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Contents 2004:
Freedom is something
that people think they have. Freedom might even be something in
the name of which they/we go out and conquer other people. . . .
Freedom is very different from liberation. Liberation as a term is
really meaningful either when we do not have freedom or when we have
just gained it. Freedom is like manna in the wilderness. It
does not keep easily. It spoils quickly. You cannot put it in the
refrigerator and call it freedom, because freedom has to be won again
and again. And that very insight is better expressed by the word
LIBERATION.
It is striking to
hear Paul say that for freedom Christ has liberated us – and see to it
that we carry on the liberation, “. . . stand fast therefore, and do not
submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1) . . . Judgment is the
moment in which God liberates – but God can only liberate those who need
liberation.
Krister Stendahl,
Paul Among Jews and Gentiles
. . .
An infant gazes at some birds,
and for
a moment it all balances there,
unblinking, calm, until the slightest feather
of
snow, knocked free by a breeze, drifts toward
the
ground, past curtains hospitably patterned
in
red-and-blue chintz pineapples: mute glitter,
crystal
fusillade. He will have nowhere
to lay
his head, no matter how he builds,
no
matter how he watches where unnumbered
small
creatures have their being in the weather.
from
Karl Kirchwey,
“He Considers the Birds of the Air”
top of page
. . . So, friends,
every day do something / that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world.
Work for nothing. / Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who
does not deserve it. / Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to
live in that free / republic for which it stands.
Give your approval
to all you cannot / Understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not
encountered he has not destroyed. / Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the
millennium. Plant sequoias. / Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not
plant, / that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the
leaves are harvested / when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit.
Prophesy such returns. / Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build
under the trees / every thousand years.
Listen to the
carrion – put your ear / close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that
are to come. / Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is
immeasurable. Be joyful / though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women
do not go cheap / for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will
this satisfy / a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb
the sleep / of a woman near to giving birth/
Go with your love
to the fields. / Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear
allegiance / to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the
generals and the politicos / can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it
as a sign / to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be
like the fox / who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong
direction. / Practice resurrection.
Wendell
Berry,
for “Father’s Day – Celebration of masculine
stewardship
within the Earth community,”
from Earth Prayers
top of page
"RED POWER"
As the flame of a fire has three
qualities, so there is one God in three Persons. How? A flame is made up
of brilliant light and red power and fiery heat. It has brilliant light
that it may shine, and red power that it may endure, and fiery heat that
it may burn. Therefore, by the brilliant light understand the Father,
who with paternal love opens his brightness to his faithful; and by the
red power, which is in the flame that it might be strong, understand the
Son, who took on a body born from a virgin, in which his divine powers
were shown; and by the fiery heat understand the Holy Spirit, who burns
ardently in the minds of the faithful.
Hildegard of Bingen
My name is Nadia Jensen and I have
an idea for a quiet revolution. . . . When Norway was occupied by
Germany in 1940, Norwegian women began to knit RED caps for
children as a way of letting everyone know they did not like what
was happening in their country, that they didn’t like having
their freedom taken away.. . . Similarly, in Denmark women knit
red-white-and-blue caps (colors of the Allies) for the very same
reason.
Whenever Norwegians and Danes left
their homes – to go to the store, to work, to school, etc., --
they could see that the majority opposed what was going on in
their country. Both countries organized effective Resistance
efforts and changed history. Everything began simply by wearing
red!
. . . . Wear a little or a lot –
just be sure when you leave your home to go about . . . wherever
you go in your daily routine – that everyone will see you are
wearing red because you believe in freedom. . . . Between now and
Election Day, ask everyone you know to wear red for "Freedom
Fridays!"
submitted by Ruth
Moore Stacy
top of page
Reading the gospels, we do not set aside our
Trinitarian faith, which proposes that God’s actions seen in the
death and resurrection of Christ are made manifest through the
Spirit in the life of the church. . . . Because God has been
revealed as triune, the church does not stop with a Christological
interpretation of the Bible. Rather, Christianity encounters a
triune God, a God who in Christ continues to create, save, and
nurture the world through the Spirit. The Spirit is manifest in
this earth, undoubtedly in many more places than we are aware, but
at least, we believe, in the church.
A Trinitarian interpretation will always attend to
the Spirit of God in the community. The biblical image offers us a
picture of God’s mercy, or God’s justice, or God’s very
being. The divine image, Christians believe, is also an image for
Christ. And although some preachers conclude their thinking with
that step, it is likely that the image can also be a picture of
the life of the Spirit in the church. Since for Christians the
biblical images continue to accrue meaning, an ancient Israelite
image can serve Christians as a proclamation of the Trinity. The
burning bush can function as an image of the mysterious God, of
the cross that both destroys and purifies, and of the tongues of
fire on the disciples’ heads. The church is Trinitarian, and so
it receives all biblical revelation as of the triune God.
Gail Ramshaw,
Treasures Old and New
God showed me a little thing, the size of a
hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand. It was round as any ball,
as it seemed to me. I looked at it with the eyes of my
understanding and thought, "What can this be?" My
question was answered in general terms in this fashion: "It
is everything that is made." I marveled at how this could be,
for it seemed that it might suddenly fall into nothingness, it was
so small.
An answer for this was given to my understanding:
"It lasts, and ever shall last, because God loves it. And in
this fashion all things have their being by the grace of
God." In this little thing, I saw three properties. The first
is that God made it. The second it that God loves it. The third is
that God keeps it. And what did I see in this? Truly, the Maker,
the Lover, and the Keeper.
Julian of Norwich,
Revelations of Divine Love
top of page
from
"Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert"
by Terry
Tempest Williams
"I write to create red in a
world that often appears black and white."
(from Interview with Joseph
Chilton Pearce: ". . . twenty years ago a child or young
person was able to differentiate 360 shades of red, and today that’s
down to something like 30 shades, which means subtleties are lost
to the pure, heavy impact of red.")
"Where I live, the open
space of desire is red. The desert before me is rose is pink is
scarlet is magenta is salmon.. .. The palette of erosion is red,
is running red water, red river, my own blood flowing downriver;
my desire is red."
I want to learn how to speak the
language of red.
"Red cries out for the body;
open the body and it bleeds. "There is danger with red. Red
is rage is hot, is too hot to touch,.. To see red is to see
destruction.
"But to see red over time is
to understand its capacity to transform. White horses in our
valley eventually turn red. "The redrock desert of southern
Utah teaches me over and over again: red endures."
"’Red is the most joyful
and dreadful thing in the physical universe,’ G. K. Chesterton
writes. ‘It is the fiercest note, the highest light.’"
"Red sits on top of the
rainbow."
top of page
“Jesus
Is ‘UP’ to Us!”
To get to God, one goes
up. When God speaks, the voice descends from the upper world to
humankind in the middle layer. The same cosmology stands behind
the narrative of Jesus’ baptism. . . . The ascension narratives bring
this imagery into prominence in Christian speech. The theological
assertions of faith are that Christ went to God and so resumed the place
of the divine, and that believers will at their end go to God.
Luke relates this truth by the narrative of the ascension in which the
three-tiered universe figures. . . . Jesus must go up to be with
God. In the heavens is God’s throne, where from God’s right
hand Christ will reign as a kind of prime minister. . . .
We must be able to
interpret the cosmic map for its contemporary meaning. The
language of Christ ascending to God is a metaphoric way to describe the
apostolic belief that Jesus did not end his life and destiny in the
grave, but rather rose (note again the metaphor of up) to be with God.
The good news is that Christians are not pretending to accept an ancient
cosmology, but are affirming their faith that in Christ we too will
conquer death. . . . Contemporary practice stresses the unity of the
fifty days of Easter culminating in Pentecost, rather than a focus on
the Lucan distinction between the 40th and 50th day.
Gail Ramshaw, Treasures
Old and New
top of page
The water felt warm at first,
then cooler farther out where the bottom started to slip away. I
felt a slow panic begin to move in me, starting at my knees, then
filling my chest . . . . I looked back toward the bank and saw
Freda watching me.
"I’ll hold my
breath," I called out, asking for reassurance.
"I think you should,"
she called back.
I went down slowly, the thin
cotton of my t-shirt turning wet against my breasts.
I stayed down as long as I could,
my cheeks puffed out like a guppy’s, feeling the current pushing
between my outspread legs, my toes gripping the firm river bottom.
I felt like a reed in some underwater wind, not sure what I was
doing. The water was cool and heavy with the current, and I
imagined it was as deep as outer space. I spread my arms out the
way the preacher had done, and a thought came into my head so loud
and clear my eyes opened in the dark water.
"Help me," it said,
over and over, first deep, then high, then meek as a child’s
plea. "Help me." My mouth opened in surprise and I
tasted the rich blood of the water choking me; and the voice grew
louder. . . .
"You baptized yet?"
Freda called from the cottonwoods as I walked slowly from the
river, falling to the red clay bank, exhausted. I raised my arm
and waved my hand once, a signal, yes, . . .
Lorian Hemingway,
"Baptism"
top of page
Eternal and everlasting God, Source of all
happiness,
we
praise you for making known our Shepherd and our Defender.
Grant
that as we cast away all fear and terror of
death,
we may embrace and confess your truth revealed in your Son,
our
sovereign Master, Christ Jesus. Amen
●
● ● ●
● ●
Daily Prayer
The 23rd Psalm
The Lord is
my Shepherd, I have all I need,
She makes me
lie down in green meadows,
Beside the
still waters, She will lead.
She restores
my soul, She rights my wrongs,
She leads me
in a path of good things,
And fills my
heart with songs.
Even though
I walk, through a dark and dreary land,
There is
nothing that can shake me,
I’m in her
hand.
She sets a
table before me, in the presence of my foes
She anoints
my head with oil,
And my cup
overflows.
Surely,
surely goodness and kindness will follow me,
all the days
of my life,
And I will
live in her house,
forever,
forever and ever.
Glory be to
our Mother, and Daughter
And to the
Holy of Holies,
As it was in
the beginning, is now and ever shall be
World,
without end. Amen.
Dedicated to my
Mother
Bobby McFerrin
top of page
And now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still . . .
For once on the face of the earth
let’s not speak in any language,
let’s stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be such an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
(Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.)
If we were not so singleminded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve,
and you keep quiet and I will go
Pablo Neruda
top of page
"Drum Major for a
Dream"
Above the shouts and the shots,
The roaring flame and the siren’s blare,
Listen for the stilled voice of the man
Who is no longer there.
Above the tramping of the endless line
Of marchers along the street,
Listen for the silent step
Of the dead man’s invisible feet.
Lock doors, put troops at the gate,
Guard the legislative halls,
But tremble when the dead man comes,
Whose spirit walks through walls.
Edith Lovejoy Pierce
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes
flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it
fills up the four oceans.
Thich Nhat Hanh
top of page
"Riding the River, and Keeping
Up with All Those Jesuses!"
To me that is the excitement of a rise: the unexpectedness, always, of the
change it makes. What was difficult becomes easy. What was easy becomes
difficult. By water, what was distant becomes near. By land, what was near
becomes distant. At the waterline, when a rise was on, the world is changing.
There is an irresistible sense of adventure in the difference. Once the river
is out of its banks, a vertical few inches of rise may widen the surface by
many feet over the bottomland. A sizable lagoon will appear in the middle of a
cornfield. A drain in a pasture will become a canal. Stands of beech and oak
will take on the look of a cypress swamp. There is something Venetian about
it. There is a strange excitement in going in a boat where one would
ordinarily go on foot – or where, ordinarily, birds would be flying. And so
the first excitement of our trip was that little path; where it might go in a
time of low water was unimaginable. Now it went down to the river.
Because of the offset in the shore at the creek mouth, there was a large
eddy turning in the river where we put in, and we began our drift downstream
by drifting upstream. We went up inside the row of shore trees, whose tops now
waved in the current, until we found an opening among the branches, and then
turned out along the channel. The current took us. We were still settling
ourselves as if in preparation, but our starting place was already diminishing
behind us.
There was something ominously like life in that. One would always like to
settle oneself, get braced, say "Now I am going to begin" – and
then begin. But as the necessary quiet seems about to descend, a hand is felt
at one’s back, shoving. And that is the way with the river when a current is
running: once the connection with the shore is broken, the journey has begun .
. . .
Wendell Berry, "River
Rising,"
from Pamela Michaels, edt., The Gift of Rivers
top of page
This Iraq will go to the end of the graveyard
It will bury its citizens in open country
Generation after generation
And will forgive its executioner.
Iraq, as was known, will never come back
And the larks will never sing
So go on – if you wish – for a long time
Beseech – if you wish – all the angels
All the demons of this universe
Beseech the bulls of Assyria,
A soaring Phoenix,
Beseech them all
And, through the smoke of nightmares,
Wait for the censer’s miracle
-- Sa’di Yusuf, Iraqi Poet in
Western Exile
Our Lent began with Willis Barnstone invoking
Jesus as poet and teacher! There is poetry all through Jesus’
life and work, as Willis sets down so well, and especially in the last
week of his life, a poetry of “palms and passion,” with no power
against all the “powers that be” save for the power to capture
imagination! To fall into the soil of our minds and hearts, our
bodies and souls, and die, says John 12, as a single seed in order to
bring forth much fruit, as we, following him, come alive to our own
nonviolent, resilient, persistent powers to capture imagination in the
persons and relationships, circles and communities, worlds and ways of
life all around us! Beginning today, Jesus so perfectly plans this
week with poetry of word and deed – entry into the city on a donkey,
-- confrontation with money-changers at the temple, -- return each night
to base camp in Bethany with trusted friends, -- parabolic debate each
day with officials of both church and state, -- faith-freshening
interpretations of scriptures, current, and future events,--
scrupulous preparations for Passover with his disciples, --
revolutionary breaking of bread and sharing of cup, -- prayer in the
garden, ignored, interrupted, -- betrayals, denials, abandonments,
trials through the night, -- cocks and cloaks, crosses and crowns, --
surely the most re-membered week since the first one in all of Creation
. . . .
We have been reading in this space each week
poems of “Iraqi Poets in Western Exile.” Iraq is but one of
those desert/deserted places where the poetry of “palms and passions”
passes on to this day. It has been said of the desert poets, they
“are people of theatre in a tradition that was until recent times
without actors or playwrights. The poets stand alone on stage with
only the wellsprings of their own souls of memory, imagination, and
skill to draw on, and the audience’s hunger and applause to prompt
them. They live and die on the big stage by what they can raise up
in their people’s hearts beyond their personal points of view.”
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