Who Knew?

John 2:11: "Jesus...manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him."

Lord, how often you manifest your glory in a way hidden from partakers,
But the servants know:
The drawers of changed water and the learners who follow you.

The ruler of the feast asks why the best was kept until last.
He asks the one who's not bought enough to begin with.

Behind it all is Mother, of course, aware of need and
Possibility. (You see her at Jesus' right shoulder.) She knows the moment.

What sort of manifestation is this? Reluctant, secretive, confusing.

Lord, show us servants your glory.

Shriveled Souls

One commentator has said, "No other nation keeps as good track of its sins as Israel!"

Psalm 106, appointed for today's Morning Prayer, begins, "Praise the Lord, Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good..." and then proceeds to list our forebears' sins of the Exodus and the Wilderness wanderings.

Taking miracles for granted
forgetting God's many kindnesses
rebelling by the Red Sea
not waiting for God's counsel,
they craved and craved
and tested him

He gave them what they craved BUT
Shriveled up their souls.

We ourselves are well acquainted with these sins and shrivelings. When I fall away, I feel a wasting away of heart and soul, (as the Israelites were "wasting" or "crushed" in v. 43). The remedy is METANOIA, turning to God and

remembering the miracles God has shown
returning to the ways I know are right
waiting in confidence for God to act
appreciating the miracles God has already done for me.

Remember us, O God, in Your great hesed. Save us from shriveling ungenerous dried up unloving smallness of heart. "Save us... and gather us..." that we may praise You (v. 47).

Amen

There is a God (gene)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview

The New York Times published research that human brains seem to be wired for worship as we are also wired for language.

Oh, if scientists discover God, that proves it!!

Well of course all the research proves, if it proves anything, is that worship is part of our human equipment. Religion confers an evolutionary benefit for survival of societies, say the theorists. Religion made people sacrifice for their kindred, religion made people sacrifice their lives in war. Rulers coopted religion as part of their authority. Vespasian's last words were "Drat! I'm becoming a god!"

It's hard to think of a way to comment on this from my point of view which is that there is true relgion and false religion. The earliest discoveries show floors for large communal dancing as early as 7,000 B.C. How long did those societies survive, but never mind. The quest for ecstasy by 20th century evolved to large dancing floors of rock concerts. Religious impulses call us to the civil rights movement, as religious impulses fuel Islamic fundamentalists.

As William James said, in the deepest region of our soul "seraph and serpent abide side by side." God, help us!




I

Dereformation

After years of the Episcopal Church receiving former Roman Catholics, especially divorced and remarried ones (who aren't allowed communion in RC mass) and some also of Rome welcoming a few Episcopal priests even if already married, Rome is now trying to gather in whole congregations of disaffected so-called Anglicans who don't want women's ordination or equality for gays.

They're doing this by welcoming in married (men) priests and allowing some vestige of Anglican liturgies. I.e., welcome to the 16th century, maybe soon you'll get to the 20th. I.e., Martin Luther was right. I.e., celibacy trumps misogyny as something Rome will give up in their quest to get more clergy.

Damn them, with so many wonderful Roman Catholic women religious already de facto priesting. I think I can follow ancient Church tradition by saying damn them, as the early Church fathers just loved sending one another to hell.

Well of course Rome can have all those anti-woman worshippers. Wheat and tares and all that. But I will be watching with interest to learn
1) What will they do with RE-married priests? What about divorced celibate male clergy?
2) They say married Roman Catholic priests won't be able to serve as Roman bishops, what about widowed ones?
3) And where is Christ in all this?

Maranatha!

How Would Jesus Feel

I'll tell you: frustrated. There's ample testimony that he did. And sometimes in my small way (one must disclaim) I share that feeling. I'm talking about certain groups of disciples, not you, nobody reading this I'm sure. As Paul would say, Oh the beautiful depths the full richness of God! Oh how I long to open these riches and share my experience of light coming through the text of Scripture. But recently some kind of hardness prevented it.

Imagine you sat down with a group of people that say they want to learn more about geography. They glance at the maps and and quickly flip the pages. If you try to get them to pause and study one, you can't get a word in edgewise, the people are talking, they are telling YOU that Scotland is in Canada.

That doesn't happen with geography past age 15 anyway. But with Scripture everyone's an expert. Jesus you often tore your hair out, "How long must I put up with this generation!" Your disciples were dolts sometimes and missed the point and misunderstood and misapplied.

Had I gone on speaking this way, to quote Psalm 73, I would have missed the point. I asked God, why do people not receive your revelation? And then I remembered the parable of the sower. There are the hard paths and the birds who come down to take away the seed. But in spite of all their misunderstandings, Jesus kept on talking to them. So I guess that means I have to go back.

Per Mixta

Watching Obama speak to the UN while praying at the computer: the modern equivalent of "Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other."

Here is the Collect for Peace: "Eternal God, in whose perfect Kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father, to whom be dominion and glory, now and forever."

St. Augustine wrote "The City of God," a big book in which he contrasts the world's kingdom with the Kingdom of God, explaining that we live in "per mixta," an overlap of the two. We here pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done." Now, in Obama's speech, calling for this generation to rise to the big challenges environmental, political, and nuclear, are we seeing the Kingdom trying to break in here?

I hope and pray so. The whole idea got me reading T.S. Eliot, who is blowing me away. "...But to apprehend/ The point of intersection of the timeless/ With time,, is an occupation for the saint--/ No occupation either, but something given/ And taken, in a lifetime's death in love,/ Ardour and selflessness and self-surrender...." ("The Dry Salvages," part V)

Not just to apprehend, but to effectuate, this we all may devoutly hope.

If I'm Already Dead

Years ago I read a wonderful short story called "I'm really dead." A youngish mother collapsed and died on the stairs while bringing in the groceries, but her family wouldn't let her alone. They kept making her get up to drive them places and to get them food. She kept snapping at them, "Leave me alone, I'm dead!!"

Can't remember how it turned out.

Anyway, at my age I have the reverse problem. Immersed in large family doings of adult children and young grandchildren I often feel my wisdom should be exerted on their behalf and my management skills deployed to their everlasting benefit. Then I have to remind myself, hey they'd have to work it out for themselves if I were already dead.

Of course if I were, they'd have my money to help them but never mind about that. The point is, when I think of how they would have to manage without me, I feel an opening in my chest, a relaxing.

Is this what is meant by "laying my burden down."

Now don't get upset anybody, I find when I share thoughts such as these people misinterpret.

Dearer than Gold and Silver

Ps. 119:72
"The law of your mouth is dearer to me
Than thousands in gold and silver."

I worry about money, shifting it around mentally. With no job, a son to support, and housing to keep up--well, it's anxious making. Each day I repeat, "Mei Merimnate," "Don't Worry"--Jesus' command/suggestion/reassurance. Each day I "turn it over"--and I have to say I haven't yet run out (of money).

Toay's Psalm gives a new perspective. "The law of your mouth is dearer to me" causes me to remember, "The body is more than clothes and life more than food."

Dear Lord, forgive my fears. Once again--today--this hour--now--I put my life and finances in your hands.
Amen

The Words of Life

WORDS OF CHRIST THAT COMFORT

"I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly.

"Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

"It is I; do not be afraid.

"My son, your sins are forgiven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

"I tell you, ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened for you."

"She who has been forgiven much loves much."

In the crazy world, I feel so grateful I know where to turn. As I get older so much deeper goes the meaning of "My Rock, My Fortress, My Haven." I flee to prayer, flee to the Word. God is a very present help in trouble.

Preparing the Feast

Proverbs Chapter 9:

I always think of this part of Proverbs when Sunday School is about to open.
Wisdom has spead her table. She has set up her classrooms, purchased her markers, her paste and glue. She has ready the books of holy stories. Wisdom has planned songs and games to gather her children.

Wisdom will provide large helpings of the true bread--your lifelong prayers, your church family that will carry you, the Scriptures to guide you by light of Holy Spirit fire.

Ethel Waters stepping before a Billy Graham audience, embodying Lady Wisdom herself: "Hello, my babies!"

I Can't Keep Up

The history of the Christian church sometimes seems a history of division and schism. One recent big one is the Anglican Church in North America, which claims 100,000 Anglicans in 700 parishes within 28 dioceses (and dioceses-to-be) to become the 39th province in the worldwide Anglican Communion. These churches come from dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy and San Joaquin; the Anglican Mission in the Americas; the Convocation of Anglicans in North America; the Anglican Network in Canada; the Anglican Coalition in Canada; the Reformed Episcopal Church; and the missionary initiatives of Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone. Additionally, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith North America are founding organizations (Numbers taken from the web site of Christ Church in Hamilton and Wenham, MA).

Let's see, there was the Prayer Book Society begun back in the '70s, who don't like the 1979 Prayer Book or the ordination of women. Many within the regular Episcopal Church also opposed women's ordination and were allowed to, on a diocese by diocese basis. Then along came the gay marriage/ordination argument which I believe is driving the current schism. That is, according to my friend Doc, who keeps up with these things, the ACNA ordains women (though so far no women bishops) and they use the 1979 Prayer Book. Therefore, the uniting principle of these current dissident groups appears to be homophobia.

But I believe there is more to it, and that is that the Episcopal Church in the United States I believe for some time has been weakened by a failure to preach Christ crucified. We have lost our fear of God and reverence for ancient truths. We have quarreled over stupid things. We have got distracted over church dynamics and have adopted the goal-setting success theology of the secular world. We don't believe in the Resurrection, and our priests lazily misquote the Bible, or glibly dismiss it. Our ignorance is astonishing, and that is why the schismatic groups appeal.

I can't keep up with the quarrels and doctrinal dispute--all occurring alongside quests for ecumenism (e.g., the Revised Common Lectionary). I have personally gotten fed up with the Episcopal Church (numerous times!) but could not change to a church based on anti-gay doctrine. Better, I suppose, to remain with the organization founded on a king's wish to divorce. I know love and pray with Christians on both sides. And can only tell you the riven and distressed Church did manage to bring me the Gospel, and it has been my mission field.

If anybody reads this, I await your comments.

Hallelujah, Save Us Too!

Psalm 106 is the one appointed for this morning, a long account of Israel's sins from the Exodus through the period of the Judges (around 1280-1000 BCE). The psalm dates from the Babylonian captivity around 587 BCE.

Beginning with a big Hallelujah (vv. 1-5) the psalmists declare, "We have sinned as our forebears did..." The next many verses relate the murmuring, idolatry, failures to remember God's miracles (vv. 13, 21), and provocations of Moses (vv. 19-33) that accompanied the deliverance of Hebrew slaves to freedom.

The people so blessed kept up their sinning even in the promised land, practicing infant sacrifice (vv. 37-38) and intermingling with heathen (v. 35). God punished and then delivered them many a time. "He remembered his covenant with them and relented in accordance with his great mercy" (v. 45).

How could God put up with such rebellious and disobedient people? Because he really. Truly. Loved them.

And now the psalmists pray from Babylon, "Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations" (v. 47)

And so pray we too, from the American Empire: Save us, Lord, from our murmuring, idolatries, and failures to remember. Save us from our participation in the sins of the culture that provoke You beyond our understanding. Save us that we may glory in your praise (v. 47).

"And let all the people say, 'Amen'!" (v. 48)
Hallelujah

God's Point of View from 1st and 2nd Ian

My daughter Samantha sent me a link to a 1997 piece by Ian Frazier (You can read the entire column at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199702/lamentations-father).

"Laws Concerning Food and Drink; Household Principles; Lamentations of the Father

"Of the beasts of the field, and of the fishes of the sea, and of all foods that are acceptable in my sight you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the hoofed animals, broiled or ground into burgers, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cloven-hoofed animal, plain or with cheese, you may eat, but not in the living room. Of the cereal grains, of the corn and of the wheat and of the oats, and of all the cereals that are of bright color and unknown provenance you may eat, but not in the living room....

"But if you are sick, and are lying down and watching something, then may you eat in the living room.

"And if you are seated in your high chair, or in a chair such as a greater person might use, keep your legs and feet below you as they were. Neither raise up your knees, nor place your feet upon the table, for that is an abomination to me. Yes, even when you have an interesting bandage to show, your feet upon the table are an abomination, and worthy of rebuke....

".....Do not eat that which is not food; neither seize the table between your jaws, nor use the raiment of the table to wipe your lips. I say again to you, do not touch it, but leave it as it is. And though your stick of carrot does indeed resemble a marker, draw not with it upon the table, even in pretend, for we do not do that, that is why. And though the pieces of broccoli are very like small trees, do not stand them upright to make a forest, because we do not do that, that is why. Sit just as I have told you, and do not lean to one side or the other, nor slide down until you are nearly slid away. Heed me; for if you sit like that, your hair will go into the syrup. And now behold, even as I have said, it has come to pass.

"Laws Pertaining to Dessert
For we judge between the plate that is unclean and the plate that is clean, saying first, if the plate is clean, then you shall have dessert. But of the unclean plate, the laws are these: If you have eaten most of your meat, and two bites of your peas with each bite consisting of not less than three peas each, or in total six peas, eaten where I can see, and you have also eaten enough of your potatoes to fill two forks, both forkfuls eaten where I can see, then you shall have dessert. But if you eat a lesser number of peas, and yet you eat the potatoes, still you shall not have dessert;....

"Various Other Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances
Bite not, lest you be cast into quiet time. Neither drink of your own bath water, nor of bath water of any kind; nor rub your feet on bread, even if it be in the package; nor rub yourself against cars, nor against any building; nor eat sand...."

And I add my own (Pru) ending (that future redactors may call 2nd Ian):

"These edicts I pronounce because I am your father/mother, and I love you. You are my child, I brought you forth, I gave you your name; and you are mine."

Beulah Land

Towards the end of Pilgrim's Progress the protagonist, Christian, spends time in the Land of Beulah. After slogging through the Slough of Despond, struggling through temptations of Vanity Fair, and doing time in a cage owned and maintained by the giant Despair, he and his friends are granted earthly rest and celestial fellowship before having to cross the River of Death.
They found all tastes and sounds pleasant ["only when they tasted of the Water of the River over which they were to go, they thought that tasted a little bitterish to the Palate but it proved sweeter when 'twas down" :-)] The paradox of religion is that while you can't boast you've "arrived," you do reach a point where you are "there" (here!).

Beulah Land represents Christian maturity, the end of certain strivings. I think often of my friend Helen, who would exclaim, "I'm listening to you girls fret over things that I resolved years ago!" We younger women had to work through our dry spells, our vocational disappointments, and our doubts. Like Christian in John Bunyan's classic allegory, we found no short cuts. Helen, although she had more than her share of pain and struggle, was witnessing to us her experience of Beulah Land.

Those who grow old in the Lord continue to bloom:

They shall continue to grow in old age
They shall be juicy and leafy (Ps 92:13)

As St. Paul says, while the outward form is passing away, the spirit within grows in the Lord. Or: should the spirit within grow tumultuous, fearful, depressed, or any of what C.S. Lewis names as "the law of human undulation," these states are committed to the Lord also. Because Christ is with us in all; that realization makes this land "Beulah."

****

Here is the refrain from the hymn "Beulah Land" by Edgar P. Stites
(Based on Isaiah 6:2)

O Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land,
As on thy highest mount I stand,
I look away across the sea,
Where mansions are prepared for me,
And view the shining glory shore,
My Heav’n, my home forever more!

The composer said after he wrote the first two stanzas he fell on his face, overcome with awe.

Matthew Speaks

Last night I experienced again the Kingdom of God in a flurorescent lit room around a deal table sharing pizza from paper plates with beloved brothers and sisters--havuroth of the adult education group. We watched the first fourteen chapters of Matthew on a DVD and wow!

Here came Jesus, flashing eye and smile, with a voice like Kevin Kostner's--getting baptized by a truly scary John and then setting out to preach, teach, and heal. Every now and then we'd cut out to the "old" Matthew dictating the Gospel to his scribes. All in all, quite vivid.

The sensational parts:

-- Jesus so affectonate and gleeful. Hugging, patting, laughing, kissing the people. When he healed the leper the two started rolling around on the ground together shouting for joy.

--His jokiness, pulling a big stick in front of his eye to illustrate the "log," dumping a bucket of water over someone's head during the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus had a broad humor, according to this CD according to Matthew.

--After every miracle of healing people laughed, cried, and danced; for the Messiah had manifested the Kingdom.

--The utter strangeness of the message smacked one in the face. Usually I think I understand pretty well, but hearing it like this, there was no getting it: "The fish will be sorted at the end of the age." "An enemy planted these weeds."

At times like these you just open up to the message and try not to analyze too much. Give thanks for the ongoing life with the brothers and sisters and sacramental pizza in the Kingdom of God.

Beginning (Again)

Dear Lord, how did You ever do it, create everything?
Where did you get the IDEAS??

Tradition says You followed a recipe,
That Wisdom had drawn up a blueprint
You looked at it:
"Hmmmn, first divide the light from the dark..."
Then carefully pulled them apart.

I saw this operation once, flying to China.
Out the window I saw the place of
Light on one side and Dark on the other:
Evening and Morning, First Day.

How Wisdom created, then? By first making a mess
Then cleaning it up
That's how it works to this day.
Creation begins in Chaos.

For the Sake of the Low-Paying Ministries

"And Peter said, 'Lo, we have left our homes and followed you...'" (Lk 18:28)

This passage always reminds me how hard it was to move from our dear house in Sanborn. I really really loved that house. It was old; the first part built in 1889. The top floor added later by someone who didn't realize you had to put walls on top of other walls. It was all higgeldy-piggeldy. Many things about it were thus homemade and suited our humble lifestyle. The dining room had a lovely little built-in cupboard with glass doors and drawers underneath for the tablecloths. We had a parlor with a stone fireplace that the Realtor called "rubble." "I love her very rubble!" I responded (Ps 102:14). Denny built a big set of shelves in the living room (using the wood from our old waterbed!), and together we re-decorated every room. I still long for that green and white hallway wallpaper with birds on it. But Denny insisted we sell because the kids were grown and we both had low-paying ministry jobs in the faraway city, and we couldn't keep pounding two cars down those highways.

We had filled the house with family hand-me-downs that turned out to be antiques, and many pieces had to be sold for the move to a smaller place in the city. Of our huge "Lincoln bed," Denny said, "Someone came home from the Civil War and threw himself down on that bed without even taking his boots off, and he slept and slept." So many cups of tea had been drunk around Grandma's walnut square table with ornate wrought-iron legs. Denny said he truly appreciated the beauty of the work when he beheld it from underneath as he loaded it onto the antique dealer's truck. A very old--we thought junky--cherry dresser from the country place brought $500.00. We felt guilty not giving all proceeds to the poor; but we felt we were giving up much for the sake of the low-paying ministries.

It actually felt sacrificial to sell the house where our kids had grown up and furniture we had inherited from prosperous forebears. I processed the trauma in dreams of a broad gushing river with our worldly goods tossing in white water as they were carried away. I dreamed of sneaking in behind the birdy wallpaper to get next to the plaster itself. Over time, I could dream that I was seeing the house from the outside, from the intersection of the Old Littleton Road with Rte. 111. The psyches adjusted to the loss of friends, house, and goods.

I can't say we lived happily ever after, at least right away. Denny and I would drive out to Sanborn on weekends from the hot dirty city ; and even he would say, as we walked our dog Abner through the rolling green orchards or enjoyed the breezes of the town beach, "I'm homesick; we made a mistake." But of course one "who puts hand to the plough and then looks back is unfit for the Kingdom..." We had to quit looking back and move on.

We moved on to St. James's in Cambridge, and found dear close brothers and sisters. That is where my Psalms meditations began, with the priest requesting writings for the Sunday bulletin. Denny and I both served in strenuous, full fruitful ministries with addicts, Denny at the methadone clinic, and I in several modalities from detox to outpatient to 28-day WomensHope. We buried dear black-and-white Abner and later moved on with "Miss Gray" Daisy to Happy Valley, whose beautiful Grace saints surrounded us tenderly when Denny was dying. If not for leaving those houses and goods behind, Denny and I would never have received "a hundredfold now in this age--houses, brothers and sisters...and fields with persecutions..." (Mk 10:30)

Now I've moved again. Denny has died, and so has Daisy, and I have another house, in No. Carolina; and another dog, who is Sassy; and new Christian brothers and sisters; and grandsons across the street; and a hope for further (low-paying) Psalms ministry. I see from the way things worked out so far that I can claim that hundredfold passage as a promise "in this age, and in the age to come eternal life."

The Promised Wilderness

The preacher Sunday in a sermon about water presented the image of the Hebrew slaves of the Exodus marching through parted waters and stepping out on the other shore right into the Promised Land.

"As if!" I thought. Would that we could go straight there! If only we could fast forward through those forty years of contentions and murmurings, the golden calf stuff, the getting lost, and the quaking in our boots in the face of victory.

Then I thought, little do we realize that our journey through this sometimes strange wilderness of created being is actually the promised Kingdom of Heaven.

If we are troubled by "conflicts on the outside and fears on the inside" (2 Cor 7:5), we are in good company. If our failures and stumbles lead to "godly grief" that leads back to the Way, then this is where the Kingdom has come: right here, not somewhere greater or more glorious. Once we have been crucified with Christ, as Paul says elsewhere (Gal 2:20) we are already walking in newness of life. This is It, we are Here.

The People of God remembered their wilderness days, not only as hardship, but as a honeymoon time with the Lord. They ate manna. The Lord led them with cloud by day and fire by night. They realized, as we can too, that traveling through scrubby desert we are living in the Promise.

Sitting Here Praising

Can it really be that a person sitting in front of a computer screen is adding to the praise going up, "all breath" praising the Lord? (Ps 150). Does it matter if no one even reads it?

Does it really profit to keep asking these questions? To gaze into the hollow self and go around the usual laments? For a time, yes, because there is a path through it, the Lord's path. The Lord's path of lament, thanksgiving, and metanoia to praise. Speaking in shaky whisper I praise God!! If I try to speak aloud perhaps the breath of the Holy Spirit will carry that praise abroad, at the very least make God happy.

"Praise the LORD from the earth,
you sea-monsters and all deeps;
Fire and hail, snow and fog,
tempestuous wind, doing his will;...
Wild beasts and all cattle,
creeping things and winged birds," [Ps 148:7-10]

Dogs and cats, green grass and breezes,
Brown thrashers and grackles,
Grandmas and McGregors throwing
the baseball,
Stormy thunder and flood warnings
Raining out the game
All bloggers and poets,
Philosophers, prophets,
Whispering and Shouting,
Praise Ye the Lord!

Alleluia

A Melancholy Season

“...before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern.”--Eccl 12:6 (NRSV)


The Teacher may be writing out of doors, where almond blossoms and sweet myrtle perfume the air. Yet, he can’t enjoy his garden as before: sight dims, he walks with fear of falling, and he now hesitates to go out after dark. Hearing fails, yet so does restful slumber; the sound of the bird will rouse him from sleep. His beautiful words describe a melancholy reality.

That reality is: death comes to all, man and beast, rich and poor, foolish and wise. The connection between body and spirit will snap; the lights in the brain will go out; “and the Spirit will return to God who gave it.” All activities will cease. The glory of youth, of achievement, will end in dust. In light of this truth, what does anything matter?

In dearest Denny's last summer on earth, my own strong man was bent over, and he could no longer see. “If only I could enjoy food, that was such a great pleasure,” he said, “and work, just a little, in my garden.” Three thousand years after Ecclesiastes, he experienced the universal melancholy.

Yet the weary Teacher had written elsewhere that “to everything there is a season.” In our own last days together, Denny and I took solace from the memories of dancing and embracing, from the love of friends and from the voices of children. Our faith encompassed all life’s seasons.

Humans Non-Being

"What is Man that Thou art Mindful of Him?" (Ps. 8:5)

I watched a TV show called "Life After People." Scientists and special effects folks got together and imaged the world after the human race has gone extinct. What an interesting if sad prospect.

They producers imagined decay over long periods of time. For a while you just saw vegetation growing everywhere; all the tall city buildings got covered and infiltrated with lush green growth. One after another skyscrapers crashed down. Suspension bridge cables lasted a bit longer, and parts of the Statue of Liberty might last on the ocean floor. But attempted human immortality of encoded DNA out in space (one was Stephen Colbert another was Stephen Hawkings (!), and another was some large-breasted woman; you can imagine whose bright idea it was)--well without constant readjustments, that space station will go down in flames and that last hope of reproducing humanity will get obliterated. Interestingly, the mummies in the pyramids will survive just fine, but the mummies in museums will rot without their humanly-controlled climate. In the end, after a hundred-million years, the lasting remnants of humanity will be bones and teeth (don't these contain DNA, I don't know). An interesting exercise, to subtract humanity from the planet.

But the narrators couldn't help imagining that some day "our replacements" would evolve--probably from apes. We still long to think that some time somehow there will be a species able to dig up our cities, to understand history, and to appreciate creation. The notion of the world churning on as an unreflective jungle makes us sad.

Do these feelings have something to do with why God made us to begin with? Is this what it means to be in God's image?

Armor Me, Yahweh!

Forgiveness is for when
Those grudges come back
those sins committed against you
They beat their wings around your mind like a flock of
old grackles caught in the rafters
until you
Remember: shoo them out the door; maybe
Clean a bit of guano off the carpet... and
Contrition is for
When the devil runs a picture show on the tox-screen
of your brain: your unpardonable stupid-ass idiotic
much regretted self-centered history, the
Locust-eaten times you wish you could take
Back. "All is forgiven," Jesus says; and I try for
Penance, Amends,
amendment of life.
These were ideas when walking the dog today
Sun glinting off her golden terrier coat.
Armor me, Yahweh!
Faith puts out these burning darts.

The Elderly Psalmist

Oh yes I qualify as old:

I look down and see the breakfast crumbs on my sweater that is inside out. My new sneakers fasten with velcro. Sometimes my voice warbles. As dear departed Den used to say, "Eh!"

Old and also a psalmist, like the singer in Ps 71. Despite vulnerability and waning powers we draw on strength that has grown out of knowing God since childhood. God has "taught me since I was young" and today I praise Him more and more.

"I shall praise you more and more....You strengthen me more and more." (vv. 14, 21). I feel it, I do. In church I feel those roots growing out of my feet down through my personal history of worship and through the history of the People of God at prayer. I feel it, I do: a strength that only comes from putting in the hours, from years and years of going to church, reading the Bible, and saying the prayers. God continues to give new life.

So when you see me warbling on my lyre, smile. I'm enjoying the Land of Beulah, which is the place where the Pilgrims rest.*

*John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1954), pp. 304-5.

Persevere

"In prayer persevere, keeping alert in it in giving thanks." (Col 4:2)

The word for prayer reminds us of "prosecute," which of course is related to "pressing" charges, of "pleadings" of court. Persevere also begins with that "pressing" all the action tending towards giving thanks. And while pressing on, keep alert, pay attention. This advice "presses" back from under sloth and ingratitude. Prayer is active, alert, gratitudinous!
Even lamenting Psalms turn towards alert expectation and anticipatory thanksgiving.

This verse called me today even before I read it. When I first woke up, hearing the bird-symphony outside, I also inwardly heard the thought, "Press on." I had fallen behind, mired in procrastination; distracted by other duties; disheartened by failure, anomie, the demonic imps muttering, "It's no use; you're not good enough." blah blah blah.
When that happens, the Spirit says, "Onward." When that happens it's time to start over. I guess that is what perseverence consists of, constantly starting over.

There. I'm up.

"In proseuxhu proskartereite, greigorountes en autei en eucharistia."

Ash Wednesday Fast

Food! Food! I want food:
Strength & solace and renewal!
I crave yearn obsess;
need it to live!!

Yes every word that proceeds from God's mouth
That too; the very breath--but that has not
been taken away. Breathing praying still
available.

But food! How I miss holding slicing chopping
spreading choosing and knowing I can have it
whenever I want.
Never APPRECIATED food so much.

Hunger brings wanting what you can't have
to the viscera.
The povery stuff goes without saying.
I want people everywhere to have food.

Thank you, Adonai, for a tiny Ash Wedesday.