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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Saturday, July 25, 2020

limping toward newness

My feet looked new

My hands looked new

The world looked new

When I came out of the wilderness

Leaning on the Lord

                               Old Black gospel song

__________________________________________

 

They say we live in a ‘post modern world”

Which may be the same as saying as we live in a “post fact” world

 

Post modernism assumes at some level

That nothing can really be known

Everything is a construct

Social or intellectual

 

That will eventually be proven wrong, and replaced

 

We live in a world where we arrogantly “know”

And despairingly “don’t know”

 

on a “real” level

we live in a world where blacks are free and oppressed

where science is revered and ignored

where freedom is revoked in the name of freedom

where people of faith talk love and all too often live anger and retribution

where, in faith communities, crime and punishment overwhelm grace and mercy

 

we have created

we post modern Americans

our own wilderness

 

it is a barren place

and in its grim emptiness we wander

sometimes hopeful, sometimes hopeless

 

we have vague memories of where we want to go

of the promised land of equity and justice

where all live together as brothers and sisters

 

but for the most part we are simply lost

wandering

sometimes falling in adoration at the feet of a false idol

cramming meeting halls in the middle of a pandemic to

worship the “golden calf”

 

sometimes

responding to our plight with protest

sometimes

with violence, or threats

sometimes

hiding, hoping magically to be found

 

but there are those moments

when we dimly see

the pillar of light, the Sacred presence

that leads us forward

 

to something new

and so we trust, we follow

we trod, we trod, we trod

helping each other along

leaving no one behind

 

leaning on Jesus

tired and limping our way

toward newness

 

 


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