(Hat tip to JD Walt www.jdwalt.com)
BEHOLD
A command not to look
Instead you must see
Or not a command but a plea
Behold... Pay attention
The virgin shall conceive
Shepherds and stars
Inkeepers, Magi travel afar
Behold... Pay attention
A homeless savior
For a homeless world
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Friday, October 01, 2010
Friends and Suicide
To Tyler Clementi 18, Seth Walsh 13, Asher Brown 13, Raymond Chase 19, Caleb Nolt 14...
In a better world, I bet we could have been friends, we could have been best friends. I am sure I would have delighted in the miracle of each of you. Had I known you.
The truth is though, I don't know you nor did your tormentors. They failed to recognize your special creation, the God created image fused into your very skin, the love that formed the arches and structures of your soul. They did not see that you were a child of God, and a person of worth. In a better world, I could pity them that they never really met you... but I do not live in a better world, and all I feel towards them is anger... all I feel is pain. There is a mission to be done, a miracle God ordained for you to accomplish, a place in the world that will be forever empty because of the loss of you. We never will know how the world would have been changed through your life journey. It was simply taken from us and suffocated in a never ending wave or personal abuse and hate. I am so sorry the world did not savor the mystery of you. it is truly our loss.
We are in so many ways responsible for what happened to you. Though you were loved by many of your family and friends, completely and truly, there were far to many of the rest of us who buried your pain under a deep blanket of apathy and ignorance. I'm sorry that the generations before you failed to create a better world. Forgive us, we don't know what we are doing.
I wish I could say that I didn't feel some anger towards you also. I hate that you left this wide world without you. I hate it for your family, and the people who loved you. I cannot imagine what they go through each day... but this pain and this anger will diminish. It will falter because I also understand. Your families understand. Your friends understand. The suffering was overwhelming, the loneliness too intense. You got lost, we all know that that can happen. When you see our anger I hope that you understand that at these moments there is more than enough anger to go around.
I also promise you this... We will try harder to teach people they are valuable. We will work harder to love them. We will reach still further in hopes that one fine morning, you and all those like you, these God created God loved souls, will be so understood, so valued, that they will accomplish all life had for them to accomplish, and thereby transform the world. We will fight the evils and oppression, the bullies and those who hate. We will lay aside the old weapons of war and discord, and fight instead with, beauty, peace, truth, and righteousness. This is the new thing that will grow from the ashes of this tragedy. In this renewed quest towards love, we will reclaim the loss of your life. We will turn these Good Friday Realities, into Easter Glories. This is my promise to you.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, Yes... They will rest from their labors.
In a better world, I bet we could have been friends, we could have been best friends. I am sure I would have delighted in the miracle of each of you. Had I known you.
The truth is though, I don't know you nor did your tormentors. They failed to recognize your special creation, the God created image fused into your very skin, the love that formed the arches and structures of your soul. They did not see that you were a child of God, and a person of worth. In a better world, I could pity them that they never really met you... but I do not live in a better world, and all I feel towards them is anger... all I feel is pain. There is a mission to be done, a miracle God ordained for you to accomplish, a place in the world that will be forever empty because of the loss of you. We never will know how the world would have been changed through your life journey. It was simply taken from us and suffocated in a never ending wave or personal abuse and hate. I am so sorry the world did not savor the mystery of you. it is truly our loss.
We are in so many ways responsible for what happened to you. Though you were loved by many of your family and friends, completely and truly, there were far to many of the rest of us who buried your pain under a deep blanket of apathy and ignorance. I'm sorry that the generations before you failed to create a better world. Forgive us, we don't know what we are doing.
I wish I could say that I didn't feel some anger towards you also. I hate that you left this wide world without you. I hate it for your family, and the people who loved you. I cannot imagine what they go through each day... but this pain and this anger will diminish. It will falter because I also understand. Your families understand. Your friends understand. The suffering was overwhelming, the loneliness too intense. You got lost, we all know that that can happen. When you see our anger I hope that you understand that at these moments there is more than enough anger to go around.
I also promise you this... We will try harder to teach people they are valuable. We will work harder to love them. We will reach still further in hopes that one fine morning, you and all those like you, these God created God loved souls, will be so understood, so valued, that they will accomplish all life had for them to accomplish, and thereby transform the world. We will fight the evils and oppression, the bullies and those who hate. We will lay aside the old weapons of war and discord, and fight instead with, beauty, peace, truth, and righteousness. This is the new thing that will grow from the ashes of this tragedy. In this renewed quest towards love, we will reclaim the loss of your life. We will turn these Good Friday Realities, into Easter Glories. This is my promise to you.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, Yes... They will rest from their labors.
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Lord's Prayer (Revisited)
Our Father,
Who dwells in joy eternal,
Your light is holiness.
Your presence our horizon
May our actions here one earth be guided the by your desires
that here too we may taste eternal joy.
Provide for our life, and forgive us the ways of death,
As we forgive those who have dealt death to us.
Guide us by the light of your holiness
Save us from the messenger of darkness.
For yours is the presence, the heartbeat, and the breath of eternity.
AMEN.
Okay so I wanted to try to interpret the Lord's Prayer in a new way. It is quite difficult... Nor could I ever hope to capture the majesty and grandure of Our Lord, I just wanted to try to recite back the content of my soul as it encounter's this prayer of Jesus. Try it yourself and see what happens.
Who dwells in joy eternal,
Your light is holiness.
Your presence our horizon
May our actions here one earth be guided the by your desires
that here too we may taste eternal joy.
Provide for our life, and forgive us the ways of death,
As we forgive those who have dealt death to us.
Guide us by the light of your holiness
Save us from the messenger of darkness.
For yours is the presence, the heartbeat, and the breath of eternity.
AMEN.
Okay so I wanted to try to interpret the Lord's Prayer in a new way. It is quite difficult... Nor could I ever hope to capture the majesty and grandure of Our Lord, I just wanted to try to recite back the content of my soul as it encounter's this prayer of Jesus. Try it yourself and see what happens.
Sunday, May 09, 2010
To you...
(This is a blog written for one person, who will never see this blog, whom I pray for on a daily basis.)
When I pray, and when I think of you, My biggest wish is that you would choose to embrace your life, to realize your giftedness, to appreciate who you are, and what you have. I pray for you, that you will find yourself.
I pray this above all things for you because the real you is lost under insecurity and bitterness. You are not a frightened little animal some have told you you are. You are strong and free, capable of fighting back the setting sun, and force the sun to rise again. You are capable of a new and better day, a new and better harvest, a better days work, and a more contented self.
Now, you know only want and need and sadness, my prayer for you is that you find joy.
When I pray, and when I think of you, My biggest wish is that you would choose to embrace your life, to realize your giftedness, to appreciate who you are, and what you have. I pray for you, that you will find yourself.
I pray this above all things for you because the real you is lost under insecurity and bitterness. You are not a frightened little animal some have told you you are. You are strong and free, capable of fighting back the setting sun, and force the sun to rise again. You are capable of a new and better day, a new and better harvest, a better days work, and a more contented self.
Now, you know only want and need and sadness, my prayer for you is that you find joy.
Friday, May 07, 2010
The Star Set
When someone tells you,
Try and you will reach the stars.
They forget to tell you that the stars
Like you, are dying.
Frostbite
See the sky here
Stars and raindrops
Barking dogs
Farm equipment
Fields that go on for days.
And there is frost here.
Killing the flowers
Wind that runs unimpeded to my doorstep
Here where the sky hates the sun who hates the earth
The earth in her turn pushes back with dust
The sky hates the dust and we start again
Hatred grows faster than the flowers here
The complexities of this place are lazy.
I don't care to sort them out.
Because they are all the same
Sky, sun, and earth,
All the same.
Stars and raindrops
Barking dogs
Farm equipment
Fields that go on for days.
And there is frost here.
Killing the flowers
Wind that runs unimpeded to my doorstep
Here where the sky hates the sun who hates the earth
The earth in her turn pushes back with dust
The sky hates the dust and we start again
Hatred grows faster than the flowers here
The complexities of this place are lazy.
I don't care to sort them out.
Because they are all the same
Sky, sun, and earth,
All the same.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
Renaissance
I am in desperate need of a renaissance... a woed that means "Rebirth" from the french "ri" meaning "again" and "nascere" meaning Birth.
This need for something new from the ashes of the old is why I am glad it is Easter. My poetry is flat, my preaching is flat, my days are long... I need the light of the resurrection to shine forth in my life. I was reading through my earlier blog posts and I have to face facts... something has been lost. Something is diminished and missing. Something important has been covered over.
And so I ask... that this Easter would be a renaissance... a rebirth, a new imagining... Lord grant me these things that I may better praise you... to reach higher... to life my head into the heavens, my pen into the cosmos and my heart into heaven itself. AMEN.
This need for something new from the ashes of the old is why I am glad it is Easter. My poetry is flat, my preaching is flat, my days are long... I need the light of the resurrection to shine forth in my life. I was reading through my earlier blog posts and I have to face facts... something has been lost. Something is diminished and missing. Something important has been covered over.
And so I ask... that this Easter would be a renaissance... a rebirth, a new imagining... Lord grant me these things that I may better praise you... to reach higher... to life my head into the heavens, my pen into the cosmos and my heart into heaven itself. AMEN.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Ash Wednesday...
So sitting near the altar in the church today is a chrystal bowl filled with ashes and anointing oil. It is the remenant of Ash Wednesday Services in which we as the church remember the imminent reality of death. The reality that one day, in accordance with God's will, God will call all of us to himself to give an accounting of our lives.
How thankful I am to be alive in Christ no matter what happens. To rest solely in the grace he has afforded me in the cross. This places me in a situation of utter need and complete helplessness. Abandonement of self and ability before God. Only he can save me, only his mercy remains.
From dust you came, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the gospel.
How thankful I am to be alive in Christ no matter what happens. To rest solely in the grace he has afforded me in the cross. This places me in a situation of utter need and complete helplessness. Abandonement of self and ability before God. Only he can save me, only his mercy remains.
From dust you came, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the gospel.
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