The remnant rocks

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Yahweh works slowly and humbly to reform any society, starting from the edges and the bottom… It is the consistent biblical theme of themes.  The victims are the victors...

The holy nation… emerges by a divine winnowing process.  The whole group never gets the message, but a smaller group (the remnant) carries the love and hope and restoration forward after each purification (that is after the trials and tribulations the people endure)…

          Richard Rohr (The Tears of Things)

 

“In your midst I will leave a humble and lowly people, those who remain will seek all their refuge in Yahweh” (Zephaniah 3:12)

 

The normal power systems of the world worship themselves and not God

          Richard Rohr (The Tears of Things)

________________________

 

Ah, the patience of Sacred

perhaps the creative power

woven into all

 

that amazing diversity

of color

shape

gender

function

 

that is

the mountains and rivers

skies and clouds

wind and rain (and snow)

 

that is elk and deer

foxes and skunks

rats too

 

that is you and I

that is black, brown, white

every shade imaginable

 

that is the colors of the rainbow

every gender possible

 

knows something we do not

 

that the love and ingenuity

that is part of each of us

that sacred presence

we carry with us

knowingly

or not

 

through all of our enfleshment

 

is more powerful

than small people trying to be big

weak people trying to be strong

 

is a reality that will prevail

over fear, hate, and greed

 

that will overcome cruelty

and all the machinations of

malevolent and malicious people

 

God has always had special place

In God’s heart for “the least of these.”

 

Even more profound is the fact that God uses

that which is humble, even small

to move the work of love forward

 

don’t look to the pulpit

the White House (especially there)

don’t wander through the halls of power

hoping to find the answer

 

look in the immigrant camp

in the prison in El Salvador

in the homeless shelter

 

wander through the foodbank

 

that is where God is to be found

where hope is to be found

 

in the tiny, often powerless remnant

that remembers

to hang on to love

to Yahweh

to kindness and compassion

 

God knows

that is where restoration is to be found

 

and patiently nurtures

the tiny seed

that ultimately

will change everything

 

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”  (I Corinthians 1:27-29)

On that day

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On that day I will re-erect the tottering hut of David

and repair its breaches

    and raise up its ruins

    and rebuild it as in the days of old,

                               Amos 9:11

 

Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.

                               Attributed to John Lennon

______________________________________

 

the hut is tottering

that place we have safely dwelt

no longer

protects us from the storm

 

the hail and winds

of racism, deceit, and greed

have stormed against

its very foundation

 

the poor are neglected

the elderly abandoned

the stranger is not welcome

disappeared

by people in black

 

justice is no more

compassion is a sin

 

the hut is tottering

for a house built on lies

cannot stand

 

a house divided

cannot stand

 

a house inside whose walls

cruelty

is legislated and legalized

cannot stand

 

this hut may fall

and great will be its fall

all empires end

 

but with God

there is always

resurrection

 

a rising up out of the rubble

a rebuilding

 

this is the promise of God

the hope enfleshed by GodWithUs

and empowered by GodInUs

 

the end is never the end

it is always the beginning

 

this day

as we huddle in the midst of

disintegration

 

remind us Beloved

that you

are the One who makes

all things

new

 

 

On waking

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It is Tuesday

Five o’clock AM

it’s Tuesday

why should I get up

I don’t want to get up

perhaps I could lie here

all day

forever

 

it is Tuesday

I wonder what the man of lies

will do today

 

do I even want to know

what if I simply did not read the news

would it go away

 

it is Tuesday

is there anything on my calendar

that matters

that would make a difference

to anyone, anywhere

 

is there anything I can do

that will help turn the tide

away from hate toward love

away from exclusion to inclusion

 

anything I can do to soothe the soul

of an LGBTQI+ friend who is frightened

the old person terrified

the check won’t come

 

the person barely making it day by day

on the end of poverty, hunger, homelessness

 

it is Tuesday

I know I need to get up

pull up my big boy pants

and get to work

 

yes, there are things to be challenged

there are sermons to write

minutes to complete

people to call

services to be planned

groceries to be bought

 

it all seems so mundane

 

but there are people who need to be heard

people who need a presence

people who need to be affirmed

hugged

smiled at

treated with compassion

love

 

there are people who need me

and I need them

 

it is Tuesday

I don’t want to get up

But I can’t just lie here

all day

forever

 

 

No one expected the golden calf

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I can imagine

Moses headed down the mountain

Head filled with expectations

Of how I was going to be

 

In his hands, treasures

The words of God

A vision of life together

 

Where the people

Freed by God,

Led by God

Sustained by God

 

Loving God, And each other

 

And are at peace with themselves

Violence free

Fearless

Content

 

But that is not what he found

Instead, he found a people

Worshipping

That which could not free, lead,

Sustain

 

Something dead

Robbing them of life

And community

 

A bad coping mechanism, a cheap replacement

A faux savior

With nothing to offer

But falsehood

 

A costly god

Who robbed them of more than gold

 

He did not want to be a prophet

He did not want to

See what he saw

 

He did not want to be placed in a position

To reveal

Correct

 

But he had no choice

Those dancing around the golden calf

Were lost

Doomed

If he did not speak

 

The tables crashed and cracked

The dust rose from the dried earth

 

The golden calf

Was toppled, burned, crushed

Dust to dust

a bitter draught

 

it was a painful lesson

a hard stop

 

in the end?

they woke up, repented

And started over again

 

But the journey was longer and harder

And more painful

 

Consequences

 

I do not want to be a prophet

I have the dream of being a part of a people 

Freed by God,

Led by God

Sustained by God

 

Of a people loving God

And each other

 

At peace with themselves

Violence free

Fearless

Content

 

Instead, I stand

With little more than the scriptures in my hand

With that dream of a people

Who are poor in spirit, merciful, and kind,

Ready to be blessed and be a blessing

 

Instead, I see a  people

Worshipping things other

Than GodIs, GodWithUs, GodInUs

watching them make idols

out of power, wealth

and yes people

 

I see a people unable to trust

unable to wait

trying to make it happen - without god

 

using human power

human strategies

human cruelty

 

so here I stand

knowing that what is happening leads only

to stagnation, and death

bleached bones

in the desert

 

the cheap replacements

the faux saviors have nothing to offer

they are costly idols that rob

us all of our humanity

 

I cannot be silent

I must speak

It might work, it might not

They might listen, they might not

 

They may cast me away

And continue their dance

But still

I must speak

 

I do not want to be a prophet

It seems I may not have a choice

In the matter

At

All

hitting back, or not

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Reference: John 18:20-23

A man strikes Jesus in the face for speaking the truth.

 

Jesus

when the man

struck your face

you asked him a question of integrity.

Help all of us

in situations of

stress

to ask direct

questions.

Because you did.

And while it

didn’t save you

it kept you

close to

your own

beautiful heart.

Amen

                     Padraig O’Tuama

________________________

 

What is the worst thing

about all this?

The lies, the cruelty,

the apathy?

 

Is it that the poor are being abandoned?

The vulnerable neglected?

Minorities oppressed and

women devalued?

 

Is it the hate, the racism,

the greed that passes all understanding?

 

Or is it that we are

losing our humanity

the image

 

We feel so helpless

as we are sucked

into the vortex of chaos

and unthinking brutality?

 

Is it that people are being

denied and erased

and that as the hot fire

of affront 

rages

our hearts too

are wounded

 

We are being made into what we resist

people who do not see other people

as Sacred Children

who do not respect

and cherish

 

Jesus when struck

did not strike back

he sought

connection and understanding

 

He treated his assailant

with the respect

he was not given

 

Lord, keep me close to my heart

and to yours

in this time of stress

when the

mostly fearful and unknowing

strike

 

Let us ask why

seek to unwrap

the truth

so that both they and we

see and understand

 

May we create, if only for a moment

connection

a sense of common humanity

 

They may not change

or come to understand

we may not stop

the violence

 

Perhaps those who would

use power

to destroy

will still prevail,

continue on their path

 

We may not rescue ourselves

from the devastation

but maybe

at a deeper level than we understand

we will

Blessed are...

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…Jesus gave his attention to those on the margins, whom society had rejected or looked down on: women living in a man’s world, despised Samaritan neighbors from across the border, people who were outcast because of illness or deformity, or who just failed to “fit in.”

 

Whenever we feel shut out or shut down, Jesus can fill us with this kind of defiant joy and unexpected determination.  And, living in the Spirit of God, we also have the capacity to “be Christ” to one another: lifting one another up, and transforming each other’s experience from rejection to rejoicing.

                     Reverend Professor Maggi Dawn

______________________________

 

blessed are those precious souls

whom the politics of abuse

the religion of exclusion

have driven to the margins

 

outside the circle of worth

and grace

 

blessed is the immigrant

fearfully hiding

the trans person, erased

the person who is assumed to be deficit

unworthy

because they happen to be

a woman,

or a person of color

 

blessed are they

the mournful poor

the oppressed grieving

the quietly kind

 

the shut out shut down

 

GodWithUs is with them

they are the sheep found

the brother returned

 

they are the people

invited to the table, to the feast of love

 

there they are

GodInThem

Transforming

Lamentation to hope

Sorrow to joy

 

there they are in the fields

the detention centers

the unemployment lines

the dry places under bridges

 

being Christ

to one another

lifting each other up

 

blessed are they

those people of defiant joy

 

they are loved, valued, welcomed

included

they are the chased after

sought

by One who will not let them go

 

and theirs is the kin-dom of heaven

new hearts

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Jesus did not intend his statement “Blessed are those who weep” (Luke 6:21) to be sentimentalized or remain unnoticed. Hard-heartedness, or what Zechariah and other prophets called “hearts of flint,” prevented the people from hearing the law and the words that YHWH had sent by the Spirit. A heart of stone cannot recognize the empires it builds and the empires it worships. Lamentation does. It moves us through anger and sadness, empowering us to truly hear and respond to the always-tragic now. 

 

The prophet Ezekiel says: “I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you…. You shall be my people and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:26–28). This is the organ transplant that we all long for, the interior religiosity that all spirituality seeks. 

                     Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, 3/6/2025

______________________ 

 

I often wonder

How people with ashes on their foreheads

and crosses hanging around their necks

can be so cold

so calculating

can talk Jesus and deny him at the same time

 

how they can, without, it seems

even a moment's pause

cut funding for the poor

hand out money to the rich

make people unemployed

deny the existence of beautiful (trans) souls

 

how they can blithely lie

manipulate

oppress

suppress

and deport

while claiming to be the chosen ones

the blessed

 

it is as if they simply

have disconnected from their hearts

 

or is it that their hearts have simply

died

shriveled away

until they simply do not work

 

until those heart things

that make us sacred children

and make us people with

compassion, integrity, ethics

love

 

are simply gone

 

How did we end up here?

In this place where we are in a state of spiritual

Asystole

 

where the Spirit no longer flows

and our hearts are still

hard

stony

 

what toxins have attacked our hearts, rendering them

frail and ineffective?

until there is no life in us?

 

and ashes

and crosses

are markers on a tomb

and nothing more

 

we need heart transplants

we need hearts that are no longer

stony and cold

(making us hard and cruel)

 

but hearts of flesh that beat

and feel

and connect us to other hearts

and connect us to Sacred, to Love

 

We need to feel the surge of the Spirit

The heat of love

With every beat of our heart

 

It is a terrible thing

To be in that place

Where no matter how much wealth or power we have

No matter how much privilege

 

We are simply the walking dead.

Those with no life in us

 

Where in the end

We are cut off

From our own true self

From others

And (above all) from You

 

Create in us a new heart

O lord

Fill us anew with your spirit

Give us new hearts,

Hearts that feel everything

pain, compassion

love

and joy 

 

Lord, come to us in this time of Lent

Walk with us

Teach us, rebuke us, affirm us, love us

Renew us

 

We need a resurrection. 

The tiny gods

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Dear ones beware

of the tiny gods frightened men

worship

          Hafiz

 

Even

after

all this time

the Sun never says to the Earth,

 

"You owe me."

 

Look

what happens

with a love like that,

It lights the whole sky.

          Hafiz

_________________________________________

 

Through the trees the rising sun

colors the sky

purple and orange

an ecstatic and profligate burst

of grace

 

most mornings

my feet would lead me toward the light

my eyes would feast and

my heart would sing

 

but on this morning

I sit

not frozen

worse

indifferent and dispirited

 

the soul, if it is awake,

does not handle evil well

it is assailed and battered by

the actions of little men (and women)

 

who destroy rather than build

conceal rather than reveal

grasp rather than give

 

those tiny souls who worship

tiny gods

of wealth and power

who worship those things made

by hands soiled with avarice and enmity

 

who plod through life resentful

whose hearts, and minds, and lips

mutter

“You owe me”

 

“Where, where is love? Does it fall from skies above” (Oliver)

Where oh where is love

in this time of unraveling?

 

It is everywhere

It bursts froth in the brilliance of the sunrise

It is found the sun, glinting off the snow

In a kitten’s purr

 

It is found in a smile

the touch of a hand

a gentle word

 

Till the soil of my heart

O God

Break apart the hardened surface

the hard clumps of hostility and cynicism

the deep roots of despair

 

Do not let the tiny people with tiny gods

and shrunken hearts

and empty souls

 

rob me of hope and joy

 

O Beloved, you like the rising sun

can dispel the darkness

You can light up the world

 

I can do almost nothing

to dispel the great darkness

the cloud of betrayal

the sullen weight of resentment

that oozes down

from high places

 

But perhaps you can shine through me

Help me to stand

To speak

To love

 

do not let me cower in the dark

for a love like Yours

can light up the sky

Troubled

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Troubled?

Then stay with me, for I am not…

 

Write all that worries you on a piece of parchment;

offer it to God.

Even from the distance of a millennium.

 

I can lean the flame in my heart

into your life

 

and turn

all that frightens you

into holy

incense

ash.

                     Hafiz trans. By Daniel Ladinsky

______________________________

 

 

Troubled?

Oh yes, I am

With the mind racing

heart pounding

gut-wrenching fear

 

that comes in hospital wards

as the word cancer is

whispered

 

with that anxiety that comes

from watching helpless

as the beloved fade

weaken

die

 

There is so much to fear

illness and decline

malign powers

that tear apart the fabric of empathy

and drown compassion

 

a pervasive greed that

never experiences

enough

 

but devours all

and still remains unsated

 

there is nothing one can do

but lean

into the divine

allowing it to embrace

and hold

 

comfort

restore

 

allowing it to burn away

the chaff

of fear, anger, hate, prejudice

all

that destroys love

 

lean until the warmth

of embrace

 empowers

 

not with the malign power

of evil, for some power is evil

 

but with the power

that comforts

and restores

 

Ah, may we be devoured

by love

may Sacred kindle us

until we flame out

shining

 

until our hearts are no longer troubled

and our lives become

an offering

 

a sacrifice

pleasing to God

 

the presence

of love

transforming

all

 

How

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How

did the rose

ever open its heart

and give to this world all of its beauty?

 

It felt the encouragement of light against its being

otherwise we all remain too

frightened

          Hafiz (as translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

_______________________

 

I think if Jesus were here

he would say

“blessed are the frightened

 blessed are the abandoned, as having no worth

 blessed are those who are falsely told they are sin, for being who I created them to be

 blessed are the deported, for there is room for them in God’s house

 blessed are those who are used as pawns in the games of the powerful”

 

“woe to those who are never satisfied, for having too much they will lose all

 woe to those who gloat over the pain of others, for those without compassion create a pain of their own.

 woe to those who seek retribution and have the power to inflict it, for in harming others,

          they harm themselves

 woe to those who lie, manipulate, and deceive, for a house built on lies cannot endure”

 

I think if Jesus were here he would stand on the highest mountain

and look over the beautiful earth

and weep

 

“Oh, human creatures, you who fail to listen when prophets call for mercy.  Who seek

 To silence and ignore those very voices you need to hear.  Those who do not

 understand that all people are equal in my eyes, all valuable and worthy.  Who falsely

 pretend that they have more merit than others

 

How I have longed for you to let go of your arrogance and understand that your way is not my way.  That you are calling evil good, and good evil.  How I have longed for you to embrace the way of humility, justice, and love, but you were not willing”

 

If Jesus were here!!

But perhaps Jesus is here

despite the fact that too many of us have it all backward

And too many of us have ears that do not hear

And hearts that are too small

 

and have not been willing

to accept Christ’s presence,

to listen to his words and follow his way

have not been willing to wake up

to GodInUs

 

Thank God for the saints among us

The voices that speak out

The hands that serve

The hearts that ache

The people of courage who stand up for justice

 

Thank God for those people who are

Jesus

In this time

and in this place

 

and who believe

trust

that the world can do its worst

but Love will overcome in the end

 

 

Songs of lament

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From my heart, I hear songs of lament

my grief is palpable

for I am a stranger in my own land

 

the songs of faith are wavering and weak

my voice falters

I struggle to sing a redemption song

 

So many platitudes are stuck in my throat

Love wins

Everything happens for a reason

God’s got this!

 

Really?

 

It is grotesque out there

in this time when bad people prosper

and truth doesn’t matter

where the rich bully the poor

where justice falters and racism flourishes

 

The Kingdom is near?

The Kingdom is here?

instead my eyes gaze

over an endless wasteland

 

they kill you out there

one way or another

we die

out there

 

this is a time for faith

a time to trust

 

I hear my voice proclaim this from the pulpit

people look up!

the day is near!

the Kingdom of God is nigh!

 

but do I believe it?

 

really?

 

do I trust the power of God

as much as I fear the malign powers

that shred the fabric of our common humanity?

 

do I trust Jesus

enough to pick up my bed and walk?

 

enough to stand up, speak out

to lift my voice and sing

to march?

 

do I trust?

do I believe everything good about God is true (Reyes-Chow)

and live toward justice, equity

and equality?

 

do I trust enough to act, believing

that if act

I will make hope real?

 

Hope is verb

it is not just what we feel

it is not just something we receive

it is something

we live

 

so live it!