Marked by Ashes

Ruler of the Night, Guarantor of the day . . .
This day — a gift from you.
This day — like none other you have ever given, or we have ever received.
This Wednesday dazzles us with gift and newness and possibility.
This Wednesday burdens us with the tasks of the day, for we are already halfway home
     halfway back to committees and memos,
     halfway back to calls and appointments,
     halfway on to next Sunday,
     halfway back, half frazzled, half expectant,
     half turned toward you, half rather not.

This Wednesday is a long way from Ash Wednesday,
   but all our Wednesdays are marked by ashes —
     we begin this day with that taste of ash in our mouth:
       of failed hope and broken promises,
       of forgotten children and frightened women,
     we ourselves are ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
     we can taste our mortality as we roll the ash around on our tongues.

We are able to ponder our ashness with
   some confidence, only because our every Wednesday of ashes
   anticipates your Easter victory over that dry, flaky taste of death.

On this Wednesday, we submit our ashen way to you —
   You Easter parade of newness.
   Before the sun sets, take our Wednesday and Easter us,
     Easter us to joy and energy and courage and freedom;
     Easter us that we may be fearless for your truth.
   Come here and Easter our Wednesday with
     mercy and justice and peace and generosity.

We pray as we wait for the Risen One who comes soon.

Walter Brueggemann (b. 1933)
Taken from his Prayers for a Privileged People (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), pp. 27-28.

Desert Prayer

Jan Richardson- Painted Prayerbook.com

I am not asking you

to take this wilderness from me,

to remove this place of starkness

where I come to know

the wildness within me,

where I learn to call the names

of the ravenous beasts

that pace inside me,

to finger the brambles

that snake through my veins,

to taste the thirst

that tugs at my tongue.

But send me

tough angels,

sweet wine,

strong bread:

just enough.

American Christmas Card 2004

I met a man in Nigeria years ago,

an Ibo,

who said he had three hundred relatives

he knew by name.

His wife had just had a baby.

They were going to take it 

on foot

to be welcomed and marveled at

by as many of those relatives

as they could find,

even though

there was a war going on.

Wouldn’t you love to have been

such a famous baby?

I wish I could wave a magic wand

this Christmas,

and give every desperately lonesome

and hungry and lost American

man, woman, or child

the love and comfort and support

of an extended family.

Just two people and a babe in the manger,

given a heartless Government, 

is no survival scheme.

Kurt Vonnegut 

Editing Job

Carl Dennis

I'd cut the prologue, where God agrees 

To let his opponent, Satan, 

Torment our hero merely to prove 

What omniscience must know already: 

That Job's devotion isn't dependent 

On his prosperity. And how foolish of God 

If he supposes that Satan, once proven wrong, 

Will agree to forego his spite against creation 

For even a minute.

I'd keep the part where Job disdains 

His friends' assumption that somehow 

He must be to blame for his suffering, 

And the part where he makes a moving appeal 

To God for an explanation. 

I'd drop God's irrelevant, angry tirade 

About might and majesty versus weakness.

The issue is justice. Is our hero 

Impertinent for expecting his god 

To practice justice as well as preach it, 

For assuming the definition of justice 

That holds on earth holds as well above? 

Abraham isn't reproved in Genesis 

For asking, when God decides to burn Sodom, 

If it's fair to lump the good with the wicked.

Let Job be allowed to complain 

About his treatment as long as he wants to, 

For months, for decades,

And in this way secure his place forever 

In the hearts of all who believe 

That suffering shouldn't be silent, 

That grievances ought to be aired completely, 

Whether heard or not.

As for the end, if it's meant to suggest 

That patience will be rewarded, I'd cut it too. 

Or else I suggest at least adding a passage 

Where God, after replenishing Job's possessions, 

Comes to the tent where the man sits grieving 

To ask his pardon. How foolish of majesty 

To have assumed that Job's new family, 

New wife and children and servants, 

Would be an ample substitute for the old.

I Cry

Tupac Shakur

Sometimes when I'm alone

I Cry, 

Cause I am on my own.

The tears I cry are bitter and warm.

They flow with life but take no form

I Cry because my heart is torn.

I find it difficult to carry on. 

If I had an ear to confide in, 

I would cry among my treasured friend, 

but who do you know that stops that long, 

to help another carry on.

The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.

Then to stop and see what makes one cry, 

so painful and sad. 

And sometimes...

I Cry 

and no one cares about why. 

A Plankless Job

Luke 6:39-42

Lord,

With this plank

I only see drones

not doves.

With this plank

I only see darkness

instead of light.

With this plank

I only see 

what I want to see.

And now

You want

to remove it.

Just so I can

see things 

the way You do.

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light 

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to water ski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.