# # #

ADVENT 3 — IMMIGRANTS AND SOJOURNERS

Long drives.
Destinations we know of,
but have never seen,
and to which we journey
with trepidation.
Feeling like strangers in places
where we should be welcomed
and embraced.
Stories of hope
morphing into dread.
Always leaving the known
for the unknown.
Pilgrims, caravans of the helpless,
praying for a welcoming that does
not happen but is turned
into hate and affliction.
Pregnant and turned away in a border town.
Pregnant and turned away in a Capital city.
Living lives at the whims of uncaring politicians
and hearts hardened to their plight.
Defying death by living in spite of threats,
aggression, Roman soldiers, border guards,
inhuman laws, shut doors, and hatred.
Settling into the filth and wreckage of living conditions
designed to stultify, beat down, smother the dream out of even
the greatest dreamer the world has ever known.
But stultifiers and dream-crushers lose in the end,
because the dream will not be silenced.
Whether asylem-seekers from Central and South America,
Africa, or the Middle-east,
be they Greek, Roman, Jew, Christian, or Galilean,
their salvation is at hand,
and they will be delivered—set free.
God has made promisses God’s people are commissioned to keep.
Set the captives free, lead the those in need to their salvation,
open the doors of a stable so the weary
sojourner can find rest, and
make a way for Jesus to find a safe haven.

# # #

ADVENT 4 — MESSENGERS

Who is that who comes to me?
What is this fearsome creature
who pauses before me?
What is it that this otherly being
is trying to tell me?
It/He/She, the apparation is gone now.
But I wonder what is it I have missed? What?
God sent angels, messengers,
joined by huge angelic choirs
to announce the coming of Jesus.
I have been on a tear this past week —
getting things ready for Christmas,
buying stuff, fixing stuff, getting stuff — stuff, stuff, stuff…
It comes to me that while I might think
I am ready for Christmas,
am I really? Is my heart ready? Is my soul ready?
Are my relationships road-worthy
for a four-week trip by donkey to Bethlehem?
And then, after all is said and done on Christmas morning,
have all my Advent preparations been worthless or worthy?
Have I seen and paid attention to the angels
standing by my busy path, and who call out to me:
“Here, right here is Jesus! This one, that one, those over there,
they will lead you to Bethlehem, if you will but let them.
They have an open room for you
if you will only have an open room your heart…”
And I pray this morning that I will meet and greet
the angels who come to show
me the way to Bethlehem
with grace and love.

# # #

CHRISTMAS EVE — LOVE

The child is birthed
and is held
and lives
and dies
and is raised
and is carried
and is re-birthed
as long as our hearts
are willing
to carry out
the cycle of
Hope
and Peace
and Joy
and Love
and Passion
and Glory.
And you know this already:
it is all God asks,
or expects,
you to do.
It is a nativity
of love
a claim upon
our hearts
and an eternal
statement that
love will always win.

“CHRISTMAS PRAISES”

Luke 1:13, 31; Luke 2:10
“Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard.” “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” “Do not be afraid shepherds; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy for all the people.”

When We are Afraid

Do Not Be Afraid
It is what the angel said, you know?
“Do not be afraid…”
I Wonder if this angel
knows what it is to fear,
knows what it means
to try to not be afraid
when the fear
is sufficating you?
I wonder?
Depending on your version,
in some form or another
the phrase,
“Do not be aftaid,”
appears over 360 times in scripture.
That’s a lot of distress
to be assuaged.
It is almost as if the future
of the whole world
depended on an answer
by the one being reassured,
and so it does.
God keeps scaring us
with sacred presence
and hard questions,
and
angels keep telling us
to not be frightened.
From God’s perspective,
God needs us for God’s work
because we are
the only ones
who can do it.
On the human’s (our) side,
that work is always
life-altering,
scary,
hard,
and, as finite beings,
really beyond our
skill-set and pay grade.
Still God keeps asking,
we keep being afraid.
and God keeps sending
angels to tell
us not to have anxiety attacks,
and, still,
we keep saying,
“Yes.”
But without
us saying, “Yes,”
there would be
no BIG stories,
no myths,
no great sagas,
no heros,
no successes-writ-large,
and
by extension,
no hope,
no salvation,
no joy,
and certainly no Jesus
The Advent stories,
the Christmas stories:
these are our stories.
These stories
are about who we are,
not so much about God.
I like that,
but it does put some weight
on my answer
when I am the one asked to help.
There are times when a
“Yes” or a “No”
does indeed mean
the future of
the whole world.

THE SECOND COMING

Revelation 1:4-8 — Amplified Bible

John, to the seven churches that are in the province of Asia: Grace be granted to you and peace, inner calm and spiritual well-being, from Him Who is existing forever and Who was continually existing in the past and Who is to come, and from the seven Spirits that are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful and trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who always loves us and who has once for all freed us, washed us, from our sins by His own blood, His sacrificial death — and formed us into a kingdom as His subjects, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the power and the majesty and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes nations of the earth will mourn over Him realizing their sin and guilt, and anticipating the coming wrath. So it is to be. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord God, “Who is existing forever and Who was continually existing in the past and Who is to come, the Almighty, the Omnipotent, the Ruler of all.”

 

The Second Coming

The Second Coming
according to the writer
of the Book of Revelation,
is a mystical,
magical moment in the life
of the First Century
Christian Community.
It is a BIG story that contains
a Temple theology
of sacrifice and salvation,
direct quotes from God,
claims and statements of hope,
a new creation story
for the early Christian Community,
and of God’s unending love,
as well as accusations and jugements
for the ones
who are thought
to have murdered Jesus.
The writing style is what is termed,
apocalyptic,
which means,
writing that is about a catastropic
ending of the world.
It is a writing style that
is consistant of the older,
prophetic writings
found in the books of
Ezikiel, Joel, and Daniel.
The key point
in our Revelation text
is that,
while Jesus will indeed come again,
he is expected to come
in the lifetime of those reading
this book.
It was very exciting for them,
as they imagined
the joy they would feel
as they got to witness how
the very ones who killed Jesus
were going to get to see
for themselves the depravity
of their own actions
and be duly guilt-ridden
and terrified of the torturous end
God had planned for them.
The problem with all this is that
it didn’t happen then,
it didn’t happen later,
and if it happenes in the future,
it more than likely will not happen
anything like it is described here.
Yet, the Second Coming
is a key tennent of the Christian faith,
and while many of us
really do not understand
what it actually means
to make this claim,
or truly believe the
assertion in a literal way,
there are others
who hold to it nonetheless.
For me,
it means that for each of us
Jesus will come and be
present to/for us,
whether in the clouds,
or in our hearts,
in our history,
in our now,
or in our future.
Many of us have experienced
the second coming of Jesus
as we have endured suffering
and been delivered
in ways only explained
as a direct experience
of the presence of Jesus.
Will Jesus someday
come from the clouds in the sky
with the sound of a trumpet?
I don’t know.
But I do know
that Jesus has come for me
through the clouds of my doubt
and fear
and walked me
through my pain
and made me
a whole new creation,
and that is all I need to know.

CHANGED BY PRAYER

WELCOME ELDER, CHRISTIANE SWARTZ, who is a member of the Geyserville Christian Church. a Clinical Social Worker for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and preaches this Sunday.

Here in the Geyserville Christian Church we are experimenting with the idea of having a different Elder preach once a month as a way of sharing ministry and gifts.

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1 Samuel 1:4-20 — The Message
Every year this man went from his hometown up to Shiloh to worship and offer a sacrifice to God-of-the-Angel-Armies. Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, served as the priests of God there. When Elkanah sacrificed, he passed helpings from the sacrificial meal around to his wife Peninnah and all her children, but he always gave an especially generous helping to Hannah because he loved her so much, and because God had not given her children. But her rival wife taunted her cruelly, rubbing it in and never letting her forget that God had not given her children. This went on year after year. Every time she went to the sanctuary of God she could expect to be taunted. Hannah was reduced to tears and had no appetite. Her husband Elkanah said, “Oh, Hannah, why are you crying? Why aren’t you eating? And why are you so upset? Am I not of more worth to you than ten sons?” So Hannah ate. Then she pulled herself together, slipped away quietly, and entered the sanctuary. The priest Eli was on duty at the entrance to God’s Temple in the customary seat. Crushed in soul, Hannah prayed to God and cried and cried—inconsolably. Then she made a vow: Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, If you’ll take a good, hard look at my pain, If you’ll quit neglecting me and go into action for me By giving me a son, I’ll give him completely, unreservedly to you. I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline.
It so happened that as she continued in prayer before God, Eli was watching her closely. Hannah was praying in her heart, silently. Her lips moved, but no sound was heard. Eli jumped to the conclusion that she was drunk. He approached her and said, “You’re drunk! How long do you plan to keep this up? Sober up, woman!” Hannah said, “Oh no, sir—please! I’m a woman hard used. I haven’t been drinking. Not a drop of wine or beer. The only thing I’ve been pouring out is my heart, pouring it out to God. Don’t for a minute think I’m a bad woman. It’s because I’m so desperately unhappy and in such pain that I’ve stayed here so long.” Eli answered her, “Go in peace. And may the God of Israel give you what you have asked of him.” “Think well of me—and pray for me!” she said, and went her way. Then she ate heartily, her face radiant. Up before dawn, they worshiped God and returned home to Ramah. Elkanah slept with Hannah his wife, and God began making the necessary arrangements in response to what she had asked. Before the year was out, Hannah had conceived and given birth to a son. She named him Samuel, explaining, “I asked God for him.”

Prayer as a Change of Course

Changed By Prayer
by Christiane Swartz

Sometimes we feel invisible,
and our voice seems to make no sound.
I wonder how lonely it must have felt to be Hannah.
One of two wives…
they don’t tell us,
but probably the first wife,
the second wife becoming necessary
when Hannah could not have children
(in a time when that was considered to be the woman’s fault.)
Loved most by her husband,
but allowed anyway to be mercilessly bullied
by his other wife,
for not being able to have children.
It’s a special hell when we know our pain
is not even heard by another woman.
Her pain went unheard by her well-intentioned
but clueless husband,
who couldn’t seem to understand how his love
couldn’t possibly be worth more than ten sons
during a time when a woman’s
actual livelihood depended on her ability to bear children.
A husband who could not understand her tears
or how she wouldn’t want to eat
when he loved her so much he gave her extra portions.
Finally in desperation she leaves the meal,
goes to the sanctuary,
and turns to God in prayer,
where her pain is not only also invisible to the priest
but her intent misunderstood!
Her pain, her prayer made no sound,
and the priest admonishes her for being drunk
because he too could not see or understand her!
But pray she does.
And for me, the miracle in this passage
comes before God blessed her
with Samuel and many babies after that.
For me, the miracle was that after years of pain,
years of abuse,
years of her pain being misunderstood,
invisible and unheard,
she could still believe,
trust, and pray to God.
And that through the act of doing so,
she becomes somebody different.
The passage tells us that after she prayed,
she “went her way, ate heartily,
and her face was radiant.”
Radiant.
Radiant!
The act of praying changed her,
even when she had no idea what the outcome would be.
What is that happens then, when we pray?
Is it that we put our needs into words?
Is it in the act of sharing?
Is it in the acknowledgment that we are not alone,
that we are loved unconditionally?
I wonder if it is more than that?
If we believe that prayer is not a device to get us what we want,
as much as it is a means of bringing us to the point
where we will accept what God wants,
then this means the act of praying either out loud or quietly,
with or without words actually changes us.
Perhaps it reminds us that we can let go for a minute,
that we don’t have to be in charge of everything.
And in that moment we stop being invisible and voiceless
and remember that we are an important part of
something bigger than us.

THE WAY OF LOVE

Ruth 1:1-19 — The Message
Once upon a time—it was back in the days when judges led Israel— there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah left home to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The man’s name was Elimelech; his wife’s name was Naomi; his sons were named Mahlon and Kilion—all Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They all went to the country of Moab and settled there. Elimelech died and Naomi was left, she and her two sons. The sons took Moabite wives; the name of the first was Orpah, the second Ruth. They lived there in Moab for the next ten years. But then the two brothers, Mahlon and Kilion, died. Now the woman was left without either her young men or her husband. One day she got herself together, she and her two daughters-in-law, to leave the country of Moab and set out for home; she had heard that God had been pleased to visit his people and give them food. And so she started out from the place she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law with her, on the road back to the land of Judah. After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, “Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may God treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. May God give each of you a new home and a new husband!” She kissed them and they cried openly. They said, “No, we’re going on with you to your people.” But Naomi was firm: “Go back, my dear daughters. Why would you come with me? Do you suppose I still have sons in my womb who can become your future husbands? Go back, dear daughters—on your way, please! I’m too old to get a husband. Why, even if I said, ‘There’s still hope!’ and this very night got a man and had sons, can you imagine being satisfied to wait until they were grown? Would you wait that long to get married again? No, dear daughters; this is a bitter pill for me to swallow—more bitter for me than for you. God has dealt me a hard blow.” Again they cried openly. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her.” But Ruth said, “Don’t force me to leave you; don’t make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I’ll die, and that’s where I’ll be buried, so help me God—not even death itself is going to come between us!” When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town was soon buzzing: “Is this really our Naomi? And after all this time!”

The Way of Love

THE WAY OF LOVE
I like the story of Ruth and Naomi
because it shows me
a model of profound
love and commitment
of one to another.
Many do this:
give up our lives to follow another.
That is love.
I know many couples
who take turns following the other
as they take jobs—
a leapfrog-sharing of
leading and following.
We choose
following,
leading,
staying,
standing,
trading,
supporting,
growing with,
holding to
each other
as we share
our lives and families and communities
in steadfast love and companionship.
Still, for me,
this story is one
that is more subjunctive
than
prescriptive or descriptive.
It is a what-could-be
story,
a how-love-could-be
story.
We will find out in later chapters
that it is also an etiological story,
or a story that explains
how something else
came to be.
It is also a story
about how I make my choices.
Do I make them out of love?
Do I make them out of convenience?
Do I make them out of habit?
Who will I,
who will you,
follow
like Ruth followed Naomi?
For me,
Naomi is a kind of god-like individual,
because the commitment
Ruth had to her
is akin
to the commitment I have,
or try to have,
to God.
It is a story that is echoed thousands
of years later by Peter
when, in John 6:68, he said to Jesus,
“Lord, to whom can we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
We have come to believe and know
that you are the Holy One of God.”
Words of true love
are always words
of eternal life.
I will listen for them.
And so like
Ruth with Naomi
or
Peter with Jesus,
I turn to God
and echo the same thought—
I have heard your words of love,
God,
I will follow,
where else can I go?

WHO ARE WE?

Mark 10:46-52 — New Revised Standard Version
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

Transformation Series: Detail #13

WHO ARE WE?
What are we?
Just a couple of quick thoughts.
Last week I spoke
about speaking out,
naming injustice,
demanding to be heard.
The scripture for this week
demands that we make a choice.
Will we be the ones silencing
those who cry for justice,
or will we be the ones
who listen to the pain
and lead those
needy souls to
Jesus?
Will we tell the sightless
they cannot hope to see,
because, of course,
they are blind.
Will we tell the voiceless
to shut up,
stay silent,
and not make waves?
What will we choose to do?
What kind of a people are we,
anyway?
I have both stood with,
and stood against,
those who cry out for justice.
Commenter,
Kathryn Matthews,
tells us that
the disciples were so caught
up in their potential magnificence
that no one
speaks up for Bartimaus.
I too have missed my cues
as a follower of Jesus.
Caught up in the wonder
that is me,
I have turned an unhearing ear
away from the ones
crying out for justice.
For those times of indifference,
for those times of non-support
I am grievously sorry,
and I am determined
to do better as other chances
arise
to lead the hopeless
to the one who gives ultimate hope.
So who am I?
What am I?
What path do I follow?
I do my best,
now,
to be one who listens
to and for
the calls of the oppressed
and the downtrodden,
and to say
to those who cry out for justice,
“Take heart;
get up,
he is calling you,”
and help lead them
into their vision.
It is important to note
that at this time,
as theologian
Megan McKenna explains,
Jericho was a dangerous,
even violent,
place filled with bandits
but also with insurgents
who were skirmishing
with the Roman Empire.
Who are we,
and where do we hang out,
and are we willing
to stop and listen
even when
it is dangerous for us to do so?

SPEAKING OUT AND NAMING INJUSTICE

Job 23:1-9 New Century Version

Then Job answered:
“My complaint is still bitter today.
I groan because God’s heavy hand is on me.
I wish I knew where to find God
so I could go to where he lives.
I would present my case before him
and fill my mouth with arguments.
I would learn how he would answer me
and would think about what he would say.
Would he not argue strongly against me?
No, he would really listen to me.
Then an honest person could present his case to God,
and I would be saved forever by my judge.
“If I go to the east, God is not there;
if I go to the west, I do not see him.
When he is at work in the north, I catch no sight of him;
when he turns to the south, I cannot see him.

Calligraphy #27

Speaking Out and Naming Injustice

The Job text
gives permission to
those who need to speak out
to do so.
It is the nature and purpose of Scripture
to legitimize
those injured
and dealt injustice
to name the injustice and to
call out the perpetrators.
The #METOO Movement has left many
scratching their heads,
and either angry and confused,
or wondering why go into all that now
and not just let all that ugliness alone?
The Black Lives Matter
Movement make some feel they need to shout,
“me too, my white life matters,
my blue life matters,”
never once listening
to why black lives
matter needs to be expressed
in the first place.
Three days ago was
National Coming Out Day,
and reading and listening to the
tragic/courageous/beautiful stories
also informed today’s reflection.
There are so many
who have never questioned seriously
who, what, and why they are,
and have simply and silently endured
the roles into which they have been placed,
and lived out the
expectations of others.
There seems to be safety
in not making waves,
and keeping peace among
family, friends, and those with whom we associate.
This is many times accompanied
by a deep fear that if we
do speak out,
if we do name ourselves,
if we voice the wrongs
we have experienced,
we will no longer be safe,
and will walk in harm’s way
from that moment on.
But there are many who can no longer live
in the dysfunction of silence,
and in their prisons of aloneness.
These courageous individuals
are compelled to
speak, name, identify
the wrongs by which they have been wounded —
and yes,
once they speak out,
they are no longer invisible,
and certainly, no longer safe.
They become judged,
sometimes shunned,
often targets for ridicule and shaming,
and even violence.
I thought of all this as
one friend after another
has come out,
or celebrated coming out
and publicly named
themselves
as victim/survivor/real persons/different/same
and stood firm in their fear,
only to discover that,
yes, many of their fears were
well founded,
but that also they were not alone.
Who are we?
What are we?
Why are we?
I suspect in some way,
if we are honest,
we can all identify
with those who speak out,
that we all have a story
we are afraid to tell,
and a naming that terrifies us to speak.
We all need safe
people and places
where we can speak and name,
where we can be
safe from judgment and not fear retribution,
but claim understanding,
and where people will just
hear us
and see us
and not try and fix us,
or claim that the victimization spoken
is just like what they have
experienced,
so as to co-opt even the speaker’s sorrow.
I would like to
think that in this place, here,
there is sanctuary,
and within each of us,
is a space so sacred
we can name ourselves and be safe.
A place where the Kingdom of Heaven
has come to be.

MAJESTY AND GLORY

Psalm 8 — New Revised Standard Version

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Majesty & Glory

For those of us old
enough to have been alive,
and to have survived,
the McCarthy Era,
or what has also been described
as The Great Fear,
and the years of rebellion
and chaos that followed,
what is now happening in our nation
seems uncomfortably
too familiar,
and I think,
Where is the Majesty and Glory
of our God?
Where can it possibly be?
Where can it be?
Today’s reading seems
trite and pale,
and like a poor substitute
for what I sense
I need this morning as
I pray with clenched teeth.
My heart feels bruised.
My soul feels a sense of betrayal.
And yet we are called on to praise
a God
that I vaguely sense
may have let us all down…
I am just a little grumpy
about that,
you know?
And I wonder,
Glory and Majesty, God?
Isn’t it really just tinsel and glitter—smoke and mirrors?
There are two celebrations
this week that might be
relevant for my struggle:
today is World Communion Sunday,
and Thursday, the 4th was the Feast of St Francis of Assisi.
Both are pertinent to our own time.
St Francis stood
against the prevailing social structure
of his own time.
He stripped naked
in a public square
to visibly
reject the structural sin
of both culture and church.
His actions
healed both church and culture
for a time.
World Communion Sunday
is a call to Christian unity.
It, as did Francis,
calls us to come together
in love and unity,
to live out the values of the one
we know as Jesus,
and call our Christ.
Economic warfare,
culture warfare,
class warfare,
live fire-fights,
governmental choices
that steal both life and dignity
from the least
of the world’s least
cannot prevent
this God-of-majesty-and-glory,
who for some strange reason
known only to this God,
will work only through us,
God’s people.
This God will overcome
yet one more time
the assault on God’s bulwarks,
and God’s enemies
will yet one more time be silenced.
I’m tired,
I’ve been here before,
yet one more time,
I choose praise
over despair
and hope over doubt,
and because I do,
I also chose to stand
and to speak and to act,
and to not give up.

PRESENTS TO THE POOR?

Esther 7 — The Message
So the king and Haman went to dinner with Queen Esther. At this second dinner, while they were drinking wine the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what would you like? Half of my kingdom! Just ask and it’s yours.” Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your eyes, O King, and if it please the king, give me my life, and give my people their lives. “We’ve been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—sold to be massacred, eliminated. If we had just been sold off into slavery, I wouldn’t even have brought it up; our troubles wouldn’t have been worth bothering the king over.” King Xerxes exploded, “Who? Where is he? This is monstrous!” “An enemy. An adversary. This evil Haman,” said Esther. Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, spoke up: “Look over there! There’s the gallows that Haman had built for Mordecai, who saved the king’s life. It’s right next to Haman’s house—seventy-five feet high!” So Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai. And the king’s hot anger cooled. Mordecai wrote all this down and sent copies to all the Jews in all King Xerxes’ provinces, regardless of distance, calling for an annual celebration on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar as the occasion when Jews got relief from their enemies, the month in which their sorrow turned to joy, mourning somersaulted into a holiday for parties and fun and laughter, the sending and receiving of presents and of giving gifts to the poor.

Holding Up The Weak

A major national celebration
because of a
decision that brought salvation
to the people of God.
It was a close call,
a near miss.
What would become the entire
Hebrew nation
was almost made extinct.
So yes,
a huge celebration.
But here is where
I discover the Spirit of God at work.
That same Spirit that
Jesus embodied so well,
and that dwells within us
if we will allow it to.
Right at the end of the call to
a celebration party,
Mordecai added
what I think is the heart
of the Hebrew understanding
of their forever obligation to God.
He created a holiday
for parties and fun and laughter,
and a time to give each other presents,
but also a time
to give gifts to the poor.
Caring for the poor
is a key theme throughout the Hebrew scriptures.
It is a key theme in Jesus’ message.
And it should be
a key theme for all of Christianity.
According to Hebrew scripture,
and Jesus’ teachings,
this taking care for the less fortunate
of our brothers and sisters
is the obligation
of those who have the ability to do so.
Another way to say this is that
speaking for and listening to,
the voiceless,
caring for the least of the least,
the spiritually/mentally/emotionally needy,
the sick,
the widows,
the orphans,
listening to abused women, men, and children,
is the obligation of the entitled.
It seems that when we
begin to think of salvation
as an event experienced
by only the individual we go wrong.
Because all of us
are affected by all national events,
our salvation
is also a community event,
and it should be a community
celebration
for the rich and the poor alike.
So yes, the poor,
the least — all those strangers who are not us
should be invited to the salvation party
and given gifts.
So when I hold the events
occurring in the Senate around
the Supreme Court fiasco this week
against scriptures such as these,
I find no evidence of God’s Spirit,
or God’s justice at work,
and I wonder what it will take
for the poor, the oppressed,
the voiceless, the weak
to be heard
by the entitled in this nation?

Ephesians 4:25-5:2 — New Revised Standard Version

So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Conversion = Turning Over A New Leaf

Conversion
What is it that that we
might/ought
change in our lives?
How would we be different
than say we are now?
We all seem to exist
somewhere
between thinking
we are just as spiffy as all get out
and thinking
we are complete losers.
We might not admit to this,
or we might want
to go to war about it,
or make sure to come
up after the service
to point out how you are not
puffed up
or that you think
you are a loser.
Fine.
OK.
So we don’t really steal.
We don’t really lie.
Or do physical, emotional, or spiritual harm to anyone.
Well, maybe…
But if it is true that we are not like this,
why do we take criticism
so personally?
Why do we hurt
so badly when we are maligned?
My point here,
and I do have a point,
is that
we all need to undergo some
form of conversion.
We all need to change
in some way or another.
To rise up just a little higher
on the spiritual evolutionary scale.
Our work is never complete.
I believe that our journey
is never going to be over.
We can always grow
more into
the image of God
that we were created
to become.
Being angry about anything
over a long period of time
is damaging to our own spirits.
Allowing ourselves
to flair out with a napalm bomb of rage
is damaging
to our own soul
and to anyone around us.
Do you trust yourself
more than you trust God?
Do you allow insecurity
and its attendant anxiety to
destroy your own spirit
by not believing you are ever
good enough?
And we might say
we have not committed murder,
but saying things
that demean another’s character,
even if it is true,
is in and of itself a form of
spiritual assassination.
Where is it in your life
that conversion
needs to take place?
What do you need to
do to
become a better
imitator
of the God of all love?

Psalm 14 — New Revised Standard Version

Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?
There they shall be in great terror,
for God is with the company of the righteous.
You would confound the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.

And The Fools

Are the “Fools” Really Fools?

An apologetic for monotheism,
a denunciation of godlessness,
a blow to atheism:
this is one of the intentions
of this Psalm.
I meet people
every day who
deny every tenant of Christianity,
ridicule its existence,
and basically hate God.
But I have been thinking
lately that they might be right
in thinking this
because of the model
of Christianity
with which they have been presented.
Some notions that some Christians hold:
that there is a loving God
who will cast sinners
into a fiery hell,
that homosexuality
can be “cured” by repentance
and salvation,
a denial of science
and the scientific method,
judging that which is
uncomfortable
as a sin,
that claiming the name of
Jesus in some magical formula
is the only way to avoid hell,
that it is somehow OK
to fear and hate other races.
The list goes on and on,
and I wonder how anyone
could possibly be a Christian
if that was the only Christianity
they encountered—
until I remember that being a Christian
should be more about following Jesus
than about claiming Jesus,
and that Christianity
if it is based only upon
doctrine, theology, dogma, judgment, or fear
is faux, false, phony Christianity!
And those
who can’t buy into any of this
sham that masquerades as Christianity
are not fools to deny all of that — however,
they are missing out
on a lot of love and affirmation by doing so.
I do not,
will not,
believe in
or follow a God
or be part of a religion
that is either designed
to encourage and mollify our fears
for purposes of
by naming them as the “norm”
by which others might be judged,
or worship
at any altar built
upon the premise that it is
the only possible altar
at which God can conceivably be worshiped.
When Christianity is molded
around the words and deeds of Jesus
it is a system worthy of my worship.
When Christianity inflicts wounds
instead of facilitating healing,
it is not for me,
and neither is its God.
So I say to any
who think that the God
or the form of Christianity
they have encountered is
sick, or evil, or irrelevant
you are probably correct,
but I strongly suggest
that is not the only
form of Christianity out there.
There are entire communions and churches,
denominations even,
who actively seek to
walk Jesus’ path,
the one that loves unconditionally,
facilitates healing in the world,
affirms all, and welcomes all.
Such is the Jesus-centered Christianity I follow.

I WILL LIVE WHERE I WILL CHOOSE

2 Samuel 7:1-14 New Revised Standard Version
Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.” Nathan said to the king, “Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.” But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

IN MY HOUSE

I Will Live Where I Will Choose

This reading presents an interesting idea.
David wants to build God
a house for God.
God wants nothing
of David’s idea,
not needing a house.
David wants God’s house
to look like it is the
home of the God of
a conquering king.
God is satisfied
living in a tent.
The idea is that God’s desire
for where to worship God,
has nothing
to do with humanity’s need
for design, style, pomp, flair, beauty,
or bragging rights.
Entire cathedrals
have been built on David’s premise.
Super-structures
made of glass and gold,
brick and stone,
taking generations and
entire livelihoods to construct.

WHO ARE YOU?

Ephesians 1:3-14 — New Revised Standard Version
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.

The Perplexity of Self

Who Are You?
I once was told by a pastor-friend
of the evangelical/fundamentalist persuasion
that he found nothing to helpful
for himself in anything Jesus said,
but that it was Paul who spoke to him the most.
It has taken me two degrees in theology
and much reflection to figure out
why he would say such a thing.
Thirteen books in the New Testament
have traditionally
been considered
to be written by Paul.
New Testament scholar, Marc Borg,
and others,
have deduced that Paul
may have only written seven of them:
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians,
Philippians, Philemon, and 1 Thessalonians.
Our text today,
Ephesians,
was not written by Paul,
and not written to the Ephesians,
but to a wider,
more mystical congregation,
worshiping a sterile,
cosmic Christ,
not a sweaty,
earthy Jesus.
Many of the issues Paul faced,
such as the fundamental spiritual
differences between
Jews and Gentiles
in the wider church setting,
were resolved and now in the past
for this writer,
who may not be Paul,
yet who was clearly writing out of the
Pauline tradition and community.
The questions that arise for me
from this text are,
who are we,
who are you,
and who are you not?
By this reading,
members of the “church”
are adopted by God as God’s children,
redeemed, forgiven,
rich in God’s grace,
God’s own.
But this “church,” us,
is, also for this writer,
a spiritual,
mystical, clannish, churchy,
tribal contraption.
Is this who we are, really?
Are you,
we,
really what is claimed
for us in this passage?
Understand,
this writer’s agenda
is more about defining
what it means to be church
and what it means
to be a follower of Jesus the Christ,
than one who walks with
Jesus the man from Nazareth,
and emulates his very
concrete examples
and teachings.
In contrast to my friend,
I have generally been more
of a Jesus-person
than a Christ-person.
Less a follower of the cosmic Christ
than one who walks
with the grittiness of a real human Jesus.
Given the choice,
and I am daily,
I would choose to be
known as one who facilitates healing,
feeds the hungry,
clothes the naked,
and fights for the justice of God,
like Jesus,
than one who is known
by some mystical church membership.
But I only answer for myself.
What about you?
How do you define yourself?
Who do you choose to follow?
And, what does that mean for you?
You see,
I think that the cosmically oriented congregations
tend to stop with worship
not having a lot of connection
to the exigency of
any outside their frame of reference,
while the more identified to the
sweaty, earthy Jesus
have a deeply rooted sense
of the existential needs
of all creation.

IF AS IF

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Mark 4:26-34, New Revised Standard Version He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does … Continue reading →

CHOICES AND CONSEQUENCES

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Mark 3:20-35 — Common English Bible Jesus entered a house. A crowd gathered again so that it was impossible for him and his followers even to eat. When his family heard what was happening, they came to take control of him. They … Continue reading →

GIFTS, GIVING, TAKING CREDIT

 

Psalm 81:1-10 ̶̶ ̶̶ The Message

A song to our strong God!
a shout to the God of Jacob!
Anthems from the choir, music from the band,
sweet sounds from lute and harp,
Trumpets and trombones and horns:
it’s festival day, a feast to God!
A day decreed by God,
solemnly ordered by the God of Jacob.
He commanded Joseph to keep this day
so we’d never forget what he did in Egypt.
I hear this most gentle whisper from One
I never guessed would speak to me:
“I took the world off your shoulders,
freed you from a life of hard labor.
You called to me in your pain;
I got you out of a bad place.
I answered you from where the thunder hides,
I proved you at Meribah Fountain.
“Listen, dear ones—get this straight;
O Israel, don’t take this lightly.
Don’t take up with strange gods,
don’t worship the latest in gods.
I’m God, your God, the very God
who rescued you from doom in Egypt,
Then fed you all you could eat,
filled your hungry stomachs.

# # #

Hearing, Talking, Talking Action
Psalm 81:1-10

There is an apocryphal
story about a farmer who
was complimented on
the beautiful farm God had given him.
The farmer replied that,
yes, it was a beautiful farm, now,
but the person should have seen
the disrepair it was in
when God gave it to him.
In today’s text
we hear God’s gentle assurance.
Despite that the one
hearing God’s words
never thought they would
ever hear God speak at all,
God did heard their cry for help.
God set them free from slavery,
fed them and nurtured them.
Loved them.
However, God
saw a need to admonish them
to not stray off after false gods.
Really?
Wow, what a bunch of ingrates!
What silliness to snub the one
who had done so much for them!
But then
I wonder just how true
I am to this God
who rescues me,
bestows gifts on me,
and feeds my empty belly?
How many times
have I prayed for things
that I have ended up taking the credit for,
and not publically
thanking God?
Maybe I don’t worship
at the altar of some weird
god,
but I do seem to worship
at the altar
of my own pride.
I think there is a balance
between going
through life,
giving thanks to God
for every little thing,
constantly,
and never accepting any credit for anything,
with false humility,
and never having any accountability
for any actions,
and giving God
recognition
for our talents and gifts,
with a full understanding
of the hard work it took
on my part
to hone them into
the beautiful things
they have become.
God gives us gifts
every second
of the day
and we use them
as best we can,
and hopefully for God’s glory.
I think the balance in this
is to give God credit
for the gifts we have received,
but also accept credit
for our own work in the process.
Thinking back to the farmer,
what are the gifts God has given
you to do God’s work,
and what work
have you had to do
to make those gifts ready
for that work?

A RISKY INVITATION

 

A Risky Invitation
Acts 2:1-21

Come Holy Spirit!
It sounds good,
like something a Christian should say,
Kind of churchy
in a remote sort of way
that is safe
because it probably doesn’t mean
too much
when you get right down to it.
I suppose if you thought that,
you’d be wrong in a way
that could be extremely unsafe.
Once the Holy Spirit comes on the scene
life seems to go south.
First of all the
Holy Spirit is understood
as the very active relationship
between Jesus
and the one he understood
as his divine parent.
This is the same Spirit
that fell upon the
chaos
of the waters of creation
and formed
them into matter and substance.
This is the same Spirit
that marched around Jericho
with the armies of Joshua
to bring down the walls.
The same Holy Spirit that
walked with Jesus
to the cross and beyond,
and the same Holy Spirit
that poured fire
on the disciples’ heads
in that upper room ̶ yeah,
that Holy Spirit.
And yet,
there is something truly compelling
about making that invitation.
Something full of possibility,
exciting,
dangerous,
smelling of perfume
and bitter herbs,
and the sweat of fear,
but joy as well,
and definitely something
fascinatingly holy
and sacred and mind-blowingly beautiful
and unspeakable
in the sense that
you will truly
see the face of God and live.
So,
come Holy Spirit,
let’s take a hike together
and discover
new and wonderful paths
and grace and beauty
and the kind of love
that only taking a divine risk
can possibly discover.

 

WONDERS AND GLORY

Wonders and Glory

Psalm 19:1-4 — Common English Bible

Heaven is declaring God’s glory;
the sky is proclaiming his handiwork.
One day gushes the news to the next,
and one night informs another what needs to be known.
Of course, there’s no speech, no words—
their voices can’t be heard—
but their sound extends throughout the world;
their words reach the ends of the earth.

# # #

Wonders and Glory
Have you ever been absolutely
stunned by God?
I mean
brought-to-your-kneesflabbergasted,
flummoxed,
dumbfounded,
or
come to the abrupt conclusion
that God was in fact — God?
And then looked around yourself
with the realization
that the WOW that is God
dwells in all that is:
every living and breathing creature,
every grain of sand,
fleck of dust,
sparkle of starlight,
breath of life,
gasp of death,
cosmic motion,
lover’s smile,
or dreamer’s tear?
Have you ever
looked at a star,
blade of grass,
morning sunrise,
or heard the
call of a quail,
the breeze through meadow grass,
roll of thunder
and known,
I mean just known
that God is, was, will be
not just God,
but your God — forever?
Have you ever?
Evidently this psalmist did.
If it is possible
that you have never heard
or seen,
or forgotten you have,
I encourage you take the time,
pay more attention,
And let God blow your mind…

THE LIMITS OF HUMAN IMAGINATION

Genesis 17:1-7 — Contemporary English Version

Abram was ninety-nine years old when the LORD appeared to him again and said, “I am God All-Powerful. If you obey me and always do right, I will keep my solemn promise to you and give you more descendants than can be counted.” Abram bowed with his face to the ground, and God said: I promise that you will be the father of many nations. That’s why I now change your name from Abram to Abraham. I will give you a lot of descendants, and in the future they will become great nations. Some of them will even be kings. I will always keep the promise I have made to you and your descendants, because I am your God and their God.

I Can’t Imagine

The Limits of Human Imagination
Genesis 17:1-7

Can you name a few things that you
can’t quite
bring yourself to believe?
There are some people
who are totally credulous
and will believe
anything any friend might say:
that the Moonlanding was fake
and staged out
in the Arizona desert;
or the earth is flat;
that women are
not as smart as men
because their brains
are smaller.
Pick a nationality,
race, gender, social class,
and you’ve heard
some unfounded
and salacious garbage
about their character.
Rumors and gossip
always tell me
more about the individual
spreading them
than about
the ones at whom
they are aimed.
But here,
today,
we read about another kind of
unbelievable,
inconceivable
tale.
A story so implausible
and so far
beyond the imagination
the even the person
to whom it happened
found it hard to believe.
A ninety-nine year old
fathering a child?
Wow!
It was a promise kept by God.
It was beyond comprehendible,
but it came true,
and I am led to ask,
what promises has
God made to us?
what do we think of
people who claim
that God makes them promises?
Have we ever experienced
the unimaginable?
It is crazy, you know,
to think that God
would make us a promise.
It is still crazier
to think that God wouldn’t.
Can you bring yourself
to imagine God’s
promise of eternal life?
Can you imagine the healing
stories of Jesus
being real?
Can you imagine hope?
Can you even imagine
the consequences
of the sharing of
bread
and cup
at the Communion Table?
I think we should
be careful about the limits
we place
on our imaginations.

WHEN THE CALL IS FOR HEALING

©Hilary F. Marckx, all rights reserved
based on Mark 1:29-39

When the call
is for healing
the call
is not just to be healed,
but to heal others as well.
When the call
is for healing
the call
is not just to stop our own pain,
but to help ease the pain of another.
When the call
is for healing
the call
is not only to work at the healing of others,
but to take the time to let healing happen
for us as well.

When the call is for healing…

Called to heal;
called to be healed.
Called to be present to the process.
Called to be the process.
Called to hold the process.
Called give away the process.

When the call is for healing…

Still,
so many do not heed the call.
We want to help
others to become healed,
yet we
seem to stay unhealed.
We resent
being thought of as in need of healing.
We become angry
at the notion that we might be broken.
We resent being named.
We refuse to do
the work of our own restoration.
Why is it that
it is alright for Jesus to touch,
heal, renew, recreate,
step into another’s
history, space, life,
but it is meddling
when it comes to us?

When the call is for healing…

A RETELLING

A Place for Retelling

Deuteronomy 5:1 & 18:15-:16

Called to speak.
Called to listen.
Called and answered.
Called and chosen.
Threatened —
by God —
do it right or else!
This book
has an interesting history.
Deuteronomy is purportedly
a “lost” book
found
after the Exile of the
Hebrew people
to Babylon.
It had been hidden,
and turned up mysteriously,
then
“found”
by the new order of ruling priests.
It is full of laws,
holiness codes,
and or-elses from God.
The strong suspicion
by some biblical scholars
is that the
“finders”
actually
wrote it themselves
as a means of establishing their
own power and rightful leadership
in a community torn
apart by being exiled from,
then returned to,
their homes.
Homes that after 60 years
just did not exist anymore.
There is something powerful
here about this
re-construction of hope.
Something worth paying attention to
in the re-telling of old stories.
Remembering that these are the words of priests,
not so much Moses, or God,
we can then see
a desperate attempt by to build hope
and re-construct a sense of place,
of home.
The Hebrew people thought that they
needed these stories to build their
national and personal
self-worth.
This is revisionist history,
and in and if itself
is less than the best way to facilitate healing.
History happened.
Life happened.
Still there is something compelling
in re-telling a story with a different outcome.
Not to actually history,
but to change
how we can change our own outcome
with a different telling.
There is healing in imaging
ourselves surviving trauma
and emerging strong,
not wounded.
I am not promoting denial,
rather exploring a
re-storying where our victimhood
changes into strength and energy
and inner power
and strength.
What stories do we need for this?
How do we need to revision our old stories?
What do we need to hear
that bolster us
in times of distress,
when we feel dispossessed
out of luck,
unloved,
and short on hope?
Who will we listen to
in an age of “false news”?
Who has been called, chosen,
to tell us these stories
we need so desperately to hear?
Do we need stories of conquest?
Are we seeking stories of greatness?
Or,
is it a story of hope,
of love,
of salvation and
fulfilled promise
that we so desperately need to hear?
How would we re-write
our old stories
so they reflect
our own heart’s desire?

CAN ANYTHING GOOD?

John 1:43-51
The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. When he got there, he ran across Philip and said, “Come, follow me.” (Philip’s hometown was Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter.) Philip went and found Nathanael and told him, “We’ve found the One Moses wrote of in the Law, the One preached by the prophets. It’s Jesus, Joseph’s son, the one from Nazareth!” Nathanael said, “Nazareth? You’ve got to be kidding, can anything good come out of Nazareth?” But Philip said, “Come, see for yourself.” When Jesus saw him coming he said, “There’s a real Israelite, not a false bone in his body.” Nathanael said, “Where did you get that idea? You don’t know me.” Jesus answered, “One day, long before Philip called you here, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael exclaimed, “Rabbi! You are the Son of God, the King of Israel!” Jesus said, “You’ve become a believer simply because I say I saw you one day sitting under the fig tree? You haven’t seen anything yet! Before this is over you’re going to see heaven open and God’s angels descending to the Son of Man and ascending again.

Can Anything Good Come?

Can Anything Good?
John 1:43-51

Judgment and stereotyping,
regionalism, nationalism,
arrogance
and good,
old fashioned xenophobia,
right at the beginning of
Jesus’ ministry—
directed right at Jesus.
Credulous, bigoted, knuckleheads.
And those are the ones
who became his disciples!
WOW!
“You’ve got to be kidding,
can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Or Africa,
or Haiti,
or Mexico,
or San Salvador,
or, or, or?
Well the disciples found out,
didn’t they?
But what about us?
Are there those areas,
places, towns—
nations,
where we arbitrarily
discount
those who are living there?
I have heard many,
some of us even,
refer with ugly claims
to those who come from
the Res, Lake County, Nice,
anywhere other than Geyserville.
Meth heads,
crack heads,
trailer trash,
weirdoes.
That’s where the heroin addicts hang out.
Yet,
we are referring to human beings,
the ones
Jesus loves as much
as he does us,
those who carry the Christ
as do we,
deep in their beings.
The main difference
between us and
Jesus
is that he could look
into the hearts of all
and see nothing
but goodness and grace.
But do we not owe it
to ourselves and to others
to see that same
grace in all?
And if we did,
what might we discover?
Maybe that the Messiah
was walking alongside
of us
all along.
Now that would be
something to miss,
wouldn’t it?

TO THE SUN

To conclude my poem-journey this week of a poem a day. I am using past work from around 1972 that was written after a cold night in the Sierra. It indeed infers an inner spiritual movement — awareness of body, awareness of God/Nature/God-in-nature. The awareness of that unknown entity we understand as that-which-cannot-be-named-known-or-described… nonetheless, discovered in unconditional love of small creatures — death, and the sacredness of summer’s sun…

To the Sun

TO THE SUN
© Hilary F. Marckx, all rights reserved

That which
was not poem
and
death-locked
in ever-winter-earth
now
beats with poet-rhythms
and
heart-heat
of summer-sun blaze.

You have melted me—
Like summer-heat snow-melt,
I seem to no longer stand
inviolate
against a safe winter’s sun.

You have melted me—
I pour,
fluid-like stream
from my ice-high eerie,
and my dissolution
floods stream-hollow channels.

You have melted me—
and I do not recognize
this I have become:
mist to
sky–breeze-blown vapor.
I seek life
in your heat.

You have melted me—
I reach out
to touch
that which was not
yet. and
I feel heart-heat pulse beat
where once
ice-locked
and protected

SEMMETRY

To continue my poem-journey this week of a poem a day. I am pulling from past and new work that infer an inner spiritual movement — awareness of body, awareness of nature/God-in-nature. The awareness of that unknown entity we understand as that-which-cannot-be-named-known-or-described… nonetheless, discovered in unconditional love of small creatures — and death.

In the Ice of Time

SYMMETRY
© Hilary F. Marckx, all rights reserved

I discovered grim symmetry
in winter’s freeze.
Tangle of
winter-bare willow.
Rabbit,
raptor-killed-gray
on white-frozen earth:
concentric circles of death
with one red eye
staring death
at center of corpse–
this raptor was
neat–and cautious.

Frozen earth,
soil beneath low branches
of bare willow, where still figure
draws me in.
Circle of fur, two-foot diameter,
shaven from rabbit’s belly
Lays out about carcass.
Death in the round,
warmth near-frozen
in fog-white mirror for earth.

One tuft of fur at a time
shaven from belly in
three-hundred degree circle
of wary movement.

Three inch round red plate of red meat
in center of carcass steams off
last remembrance of life.
Blank eye of rabbit looks at nothing,
and at me, as though I too
have blood on my teeth.
As though I too
might lay belly-bare
on frozen ground–
fodder for some raptor.

I thought: “Here is the glorious beauty
and the
symmetry of my own death.
If I could but die in
solidarity with the cosmos…”