10.21.2013

The Radical Priest on Luke 18:1-8

(Parable of the Persistent Widow)

Now most of 
my brethren
will preach
that the lesson of
the text is
to be persistent in prayer.
To pray unceasingly 
as St. Paul puts it.

However,
the problem I
have with this
message is
by extension
the unjust judge
is God.

Whom we
can badger
anything out of
Him 
if we are  
relentless in
our petitions.

Allow me
to turn the tables
on this parable.

God is the
widow.

Constantly 
pleading 
to the point of 
being pushy
to get us
to see His way
is the best way.

And I can see
by the look in
some of your eyes
you sense
the implications
of this.

WE ARE THE UNJUST JUDGE!

Do we
don't care
what God thinks?

Do we 
ignore
what God is pleading with
us about?

Do we worry
about 
God upsetting 
our apple cart
or worse?

(Aside: I never before noticed 
in the  text
that judge was afraid
of physical harm 
by his continual
rejecting of her claims.)

So the 
message I have for 
you this
Sabbath 
is this:
Yes,
be faithful in prayer.
Pray in the Spirit.
Pray in love and truth
and unceasingly.

But also
listen to
and contemplate
on the Father's
continual
prayers for you.

Buddha on Matthew 6:25-34

An old farmer went to the Buddha 
seeking help for his problems. 

First, he had professional problems. 
In his part of the world, 
farming was extremely difficult 
and his work completely vulnerable to weather. 

Even though he loved his wife, 
there were certain things 
about her he wanted to change. 

Similarly, he loved his children, 
but they weren’t evolving 
the way he had hoped and anticipated. 

Listening carefully
as the man explained his frustrations with life, 
the Buddha responded, 
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

“What do you mean?” 
questioned the farmer. 
“You’re a highly regarded great teacher 
who has insight into all of life’s problems.”

“All human beings have eighty-three problems,” 
the Buddha explained. 
“A few problems may go away, 
but soon enough others will arise. 
So we’ll always have eighty-three problems.”

The farmer, both indignant and frustrated, asked, 
“So what good is all of your teaching?”

To which the Buddha replied, 
“My teaching can’t help with the eighty-three problems, 
but perhaps it can help with the eighty-fourth problem.”

“What’s that?” the farmer asked with great curiosity.

“The eighty-fourth problem is that 
we don’t want to have any problems.”

“Hallowed be”

(a meditation on each word(s) 
of the Lord's prayer)

I

Lord,
when I'm in a
church 
that is in 
more awe 
of the preacher
than You,
I believe 
I hear them
pray:
“...hollowed be thy Name”

II
The Beauty of His Holiness

You are 
holy.

Compassionate before a person sins,
Compassionate after a person has sinned,
and
mighty in compassion 
to give all creatures according to their need.

Merciful, that humankind may not be distressed;
Gracious if humankind is already in distress.

You are
slow to anger;
plenteous in mercy;
speaking in truth;
keeping mercy unto thousands;
forgiving
iniquity;
transgression;
and sin;
and pardoning
because
You are 
holy.


10.13.2013

"in Heaven"

(a meditation on each word(s) of the Lord's prayer)

Your eternal address.

You
once sublet
the place
to that
nice couple
You created.

Unfortunately,
 You had to 
evict them
because they
broke
the 
Lease.

And for 
a long time
you let 
the place go vacant.

Then
You decided
to 
advertise
Kingdom Properties.

First
the prophets.

Then
Your Son.

Telling
all who 
would listen
about
the new terms
of the Lease. 1

And revealing to people 
the new name of the estate --
Graceland.


Note 1  - John 1:17

"Who Art"

(a meditation on each word(s) of the Lord's prayer)

I
A Mystery.

All
of the modern 
versions of
the Book
have dropped 
this line,
so why
do we pray
as if 
Jesus
proclaimed
the Good News
in 
Old English? 

II
Jehovah-Shammah

"You are"
Jesus insists.

No ancestor 
worship
of
Abraham,
Isaac,
and Jacob.

You 
are
the God
of the living.

You are 
Presence.


Benediction

Rabindranath Tagore

Bless this little heart, 
this white soul that has won the kiss of
heaven for our earth.

He loves the light of the sun, 
he loves the sight of his
mother's face.

He has not learned to despise the dust, 
and to hanker after gold.
Clasp him to your heart and bless him.

He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads.
I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door,
and grasped your hand to ask his way.

He will follow you, laughing while talking, 
and not a doubt in his heart.
Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him.

Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves
underneath grow threatening, yet the breath from above may come 
and fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace.

Forget him not in your hurry, 
let him come to your heart and
bless him. 

10.06.2013

Our

(meditation on each word(s) of the Lord's prayer)

You made us.

I can understand
why You call us 
Yours.

But it’s only through
Your gift of 
grace
that we can begin
in prayer with 
“Our”

Father

(meditation on each word(s) of the Lord's prayer)

You love us
unconditionally.

You desire 
relationship.

Yet,
You allow us to wander
away.

No Amber alert.
No pictures on a milk carton.

Just
the confidence
that Your children will
 repent their sins
and understand
there is no place like Home.

Meal Blessing

(From a prayer book)

Blessed are you, Father
who gives us
our daily bread.

Blessed is your only begotten Son,
who continually feeds us
with the word of life.

Blessed is the Holy Spirit,
who brings us together
at this table of love.

Blessed be God
now and forever.
Amen.

9.30.2013

Avarice and Usury and Precaution


When the accumulation of wealth
 is no longer of high social importance, 
there will be great changes in the code of morals. 

We shall be able to rid ourselves
 of many of the pseudo-moral principles
 which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, 
by which we have exalted
 some of the most distasteful of human qualities
 into the position of the highest virtues. 

We shall be able to afford
 to dare to assess the money-motive
 at its true value. 

The love of money as a possession — 
as distinguished from the love of money
 as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — 
will be recognized for what it is, 
a somewhat disgusting morbidity, 
one of those semi-criminal, 
semi-pathological propensities 
which one hands over with a shudder
 to the specialists in mental disease.

 But beware! 
The time for all this is not yet. 
For at least another hundred years
 we must pretend to ourselves
 and to everyone
 that fair is foul
 and foul is fair; 
for foul is useful and fair is not. 

Avarice and usury and precaution
 must be our gods for a little longer still. 

For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

John Maynard Keynes (1931)

The Radical Priest on Luke 16:19-31


Sometimes,
when I think of the afterlife
the question I have is:
“Will it be much different than now?”
(In other words: on earth as it is heaven (really?))

Consider this as
we read this parable of the
one percenter.

Does his world view change
with fires of Hades
lapping him?

To start, he still treats
those in power 
with respect.
(Father Abraham)

And as usual,
 the conversation
of the powerful turns to 
how the 99ers can do their will.
(Send Lazarus to cool my tongue)

Next, there we hear
of a chasm.

Except the tables are turned.

The earthly who 
amassed and stockpiled
the gains of the economy
and separated themselves
from the rest of society
now live in a gated community
that eternally faces an abyss.
(A physical and spiritual one)

And the last aspect of
this parable is the benefit
of those who have
power and influence:
inside information.

He pleads with
Father Abraham
to let his family know
to tell them 
his story 
of Breaking Bad
by sending Lazarus.

And Abraham 
tells him,
“They just need to listen
to Moses and the Prophets.
They told the truth."

And the Patriarch concludes:
"Anyway, remember 
where you came from!
Do you really think 
Lazarus would be able to
ring your door bell?"


The Powwow at the End of the World

BY SHERMAN ALEXIE

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   
after an Indian woman puts her shoulder to the Grand Coulee Dam   
and topples it. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall 
after the floodwaters burst each successive dam   
downriver from the Grand Coulee. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall 
after the floodwaters find their way to the mouth of the Columbia River 
as it enters the Pacific and causes all of it to rise. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall 
after the first drop of floodwater is swallowed 
by that salmon waiting in the Pacific. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   
after that salmon swims upstream, through the mouth of the Columbia   
and then past the flooded cities, broken dams and abandoned reactors   
of Hanford. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   
after that salmon swims through the mouth of the Spokane River   
as it meets the Columbia, then upstream, until it arrives   
in the shallows of a secret bay on the reservation where I wait alone.   

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall 
after that salmon leaps into the night air above the water, throws   
a lightning bolt at the brush near my feet, and starts the fire   
which will lead all of the lost Indians home. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall   
after we Indians have gathered around the fire with that salmon   
who has three stories it must tell before sunrise: 
one story will teach us how to pray; 
another story will make us laugh for hours;   
the third story will give us reason to dance. 

I am told by many of you that I must forgive and so I shall 
when I am dancing with my tribe 
during the powwow at the end of the world.

9.22.2013

A Sham Argument



Someone will say: "You have faith, I have works." (Vs 18)

This unidentified person
has wasted so much time
for Christians.

Debating whether 
the gift of
eternal life rests on 
faith,
works,
or both.

Yes,
God grants 
all who believe
in the saving power
of the Cross
and Resurrection 
eternal life.

But
Jesus gives
to all
who are
born from above,
born again,
saved,
slain in the Lamb
another gift.

The gift of the Holy Spirit.

And that gift 
working 
in a transformed life
will be evidence of  
those who
  will receive the 
reward of
eternal life. 

The sola fide
people
give the impression
 that works 
are a 
checklist to go to heaven.

Instead, it is
God
(in the third person of the Trinity)
working
through
your weaknesses 
so you 
can do His will
on earth. 

The works alone assembly
(a much smaller crowd)
work on their projects
as if they were going submit
their resume 
to the Almighty.

All this talk
of work
and deeds
is making me tired.

Lord,
Thank you for
Your yoke is light.

Walk with me
the rest of 
my days
as I do Your will.
Today on earth
and for eternity
in Paradise. Amen.

“The Vacation”

Wendell Berry

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his video camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation. He showed
his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,
preserving it forever: the river, the trees,
the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it
so that after he had had it he would still
have it. It would be there. With a flick
of a switch, there it would be. But he
would not be in it. He would never be in it.

9.21.2013

That’s what Easter’s all about, Charlie Brown.


Believing in the resurrection 
does not just mean 
assenting to a dogma 
and noting a historical fact. 

It means participating 
in God’s
creative act.

If it were merely 
a historical circumstance, 
we should simply say: 
‘Oh really?’, 
register the fact, 
and go on living 
as we did before.

But if it is a creative act of God’s, then – 
if we really know and understand 
what it is about – 
we shall be born again to a new life. 
A faith like this is the beginning of freedom

Resurrection is not a consoling opium, 
soothing us
with the promise of a better world 
in the hereafter. 

It is the energy 
for a rebirth 
of this life. 

The hope doesn’t point to another world. 
It is focused on the redemption of this one.  

Jurgen Moltmann (Jesus Christ for Today’s World)

The Cast of Christmas Reassembles For Easter


Take the wise men to the Emperor's palace.
Wash their hands in water.  
Get them to say something about truth.

Does anyone know any good Jewish jokes?
The one about a carpenter
who thought he was a King?
The one about the Savior 
who couldn't save himself?

The shepherds should stand with the chorus.
They have a big production number -
'Barabbas, We Love You Baby'.

Mary? She can move to the front.
We have a special section reserved
for family and close friends.
Tell her that we had to cut the manger up.
We needed the wood for something else.

The star I'm afraid I can't use.
There are no stars in this show.
The sky turns black with sorrow.
The earth shakes with terror.

Hold on to the frankincense.
We'll need that for the garden scene.

Angels? He could do with some angels.
Avenging angels.
Merciful angels.
He could really do with some angels.

Baby Jesus.
Step this way please.
My! How you've grown! 

**Steve Turner

A blessing for one who holds power

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation,
Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.

As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings,
May your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.

When the way is flat and dull in times of grey endurance,
May your imagination continue to evoke horizons.

When thirst burns in times of drought,
May you be blessed to find the wells.

May you have the wisdom to read time clearly
And to know when the seed of change will flourish.

In your heart may there be sanctuary
for the stillness where clarity is born.

May your work be infused with passion and creativity
And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.

May your soul find the graciousness
To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.

May your power never become a shell
wherein your heart would silently atrophy.

May you welcome your own vulnerability
as the ground where healing and truth join.

May the integrity of soul be your first ideal,
the source that will guide and bless your work.

John O'Donohue,  Benedictus, a Book of Blessings.

9.18.2013

Batter my heart (Holy Sonnet 14)

Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

**John Donne

IF JESUS HAD A IPHONE


Grimalkin by Thomas Lynch

One of these days she will lie there and be dead.
I’ll take her out back in a garbage bag
and bury her among my sons’ canaries,
the ill-fated turtles, a pair of angelfish:
the tragic and mannerly household pests
that had the better sense to take their leaves
before their welcomes and my patience had worn thin.
For twelve long years I’ve suffered this damned cat
while Mike, my darling middle son, himself
twelve years this coming May, has grown into
the tender if quick-tempered manchild
his breeding blessed and cursed him to become.
And only his affection keeps this cat alive
though more than once I’ve threatened violence -
the brick and burlap in the river recompense
for mounds of furballs littering the house,
choking the vacuum cleaner, or what’s worse:
shit in the closets, piss in the planters, mice
that winter indoors safely as she sleeps
curled about a table leg, vigilant
as any knickknack in a partial coma.
But Mike, of course, is blind to all of it -
the gray angora breed of arrogance,
the sluttish roar, the way she disappears for days
sex-desperate once or twice a year,
urgently ripping her way out the screen door
to have her way with anything that moves
while Mike sits up with tuna fish and worry,
crying into the darkness, “Here kitty kitty,”
mindless of her whorish treacheries
or of her crimes against upholsteries -
the sofas, love seats, wingbacks, easy chairs
she’s puked and mauled into dilapidation.
I have this reoccurring dream of driving her
deep into the desert east of town
and dumping her out there with a few days’ feed
and water. In the dream, she’s always found
by kindly tribespeople who eat her kind
on certain holy days as a form of penance.
God knows, I don’t know what he sees in her.
Sometimes he holds her like a child in his arms
rubbing her underside until she sounds
like one of those battery powered vibrators
folks claim to use for the ache in their shoulders.
And under Mike’s protection she will fix her
indolent green-eyed gaze on me as if
to say: Whaddaya gonna do about it, Slick,
the child loves me and you love the child.
Truth told, I really ought to have her fixed
in the old way with an airtight alibi,
a bag of Redi-mix and no eyewitnesses.
But one of these days she will lie there and be dead.
And choking back loud hallelujahs, I’ll pretend
a brief bereavement for my Michael’s sake,
letting him think as he has often said
“Deep down inside you really love her don’t you Dad?”
I’ll even hold some cheerful obsequies
careful to observe God’s never-failing care
for even these, the least of His creatures,
making some mention of a cat-heaven where
cat-ashes to ashes, cat-dust to dust
and the Lord gives and the Lord has taken away.
Thus claiming my innocence to the end,
I’ll turn Mike homeward from that wicked little grave
and if he asks, we’ll get another one because
all boys need practice in the arts of love
and all boys’ aging fathers in the arts of rage.

Love Is Not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; 
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink 
And rise and sink and rise and sink again; 

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, 
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; 
Yet many a man is making friends with death 
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. 

It well may be that in a difficult hour, 
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, 
Or nagged by want past resolution's power, 
I might be driven to sell your love for peace, 

Or trade the memory of this night for food. 
It well may be. I do not think I would. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay

First Shot

Michael Leviton

When I was four years old, 
my mother took me for my first shot. 

We waited in a line 
of sobbing children, 
asking their mothers, 
“Will it hurt? Will it hurt?” 
The mothers all said, 
“No, it won’t hurt.”

I asked my mother, “Will it hurt?”
She said, “It’ll hurt a little 
but it won’t last very long.”

When it came time for my shot, 
I didn’t cry. 

The nurse told my mother,
she’d never given a shot to a child 
who wasn’t crying, 
that I was the bravest child 
she’d ever seen. 

My mother said it wasn’t about bravery, 
that the other children weren’t 
crying out of fear, 
but out of sorrow 
at the betrayal of their mothers.

9.15.2013

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


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.