among us

In Genesis 15 God forms a covenant with Abram

God promises Abraham that he will have descendants as numerous as the stars of the heavens. He will also give Abram this land after 4 generations and enslavement, exile and living the nomad. Yet as for Abram, he will die and be buried with honor after a long life. Abraham asks God for a token of his promise. And God asks for a blood offering of three beasts and two birds. Abraham cuts the beasts in half and lays them out as birds of prey harass him for the carcasses.

The key part of the enactment of covenant in a treaty such as this is demonstrated by two parties in this manner. The animal is cut in half and the two parties swear to each other as they walk among the pieces of the broken, lifeless animal essentially saying, “if I break this covenant with you, let it be to me as is with this broken, lifeless animal.”

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. (v. 17)

The sun is gone and a darkness, like the darkness that fell at the crucifixion, covers the earth. A smoking firepot, like the pot of fire—the censer—that contained the holy fire of incense—worship—for the temple of God. It was a consuming fire, a purging fire, a fire that judged the 250 representative leaders of the uprising of the portion of the congregation that held them in the rebellion of Korah AND it was the fire pot of salvation that stood between the death of the plague of the “wrath of God” and the living who were saved from the wrath of the presence of God in that same rebellion (Numbers 16). The blazing torch or lamp of fire like the pillar of fire that lead the children of Israel out of the land of bondage at night. A light that represents presence and sighted guidance for the eye and drawing warmth for the body. You are a lamp unto my feet. We are the living body of Christ, not the dismembered body of the sacrificial animal.

In Revelation 1 from the revelation of Jesus Christ to John on the island of exile, Patmos, John is given a message for the 7 churches (the 7 lampstands).

And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands (like the menorah, like the blazing torch or the lamp of fire) v.12, And among the lampstands (among them like among the pieces of Abram’s sacrifice) was someone like a son of man (he is like us) dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest (he is our priest) v.13. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, (he is God) and his eyes were like blazing fire (like the torch or the lamp of fire). His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace (he is the burning fire pot), and his voice like the sound of rushing waters v. 14.

And when John saw him he fell down as though dead but is told to rise for he that is among the lampstands places his right hand on us and he is the living One who is us and is God and he holds the keys of death and Hades (v. 17, 18).

addendum

In word studies we learn to pick out key words from the texts and analyze their meaning as compared to other places in scripture where the term is used. This offers us a more robust understanding of the term and the scripture. I’ve been experimenting with doing the same sort of thing with movement and symbol and the expansive concepts attached to them. The covenant is a theme throughout scripture. The meaning of the movement…the darkness…the fire…the pieces in covenant ceremony is what attracts me here.

if...

If you live in the ghetto and your radiator cap got stolen because your hood won't lock, nor will your doors...and you don't have time or wanna spend the money to buy a spanking new radiator cap for the junkiest vehicle you've ever owned...and you don't know how much longer it will run...but you need to do something to keep the radiator fluid from spewing out of the radiator...this is your ingenious quick fix.

(1) Cut off the top and the bottom of an apple or a potato so that it is at least 2 inches thick. (2) Whittle the circumference of the apple down to the where you can wedge it into the radiator opening. (3) Wire the apple onto the radiator as pictured.

the price of a free gift

Miroslov Volf was a guest speaker at the Seminary last week. He spoke very eloquently on topics of forgiveness. It was all very impressive and sparked some very thoughtful conversations amongst my friends and associates. Thursday evening Volf talked about three categories or modes of existence. We can live in coercion, sales or gift. Living coercively involves using our charms and gifts to get those things we want from other people, whether they desire to give them to us or not. We exploit others and in that process we also exploit ourselves. Sales involves a this for that transaction. We know what that is all about. Everything is sales now-a-days. And gift—true gift—is very rare. One gives freely with no expectation of getting a return—ever! The later is what poets and idealists dream and write of. It is a risky grace. It shipwrecks a cost-benefit economy and also runs the risk of being shipwrecked by it in return. Yet it forces one to live in open-handed hope. Hope that a gift would be given freely in return and that the human community would be built up by pure gift. And that this community would begin with you and me. That this gift that the God of all being has given to us freely so that we can give a truly free gift in the agony filled hope that a free gift would be returned, so that the both of us would be enhanced in our being by the life-giving, mutual benefit of gift giving.

However, the pinnacle moment was when Volf mentioned in passing that these concepts are only articulated out of the shining examples of his saintly nanny and his father. Later, someone prompted him to tell us about the examples his father left him. And this was the most memorable of anything he said. He went on and on, telling us stories about his father. One of them was about when he was young and his five-year-old brother had died at the hands of a man, in an accident with a cart. His father, in response, spent an entire day traveling to find this man, to tell him that he did not hold him responsible.

This demonstration of forgiveness and love is a gift of more value than anything in the world that money can buy. Thus, whatever the price, whatever it costs to offer such a gift, one should take it, even if it takes a lifetime to find the person. Even if it costs a thousand dollars. Even if it costs a million dollars and all your energy and health. If you sacrifice everything: this is a true gift. The greater the offense…the greater the price…the greater the opportunity to give an EXPENSIVE gift for FREE.

But most of the time the gift won't cost us a million dollars. We wish it would. Instead it will cost us pride, fame, fortune. To give such a gift will humiliate us and correct us.

those churches where they roll around on the floor

Sometimes I tell personal stories and use jargon that make people respond to me as though they are kindly acknowledging my charismatic Pentecostal perspectives. That’s really funny to me because I’ve never been a part of a charismatic Pentecostal church service for more than a Sunday or two. I’m familiar with some of the “traditions” and expressions of that movement—about as familiar as I am with the African American church traditions.

What is interesting is how people often assume how their named traditions have informed my seeing the world. However, for me it has been different. I grew up in a buffered community where emotionalism was a misnomer for charismaticism. Generally nobody had any proof for what went on in “outsider churches”or traditions because no one ever went there. But there were always opinions about what happened in those churches when the rare topic emerged. It was experiences for which I had no words that drove me to begin looking for an expression for it. I’ve struggled to put language to the experience. I found some expression and language for these mystical experiences in the “charismatic dictionary” so to speak but not enough to snag me. I’ve heard about word of knowledge, prophetic utterance, speaking in tongues, casting out demons, holy laughter, slain in the spirit and holy rollers. After a bout of reading at a U of M library, I would begin talking about premonitions, extrasensory experience, centering, transcendental meditation, multiple personality disorder, shape shifting, projection.

As for the experiences.

At times it was as if a viewing window to the future opened and closed for me. Sometimes I would feel an emotion that was not my own but came from someone standing near me. Once I was with a friend when he spoke to me in voices other than his own voice. It was as though he was bleeping in and out of himself. Sometimes I could unexpectedly feel someone’s presence in a particular location of a campus of buildings and out of curiosity I would go to see and there he/she was.

Once after a period of time in a concerted search for language, two of my mentorees who had decided to leave the Mennonite church, approached me with a story they thought would shock me. They too were on a search of their own and had ended up in a church as they described—“Well, last night we randomly went to a church in town. And, you know those churches where they roll around on the floor. Well, we went up front at the end of the service and we were rolling on the floor too.”

the giver and taker of life: reflections on death and who done it

When we speak of God as the giver and taker of life, we speak of him as the Creator. If he had not created, then there would be no life but his own. There would then also be no death. In this we speak of God as the ultimate Cause-creation the effect. Conclusively, God is the giver and taker of life.

There then is no question that God gives life both eternal and human life. But there is a question of whether he is the taker of life. For if he is also the taker of life then he must be called a murderer. But how can God create such as he does then destroy that which he created in a murderous act. Such a being would not be God.

Perhaps we are making to large of a statement when we say, "God is the giver and the taker of life." To say such within the realm of infinity would be to make a correct statement. But to say so within the context of our human experience would result in making an incorrect statement or it would result in calling God a murderer. If God is God he could not be a murderer. For if God were a murderer, he would not be God. Thus, within the context of human finitude, God does not take life. Mankind takes his fellow's life. Man takes his own life. Woman conceives and gives life to another. Woman takes life. A child's life is snuffed our nearly as soon as it speaks. The child is not born. Is God responsible?

Has God taken this life? Is God a murderer? These are inappropriate questions for they force infinity into the confines of finitude. Yet to answer appropriately within the finite context we say, "No, God has not murdered, yet his angels have taken the soul to the Lord's bosom." Yet the body remains lifeless, dead, rotting in the soil. Who then has done THIS thing?

You and I have. Satan has. We have made Satan our god and we have rebelled against God and caused this dead, rotting in the soil thing.

So, whether we pull the trigger or whether we sin and someone dies or I die. We have done murder. Our decision to rebel has taken the life of another and takes our own life as well.

keeping short accounts

Everyone knows what it’s like to be wronged by someone else. Everyone knows what it’s like to realize suddenly that you have wronged, offended or hurt someone. Yet there is a world of difference between the response possibilities when in the middle of either scenario.

Recently, I “accidentally” put an end to 8 years of avoidance between two parties involved in an ancient love triangle. I invited a friend to a birthday dinner for another friend. The birthday girl invited her best friends; a couple that I had lost touch with over the years. So, the couple and the birthday girl and I were sitting in a restaurant waiting for my friend to show up. He came through the door. I watched as the couple recognized him and their eyes turned into saucers as they gripped the table with white knuckles and ashen faces. My friend sat down. Everyone maintained normalcy for the birthday dinner. However, the story came out over coffee after my friend left. Evidently, 8 years ago, the female part of the couple had been out on a date with my friend, who had joined us. Her roommate called her while she was on this date and it was conveyed to the roommate’s companion (the female’s present husband) what she was up to—to which he responded, “Oh, NO!” The female overheard this cry of distress over the phone, while on the date with my present friend. A short time later a “rescue party” (among them her present husband and then roommate) showed up to interrupt her date. Her husband recalls simply making a lame excuse, grabbing her by the arm and leading her away. In the end, evidently, she had liked her present husband all along, however, since he was sitting on his duff...er, wasn’t initiating, she had begun to accept other offers.

So, a few months after the interrupted date, the duff sitting man, now alter standing man and the woman got married, without their community’s blessing because of numerous other convoluted circumstances. But here’s the most bizarre part about the story. For the past 8 years, this couple has been avoiding this young man. If ever they happened to be at the same gathering, the couple would pick up and leave. Their feeling of guilt was apparent and the moment of culpability was just like it happened yesterday.

I have several reactions to this scenario. One, I in no way feel apologetic for any discomfort I caused anyone that evening, because of one uncomfortable evening around the table of celebration, the said Lord’s supper, 8 years of running away was put to an end. It was as if this was a foreshadowing of things to come in the kingdom of God for those who intend to sit down at God’s table with brothers--only to be made uncomfortable. Two, it never ceases to amaze me what folks sacrifice on the alter of Eros. This couple had sacrificed community, church and all their former friends. Three, it amazes me as to what gymnastics are performed to avoid the difficult moment in the process to resolution: a full encounter of wrongs committed and forgiveness given. Given this and other stories like it, I think someone should write a book series, the first should be entitled, “War: pacifism in a culture of violence.” And the second should be entitled, “Love: pacifism in a culture of addictive love.”

Keeping short accounts is essential to being Christian and more importantly to being a pacifist Christian. Wrongs committed would be made right quickly, so that the gospel of peace would not be defamed among Christ’s followers. The personal and social agony of unresolved tensions causes more discomfort and than the uncomfortable moments in the process to resolution. I would prefer almost anything to 8 years of running away. It seems that offenders could so quickly put an end to their own feelings of guilt by simply apologizing and asking for absolution. This is the story of the prodigal son. Or even if the “offender” is paralyzed by his offense to the other (be it however minor), could “the other” not emulate Christ to his brother by pursuing him relentlessly, proclaiming, “I forgive you!” This is the story of the Father who has pursued us while we were yet in our sins.

I think ultimately the root of the matter is: we don’t really believe in forgiveness. We fear that we are not forgiven.

All is fair in love and war—Christ rules only over my mediocrity.

wilderness retreat

I didn’t know people sponsored programs such as this one but my neighbor just referred me to the wilderness retreats that Fred does. He is Orthodox and the following sites are a part of his ministry and work.

http://www.antiochian.org/SOYO/wilderness

http://www.nrpe.org/profiles/profiles_vi_C_19_01.htm

I highly recommend the retreat of solitude. I tried it a few years ago. I didn’t have anything to go on other than this unquenchable need to be alone with God. So I ignored everything people were trying to say to me. I got into my junker truck and drove for 5 days straight, stopping only to sleep and eat a bit.

In the desert, as I was detoxing from my life, as the sun went down on the Mojave—a cascade of emotions washing over me: confusion, fear, exhaustion, dehydration, loneliness, effects of exploitation and fear of stranger.

I opened my Bible and began reading where I first put my finger…

The familiarity of the passage caught me by surprise. Its meaning was enriched as I recalled the exegetical paper I had done on this passage some time past.

Psalm 102

1 Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry for help come to you. 2 Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly. 3 For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. 4 My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food. 5 Because of my loud groaning I am reduced to skin and bones. 6 I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. 7 I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof. 8 All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse. 9 For I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears 10 because of your great wrath, for you have taken me up and thrown me aside. 11 My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

12 But you, O Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations. 13 You will arise and have compassion on Zion, for it is time to show favor to her; the appointed time has come.

I was strangely filled, as the stars popped out to hang over my shoulders.

when tempted—engage strategically

I’ve been contemplating strategies and spiritual disciplines when encountering temptation. I was at a stand still over two different approaches. One is on the opposite of the continuum from the other: you can either face temptation like an animal stalking its prey or run for your life. We hear of the nobility and honorableness of the later one quite often—or at least I have in the more fundamental circles. Joseph’s response to the temptation of Potiphar’s wife is their showcase story. Joseph is the hero. He resisted valiantly, leaving his coat behind in order to escape temptation and was falsely accused and thrown into jail. It was the best case scenario for the situation. Or is it?

I’ve noticed a different approach. And I think I prefer it. Two of my mentors have talked about in different ways. One says, “lean into your fear.” The other often said, “Don’t run from a temptation—look it square in the eyes and then walk toward it, purposefully.” Over come it—don’t run away.

It stands to reason. If one avoids tempting situations, one can spend their entire life walking around tempting situations. It seems a very encumbered existence to walk around things all the time. Wouldn’t it be better if that tempting thing no longer had a leash on you? How does that happen? Jesus gives us an example of how to overcome temptation, with his desert experience. He confronts it with authority and with truth (Scripture).

I’ve also read an Eldridge book recently. His advice concurs. When Satan brings a situation of temptation into our lives—that very moment is a possibility for victory. We are not to run from it, for it is our big chance, it is our possibility for victory over the temptation. It is a matter of perspective—Is the glass half full or is it half empty? Is this your opportunity to set a precedent for overcoming this temptation or is it the moment to again bow to the temptation’s power over you?

The question Eldridge answers is, how does temptation not become temptation anymore? How does that addiction dissipate? How can one suddenly give a decided, “no” to something that once held him/her over the barrel.

Healing.

It’s so simple but obscure and nonsensical to most. Healing is the answer. We are inexplicably drawn to/attached to the things that have hurt us deeply. Those incidents are written onto our souls. We grasp for salve that would heal us, but Satan stands there offering us salt for our wounds. We long for healing so much that we trick ourselves into believing that the bowl of salt is the salve. And we take it and apply it, only to come away with more pain in the same wound. The boy who broke up with me. And the boys who continue to break up with me. The friend who betrayed me. And the friends who continue to betray me. The church leader who humiliated me. And the authority figures who continue to humiliate me. If I am not healed, where healing is enabled by my forgiveness of the other, then this moment of my wounding will reoccur forever, presenting itself as a temptation to sin--forever.

Behind every temptation there is a wound. And behind every wound there is Jesus waiting to heal. Encountering the temptation involves an authentic encounter with the fears and terrors of one’s past woundings.

Therefore, lean into your fear. Grab your temptation by the horns and in the power and strength that God gives you—be an overcomer.

Gen 21:14 Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the desert of Beersheba. 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob. 17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation." 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

spiritual nutrition

Give yourself what you need to live well, so you don’t begin to lust after the counterfeits.

There is an understanding nutritionists often implement when dealing with “random” cravings people sometimes get for foods that aren’t good for them. People tend to believe their cravings are random or bad habits or something of that nature. Often that’s part of the deal. Yet, there is a reason behind every craving. The answer is found in satisfying that craving with the best available. For random potato chip and French fry cravings, often it is the essential oils that run missing from a daily diet and the body will make do with the other oils we feed it by demanding McDonalds too often. Sometimes we beat ourselves up over the helpless cravings which seem to randomly call our names and render us helpless. Yet I don’t think it is random. Things call our name for reasons. It is how we respond that makes all the difference about whether we will live well or die early.

I often carry a bag of apples in my car. Apples expand in your stomach and help you feel full. I found that too often I would be driving somewhere and suddenly I’d be hungry and everything along the road would look fabulously delicious.

Food addictions are somewhat the same as nutrition deficiencies, but more complex. Instead of nutritional deficiencies being to blame, psychological and emotional wounds feed these addictions.

I used to like water. It was like sunlight. You take it for granted until suddenly it’s dark. You see, it was sort of like one day it started getting darker. And every day it got progressively darker until...suddenly...I realized—it was dark.

The same thing happened with the water. It was a part of basic existence. Then, I started to drink those sweet drinks they offered me. I liked the taste. They were my treat. But some time later, I noticed I wasn’t drinking water anymore. I decided I would drink only water again but I forgot how.

Mom's Handiwork

About 33 years ago my mother began her career in raising 10 children. It was quite the adventure, as I recall. Never a dull moment. 33 years later my parents are going through the empty nester life stage, with only my youngest brother living at home. What do they do? Well, my father does what he always did, build stuff, fix stuff, plant, harvest, milk cows. And in the evening, he relaxes in his easy chair and reads. The house can fall down around his ears and he’ll still sit in that chair reading. But my mom—she does other things because she hasn’t convinced any of her children to come live at home again. Her latest interest has been to braid rugs, such as the one depicted above. Any time I come home she’s got several more rugs done. They are sturdy and beautiful. If anyone wants to buy a rug, let me know. I’m becoming my mom’s distributor and fair trade advocate.
Each rug is one of a kind. And my mom can even make one into the colors of your choice.

She also makes quilts. Last time I was at home she told us how she went dumpster diving outside the second-hand store for rags to put into her rug. My friends Josh and Mark have a story about dumpster diving for second hand food (read their story here)... but rescuing the twice thrown away...I struggle between two polar reactions: junior high embarrassment or perhaps awe, because it's one level more...something.

sleep deprived humor

Okay, so, it’s crunch time at work as we are gearing up for the next quarter. Since, I generally get really goofy when I am sleep deprived and everything is funny, I thought I’d share something I found really funny. This would be great YouTube material. Someone who is unemployed would have to be the actor though...cause otherwise it would be great getting fired material too.

Reasons to give when caught sleeping at work.

1. They told me at the blood bank this might happen.

2. This is just a 15 minute power-nap like they raved about in that time management course you sent me to.

3. Whew! Guess I left the top off the Wite-Out. You probably got here just in time!

4. I wasn’t sleeping! I was meditating on the mission statement and envisioning a new paradigm.

5. I was testing my keyboard for drool resistance.

6. I was doing a highly specific Yoga exercise to relieve work – related stess. Do you discriminate toward people who practice Yoga?

7. Dang! Why did you interrupt me? I had almost figured out a solution to our biggest problem. Did you know that the dude who invented the sewing machine, fell asleep from exhaustion when trying to figure out where to put the hole in the needle. He had a dream and in it he encountered the solution.

8. The coffee machine is broken…

9. Someone must have put decaf in the wrong pot…

10. …in Jesus’ name, Amen.

got personality!!??

I found this fun little personality test online. Thought I’d recommend it and show my results.

I try not to take these too seriously but am open to what God might be showing me through them. As sometimes it’s good to look into the mirror and pray about what is seen there.

Advocacy makes sense. I do a lot of that. Inventor. My grandparents and my fathers side of the family they are all inventors. I thought the masculinity/femininity measure was kinda funny—especially when a woman scores higher in the masculine than in the feminine. But I’m not surprised. And I suppose the good ol Mennonite value of functionality is a trusty pillar but, thank God, it does not banish me to the land of boredom because I’ve been blessed with an imagination.

A scripture came to me in response to my lowest score:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5, 6

If you find this fun, and take the quiz, let me know how you score.

My Personal Dna Report

uncivil discourse

So, I went to this talk at the Walker Art Center, entitled, Uncivil Discourse. It was a classy event with all the suits in the city, with appetizers and linens and an informational speech. The socializing proved profitable and a bit surprising as I met the mayor’s communications director and some infiltrators affiliated with emergent, who knew my sister. Wow! It’s a small world after all.

The talk was about the outrage industry and how they exploit the common citizen. The outrage industry is simply any public figure or organization who entices their audience into a particular perspective or action via manipulative speech or propaganda that taps into fear and anger. Those in the advertising industry know—yes, this is how it actually is supposed to work. But for those who enjoy a higher level response and interchange, realize the intellectual bankruptcy of such a response audience—indicative also of comparable low-level emotional commitment and by-in.

In the public arena issues are set up with no middle ground or trajectory for resolution. Issues are set up in a polarity that gains a figurehead or a platform political advantage. Collaboration and collective problem solving between the positions that have been framed in a polarized structure would be bad for politics. It would be bad for the outrage industry. It would be bad for me because I would have to think constructively. I would maybe have to do something more than rant and rave and beg the question. And quite frankly, I like ranting and raving. I get a high off the head trip where I eloquently tear apart someone else’s and establish how mature and intelligent I am with my alternative argument.

...okay,...back to the presentation. Those of us who are most vulnerable to being drawn by the voice that tempts our adrenaline levels. A transient existence gives us little or no context to tie us into the world of flesh and bone. Our highly mobile culture uproots us. Generally, for security we naturally choose to embrace the things that feel familiar to us. We settle into homogenous communities. We self-select our own news and information sources which feed into and affirm our set of beliefs. Ignorance, prejudice and intolerance percolate in these communities of sameness, whether they are virtual or our own special urban tribe. All we need is someone to begin yelling, “Revolution!” “Kill the non conformists” and you’ve got yourself a Darfur. (Okay that's a bit of a fast, long stretch...but you get my point)

Worst case scenario? Yes! Scare tactic used? Right again!

The speaker made some insightful observations. He gave some great back-up on historical trends which bring us to this place in time. He also gave a solution—a plug to join the organization which hosted the event. Okay so maybe he had to do that. But a few things rang true. Collaboration and working toward a solution in peace and harmony doesn’t attract attention and it doesn’t give me that rush of adrenaline. It doesn’t give me that winner’s elation once I proclaim a win over my opponent. There is something pacifistically Anabaptist about that.

Our new edition to the family. He was born to my brother and sister-in-law on March 8.

water

Peacefullady is doing musical Mondays on her site. The songs are sung in traditional four-part harmony. Everyone who’s grown up in the Mennonite community contributes to the sound, participates in the singing. Perhaps it is simply tradition. Perhaps it is simply singing. But, when all those in the community of God...sing--it becomes the unified prophetic voice of that community, into the space they occupy and beyond. It not only proclaims the Lord’s exploits to those with physical ears but demonstrates harmony of life in manner of expression, weaving beauty into the outer thresholds of being and beyond. Or... perhaps it speaks that which is not into that which is.

The second verse of I heard the Voice especially resonates with me. Go listen to it quickly, for she will be changing the song on Monday.

I Heard the Voice of Jesus say...

I begged for water for my parched lips. The heat of the day wore on. My lips scorched like a desert, bled red, as did the wounds in his hands and feet. I asked for water again. They gave me vinegar. But I drank. I drank and drank till I did not know what water was. The sun went down and rose again. They gave me water but I could not drink it.

Cuando se hablo lo escrito se pierde lo dicho.
de La Fonda Azul

lunar eclipse

Hope you all caught the lunar eclipse last Saturday, just after sundown. This was the view from my kitchen window.

pacifist does not mean passive

A while back a friend was ribbing me about not being a pacifist as I claim. He sited my not so passive manner of being as evidence.
Passive is what is expected. To a certain extent we have lived up to the label the mainstream has given us—we are passive. We are not the upsetters of the culture of violence. I ran across an article written by Albert Einstein on Pacifism. In it he calls himself a militant pacifist. And he calls others to initiate an aggressive campaign against violence.
The full article is here.

grace of being

It was a moment of crystal clear consciousness, an awareness of beauty, an engagement of total being—as I recall. I emerged as though out of a drowning bottomless eddy—numb, confused, breathing but not living.

My heart was with her, in her grave, under the headstone I had crafted. Her body was barely cold in the ground. My mind determined that I must continue to live with brute effort. To signify my resolution, I’d enrolled in a language class at the University. I would speak. I would speak even in other languages, an effort to remind myself I was still alive. I would continue to learn—to pursue my goals. I would woo my heart out of that grave, down there with her.

I was walking across the bridge toward campus, the skyline to my right, on a backdrop of the most outstanding wash of periwinkle. The air—crisp. Then it happened. Unsolicited. Unannounced. It was as though I’d walked into a pocket of pure oxygen. It was a moment of pure awareness, encounter of being...seemingly random...certainly, pure grace. I stopped in surprise. I reveled in the moment. I felt a moment of pure God.

the big snow

So, we finally got dumped on. And the city got their plows out to deal with the residential streets for the first time this season. One of my friends called me up and said, “Wow, isn’t this terrible! We’re all snowed in.”
“Actually, I love it!” I responded. Everyone in the neighborhood emerges from their hibernation at the same time to shovel snow. It’s fantastic! It’s like a big party. Neighbors who you’ve never seen suddenly appear—all of them. The Hispanic lady, the redneck who beats his girlfriend, the Italian, the gay couple and the Hmong family with 10 children and I—we all emerge and nod knowingly at each other as we lean on our shovels to relieve our aching backs.