In the Face of Empire

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

When occupied people face the empire, they generally become so overwhelmed by its power that they start to think that the empire will remain forever and that it has eternal power.  Jesus wanted to tell his people that empire would not last, that empires come and go. When empires collapse and depart it is the poor and the weak who remain…The most dangerous thing for the oppressed and occupied is that at some point they lose faith in themselves, in their ability to change the status quo… The oppressed have to begin thinking what seems to be unthinkable.  They have to know and realize that “yes, we can.”

 

Resistance is action not reaction.  Resistance requires faith, so that it can stop being caught up in the vicious cycle of retaliation that favors the powerful and tries to mirror it.  Faith is nothing less than developing a bold vision of a new reality and mobilizing the needed resources to make it happen.

          Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire

___________________________

 

The denizens of power fill the streets, faceless

Armored instruments of oppression

Empire incarnate

 

In the courts, judges bought and sold

distort justice until injustice

flows like a mighty river

 

Victims are victimized yet again

transformed into villains

by their oppressors.

 

In the halls of power, people

who have sold their souls sit

and ponder the imponderable

having lost faith

in love

having abandoned morality

for the sake of convenience

 

At the command of empire

factories spew forth clouds of poison

darkening the sky

until breath is gone

and the planet

gasps for breath

 

Insignificant, marginal

weak

we are overwhelmed

and cede victory

 

What can we do?

Resistance seems futile

counterproductive

violence producing violence

hate producing hate

 

cowed, I sit at my keyboard

fingers stilled

 

There is nothing I can say

nothing I can do

to change the ways things are

 

I am not faithless

but I have no faith

that I, that you, that anyone

has the power to combat a power that seems

unassailable

 

I want to come out fighting

spewing words and hate

carelessly

reactive

 

And yet I know there is no victory

If empire secedes empire

even if it is my empire

 

The promised land is not filled

with the rich and powerful

but by the weak and meek

by the hungry poor

 

who, in love and humility

abandon the ruins of empire

and turn again to the land

 

plowing and planting

hoping for the water of love

to create a harvest

of justice and peace

 

I want to think the unthinkable

that this WILL pass

that I have agency

 

I can change the way things are

I can create a new reality

where dominion is replaced by servanthood

greed by generosity

exclusion by welcome

fear by assurance

hate by love

 

Yes, I can

Yes, we can

 

 

Beyond belief

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

We must distinguish between our beliefs and how we live – our operative faith.  Beliefs are ideas in the head, cognitive expressions, maps of the world, our best conceptualizations of how things are, our credos.  Faith is in the gut and the heart; it is trust in action, a disposition to behave as if something were true…

          Sam Keen, HymnsTo An Unknown God

 

Don’t talk of love, show me.

          Eliza Doolittle, My Fair Lady

______________________________________

 

The Bible says,

The Creeds insist,

I believe

 

A lot of us, it seems,

Believe

We hold in that somewhat vacuous space in our heads

Notions of a God

 

We might be right,

We might be wrong

But we believe

 

And we hold on to those beliefs tightly

Desperately

As the winds of change buffet us,

As the world threatens to suck us into its maw

And consume us

 

Faith, that is a different thing.

Faith moves beyond our desires and fears

Into the kingdom of trust

 

If we believe in God, but do not trust God

We will be fearful hoarders

We will walk through life defending

Grimly hanging on to things past

Traditions

 

And worse

Entrenched biases

Old patterns that do not work

 

Because belief without faith

Leaves us fearful

 

We are afraid of failure or losing

Worried that we did not do enough

Cannot do enough

Do not have enough

 

Life is trying to follow the rules

And looking over our shoulder at

Retributive people

And a vengeful God

 

But if we have faith, if we trust

That God has this

That God has us

 

We are freed

To catch the joy as it flies

To take risks,

To give, and forgive

To welcome

To love

 

We live faith

Faith is what we do

It is living life forward

 

Living as if

The kingdom is near

Already, almost, here

 

Belief without trust is a burden.

Belief, powered by faith and trust

Is Gospel

 

This is the question we must ask

As we wake and face another day

 

Do I have faith?

Do I trust God enough

To live as though Love wins,

Each and every day?

 

Where is God?

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

          The God of the people of Palestine…appeared to be weak compared with other gods. He seemed forever to be on the losing end, just like his people.  This God was almost interchangeable with his people; his weakness was shown in theirs, and their defeat was his.  This God was a loser…in short, this God did not appear to be up to the challenge of the various empires.  His people in Palestine were forced to hear the mocking voices of their neighbors who taunted them, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42)

          The revelation the people of Palestine received was the ability to spot God where no one else was able to see him.  When his people were driven as slaves into Babylon, they witnessed him accompanying them… When his people were defeated, he was also present.  The salient feature of this God was that he didn’t run away when his people faced their destiny, but remained with them….

          …defeat in the face of empire was not an ultimate defeat; a new beginning was possible.

 

Believing that there is something more powerful than Empire is an important and necessary step to questioning it.

          Mitri Raheb: Faith in the face of Empire

__________________

 

Where is God?

Where is your God?

 

Is your god the god of Empire

Found in monuments and massive ballrooms

Found in a rising stock market?

In mansions and megachurches

 

Is your god Empire?

Is your god wealth and power

Does your god abide in the halls of power?

 

Is your god the god of the winners

The powerful

Those who have dominion?

 

Or is your God beyond Empire?

Is your God found in unexpected places?

Showing up in unexpected ways??

 

Where has God been found?

 

In a small band of Semitic people who had

No land, no home?

 

In a group of rescued slaves

vacillating and doubtful?

 

In a land not so flowing

With milk and honey

 

An occupied land,

The battlefield of empires?

 

Yes!

 

Where has God been found?

In a squalling child of poverty

An immigrant king

A “domestic terrorist” hanging on a tree?

 

Yes!

 

Where is God now?

Where, if we look, can God be found?

 

God is not in the White House

Or in the halls of Congress

God is not hanging out at the Supreme Court

 

Nor is God to be found at patriotic rallies, replete with

American flags, loud proclamations of divine favor,

and bad music

 

Nor is God found in the masked forces of empire

lurking in the streets, creating havoc and fear

Nor in the copies of the 10 commandments

hanging on classroom walls

 

God is there in the ravaged streets of Minneapolis

In the woman blowing her whistle

In the man wielding only a cell phone

In massed people singing songs of love

 

God is in the abandoned car with the smashed windshield

And in the detention center

filled with battered brown people

 

God is there in that bewildered child

wondering where her father has gone, what has happened to his mother?

 

God is in the blood stains on the pavement.

 

God is in the field where farmworkers toil

In the kitchen of a restaurant

 

God is found serving meals,

repairing roofs,

and caring for the landscapes of mansions

 

God is found in the slaves of Empire

In the least of these

 

God is not where we expect

God is not who we envision

 

But God is

God does not run

But remains

always

 

Can we not see

The lesson today is love

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

… religion didn’t create hate, hate found voice in religion

          John Fugelsang

 

The politics of Jesus and the politics of God are that people should be fed, that people have access to life, that people should be treated equally and justly.

          Rev. James Lawson Jr.

 

______________________________

 

The Word of the Lord

The Word of God for the people of God

The Word of the Lord to us

 

Really?

 

There is a reason Jesus asked the question

“Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but do not do what I say?”

 

Or perhaps the better question is

Why do we take the words of the Bible

And use them in a way that violates the very nature of God

As revealed in Jesus

 

Who is, after all

The Word

 

Why do people hear the words from the Word

“Love thy neighbor.”

And immediately ask if their neighbor is “legal.”

 

Nuke, in the movie Bull Durham, reflecting on baseball, says,

"This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.”

 

Jesus, the Word, in reflecting on the jumble of words contained in the Law and the Prophets, said,

“This is a very simple faith.  You love God, you love yourself in a healthy way, and then you go out and love the people around you.  All of them.  Keep it simple.”

 

 

But we human creatures have muddled it up.

 

God says, “Welcome all.”

We say, “You’re welcome, IF.”

 

God says, “It is not about merit, it is about grace.”

We create a merit-based system

 

God says, “Love all.”

We don’t

(well at least I don’t)

 

God says, “I love you.”

We say, “I wonder if I have been good enough for God to love me.”

 

God says, “Feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, house the homeless, welcome, comfort and take care of the stranger (the way I have welcomed, comforted and taken care of you),” and all too many of us, and an entire political party say, “Mass Deportations Now.”

 

God says, “Suffer the little children to come to me.”

Which means “there is a special place for children in  the heart of God, so draw them close, protect, nurture, teach and love them”

 

And we say “I think it is worth some children (maybe a lot of children) so that we can have the Second Amendment.

And we detain five year olds

And take away SNAP funding

And kill USAID, thus killing (so it is estimated) 500,000 children in one year.

 

Death by neglect

 

Instead of saying “God forgive us” as hate, division and violence swirl

We say “They should have obeyed.” 

And we turn people into “domestic terrorists”

 

It seems as if what God asks of us is simple

But not easy

 

Speaking of children…

 

Jesus also said, “Become like little children, or you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

 

The kingdom will never come,

Until we let God love us, comfort us, feed us, teach us, embrace us

The way the “best parent ever” loves their little child

(That is even hard to imagine, because we have messed parenting up too)

 

And until with the simplicity of a child

We keep it simple

 

And love God, have a healthy love of self, and then o out and love the people around us.  All of them.  

The fire of love

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

In the bitter cold

The looming darkness

A fire burns

Flames licking at the tamarack

Reducing it to ashes

 

That is the thing about fire.

It changes

That which it touches

It sears and smelts

 

We draw near the fire, lingering,

But dare not draw too close

We need it, desire it, fear it

 

That which warms and illuminates

Also destroys

 

I think, in the warming cold,

Of Moses, feet frozen to the ground,

Watching the bush that burns, but

Is not consumed

 

That fire drew him in

Irresistible

Transformative

Into the presence of the One who is

undefinable

Into dialogue with Sacred

 

Fire of God

Flickering off the dry branches

Dancing on the heads of dry people

Not devouring, reducing,

 

But inspiring

 

I think too of those fires raging

In dark streets, harbingers of destruction

Signs of violence 

Destroying

 

Fires raging in human souls,

Consuming

Burning away not the dross

But the essence of who we are

 

pushing us away from presence

with the heat of hate and fear

 

May I burn Lord

Not with the fire of hate

Destroying all around me

But with the fire of love

Holy Fire, Angel Fire

 

Fire of God

Fill my ordinary being

With your extraordinary love

 

That through me the flame of

Your love will burn in the darkness

 

May the flame dance within me, proclaiming your presence

May love rage within my soul

Drawing others close so you can touch them

The flames flickering out

 

Setting them on fire

With your love

 

Creating a backfire of love

That extinguishes the fire of hate

Prayers from the dark side

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Lamentation prayer is when we sit and speak out to God and one another—stunned, sad, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of human events. It might actually be the most honest form of prayer. It takes great trust and patience … so I think it is actually profound prayer, but most of us have not been told that we could, or even should, “complain” to God. I suspect we must complain like Job, Judith, and Jeremiah, or we do not even know what to pray for, or how to pray. Or we do not suffer the necessary pain of this world, the necessary sadness of being human. 

          Rohr

_____________________________________

 

It is more than sorrow and pain

This cry that rises out of my soul

More than grief and regret

 

It is born in all of those rays of darkness

That gather and surround me like fetid fog

Smothering me with a darkness

That presses my soul until

I cry out in

Lament

 

It rises out of a perichoresis dance of foulness

replacing indwelling love

with fear and hate,

anger and resentment,

sorrow, grief, and regret

 

demanding an incarnation

forming into words

that want to be released into the universe

so they might be heard by someone, anyone

heard by God.

 

Sometimes it feels awkward

This lament

 

It seems more prudent to give God the silent treatment.

Who wants to look bad to God (as if)?

Who wants to have it out with the Holy?

 

But there are those, our ancestors in the faith,

Who have taught us better

 

If they felt God had been neglectful, abusive, or an absentee parent

They complained

If they felt oppressed by others

They asked God to release holy hell on their enemies

In the midst of an unjust world, they cried for justice

In their pain, they cried for comfort

 

When they felt guilt and shame,

They asked for forgiveness

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa

 

They pleaded with God for rescue

And came to God in penitence.

It can’t be just one or the other

 

This was not a sign of faithlessness.

Instead, their laments were proof that they took God's promises seriously.

 

Where to start, O Beloved

It is overwhelming

Really

The evil in this world

 

It is overwhelming

The scope of my failure to reflect your image

 

Do I start with the pain and grief of seeing

Renee Good and Alex Pretti

Shot

Like Kristi Noem’s dog

 

Not precious souls,

Merely nuisances to be removed

 

Do I cry out over the brutality of ICE

As they violently seek to take the strangers

From our mist?

Do I anguish over the poor and hungry,

The forgotten people?

Or express my grief over a nation

Dying from the inside out?

 

I have my own regrets.

Words spoken and written

People harmed or neglected

 

I have that hard knot of hate

That grows in my soul

My desire for retribution

My inability to forgive, or give

 

I am angry, sad, hurting, questioning, doubting, and regretful

How do I express that?

How do I send it winging toward heaven?

 

Lord, hear my prayer.

Hear my words of joy as the sun paints the sky

Hear my expressions of wonder as the mountain

Snuggles under a layer of new snow

 

Hear my words of petition for others, and for myself

Hear my pleas for help as I face another Sunday

When I am somehow supposed to reflect your truth.

 

But I know my prayer is incomplete without lament

I know I need to sit and speak to You.

Sit, stunned, saddened, and silenced by the tragedy and absurdity of the world.

Sit with all my feelings, all

And then offer them to you

 

An act of faith, really

Lament is my way of saying that I believe you care

That I believe you are love

That I believe you keep your promises

 

And you promise to be with me, always.

 

Lament is my way of saying that you, too

Were on the streets of Minneapolis

And that Renee and Alex were not alone

 

That you are with Liam Conejo Ramos

And all the other children, brutalized

Detained  and deported

 

The lambs of God

 

I believe that as my lament rises

You come down

And meet it with love and power

Forgiving, healing, protecting, comforting, teaching, loving… (there are too many words)

 

So that you, and I, and all your people

Might move

From lament to hope

 

 

 

 

Liking who I am

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Slipping

On my shoes,

Boiling water

Toasting bread

Buttering the sky.

That should be enough contact

With God in one day

To make anyone

Crazy

          Hafiz via Daniel Landinsky

__________________________

 

Ah, God

You fill me

If I let you

 

Full to overflowing

With all things

 

Not everything is good.

Mixed into the joy of a gilded sunrise

Into the ecstasy of fresh snow

 

Are pain and fear

And if I am honest, some anger

 

That is the way life is

That is the way You are

You come to me as you are, as I am

 

You are here, now

 

Others would draw me away.

Who, empty and striving

Make me empty and striving

Who, angry and hateful

Taint me with their anger and hate

 

I do not like who I am

Who I become

When I let them occupy my mind and my soul

I feel fallen, banished from the Garden of Love

I think the worst of others, rather than the best

I speak (and write) quickly, impulsively

Words that hurt and harm

That (sometimes) are unfair

 

I am so consumed with my inner turmoil

That I become a divider, not a peacemaker

A person who wounds others, rather than heals

 

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa Lord

 

I know there is time for anger

And there are times to speak out

Resist

 

But how I do that matters

A lot

 

Beloved, I like who I am

When I am consumed by you,

And when, at the table of grace

I stuff myself with your love

 

For then no matter what I do

Comes out of a place of grace and love

 

Jesus tossed those tables

Because he loved all, and wanted all

To have equal access to the Holy

 

I would bet that

Jesus

If they had been willing

Would have sat down with those people

After

 

And said, “Let’s talk.”

 

I want to be like that.

I do not want to let DJT or Kristi Noem,

Or Pete Hegseth

 

Be the ones who shape my soul

I want you

To be the One

 

So this morning,

As I rise

Give me love

Give me Jesus

Domination looks like the cross

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

“In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor, and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People.”

          Eugene Victor Debs

 

“I was there, and I thought my faith was strong. Authoritarianism is a lack of faith = Lack of faith is authoritarianism.”

          Matthew Edward Hall,

 

“Social conservatism and neoconservatism have revived authoritarian conservatism, and not for the better of conservatism or American democracy. True conservatism is cautious and prudent. Authoritarianism is rash and radical. American democracy has benefited from true conservatism, but authoritarianism offers potentially serious trouble for any democracy.”

          John W. Dean

 

My Kingdom is not of this world

          Jesus

___________________________________________

 

Sometimes it is confusing to see people whom I know to be

Of normal intelligence and good of heart

People who would do anything to help a neighbor

 

No matter, in most cases

Who that neighbor is

Good, bad, or indifferent

 

To see people who say

With complete sincerity

God is love

And

Jesus saves

 

Become enmeshed with, and even worship

Power and dominion

 

Perhaps part of the problem is that the church has

Almost forever

Considered earthly power a thing to be grasped

 

God, the church says, is about domination

And if you follow God, then you get to have dominion too

After all, Jesus is King

King Jesus is all

 

“To be a representative of God is to have dominion.” (actual quote).

And so, we have Project 2025, and worse (if there is such a thing)

 

It is not that God is not over all

It is just that God’s dominion is not about coercive power

It is about transformative love

 

If you think in terms of Jesus

How he lived and loved, what he taught,

Christian Nationalism is an oxymoron

Right up there with small giants

 

“If you want to be great in the Kingdom, you must be the servant of all…

The first shall be last, and the last shall be first!”

What about that do we not understand?

 

“Yes,” the evangelicals say, “but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak."

 

Here it seems is the problem.  When you have an angry, coercive God, you become angry and coercive.

When you have a strict, controlling, even cruel God, you become strict, controlling, even cruel

 

But it goes deeper than that.

Most American Christians have been told that obedience is everything

Not just obedience

Blind obedience

 

The Bible is literally inerrant.  If the Bible says it, believe it,

No questions asked

No questions

No

Questions

 

Many Christians are taught not to question,

Not to think

Not to challenge

 

Obey God (not a bad thing, if your view of God is healthy)

Obey the Church

Obey your pastor

Your husband

Your parents

 

Obey

 

Just trust and obey, for there is no other way

To be happy in Jesus

 

But they aren’t trusting and obeying Jesus

They are trusting in earthly power

And they are obeying earthly powers (obey authority)

They forget that Jesus said obey God, and no one else

 

And so when authoritarians emerge and (so often) claim God

The people of “faith” go all in

They don’t question, don’t think, don’t challenge

Ever

 

They obey, blindly

And they believe disobedience should be punished

Severely

 

Obey Trump

Obey ICE

Even if what is happening is wrong, don’t resist

 

And if you do resist?

God will punish you, and we, God’s people, will help.

 

ICE will beat you, throw you to the ground, and handcuff you.

Your car window will be broken out

You will be brutally incarcerated

 

The President (God save the King) will impose martial law

The legal system will punish you

The church will shun you

 

The programming is powerful, and the response automatic

“She should have obeyed.”

“She is a domestic terrorist.”

“They deserve it.”

 

If you disobey, you become less than human

And it means anything that happens to you

Is your fault, deserved

 

I do believe God is over all

But what does dominion look like, God style?

It looks like love, compassion, generosity, and kindness.

 

It is finding enough safety and strength from one’s connection to God

That one has the ability not to control, not to coerce

Not to use power poorly

 

Domination looks like the cross.

Godly domination looks like Jesus on the cross

Saying “father forgive them”

 

Christ conquered sin and death by feeding, forgiving, and healing

By loving

And by dying

 

We need to figure that out.

Now

Before it is too late

 

 

Give Us Empire! Or ...

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

“One day you will see that it is a mistake to love an empire, or a throne, or a crown, because those things cannot love. They can only die.”

          Lev Grossman, The Bright Sword

 

“Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.”

          Mahatma Gandhi, Gandhi: An Autobiography

 

Choose your leaders

with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward

is to be controlled

by all that the coward fears.

To be led by a fool

is to be led

by the opportunists who control the fool.

To be led by a thief

is to offer up

your most precious treasures to be stolen.

To be led by a liar

is to ask to be told lies.

To be led by a tyrant

is to sell yourself and those you love

into slavery.”

― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents

___________________________________

 

Kingdom

My kingdom

My kingdom is not

My kingdom is not of this world

 

Why is the pull of Empire so strong, Jesus?

You made it clear

Very

 

That you are not about Empire

From your first breath

In the dust of a stable

To the pleas of the tempter in the wilderness

To tables tossed

To the cross

 

You did not merely step away from Empire

You confronted it

 

And yet

In the end, the crowds chose Empire

 

They looked at Jesus and muttered,

“he should have obeyed.”

“he should have kept quiet.”

 

And they made their choice.

Give us Barabbas.

Crucify him!

 

And still today

The choice is there, unavoidable

Do we let Empire be Empire

And do what Empire does,

Or do we choose Jesus

 

Choosing Jesus is radical

It is not simply a matter of saying

“I pledge allegiance to Jesus…..”

 

Choosing Jesus means choosing love.

And living love

 

If we choose Jesus, we cannot blindly hate

We cannot blindly follow human leaders

Or blindly obey them.

 

Choosing Jesus is inconvenient

Risky

It can get you thrown to the earth

Beaten

Handcuffed

Thrown into an unmarked van by masked

Agents of the Empire

 

You might even die

 

We always have a choice.

We can choose love or hate

We can choose power over or servanthood

We can choose apathy or compassion, brutality or kindness

 

The question comes

Who do we want?

 

What is our answer?

Give us Empire!  Give us wealth and domination!

Get rid of the leftist radicals!

 

Or

Give me Jesus

In the morning, when I rise

Give me Jesus

You can have all the rest

But give me Jesus

Sit in the Darkness

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Don’t

Surrender

Your loneliness so quickly

Let it cut more

Deep

 

Let it ferment and season you

As few human

Or even divine ingredients can

 

Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so

Tender,

 

My need of God

Absolutely

Clear

          Hafiz

___________________________________

 

It hits me

Unexpectedly sometimes

That sense that I am alone in a dangerous world

 

That all that surrounds me

Is anger

And danger

 

That all who surround me

Empty jars

Seek to be filled

By cannibalizing others

 

Devouring and conquering

Sucking life and breath

From Sacred Children

 

That the word is full of enmity

Of people who want to control

Punish

Destroy

In order to feel powerful

In order to feel

 

Trying to awaking

Their souls that are dead and withered

 

I want to banish this loneliness

Find some way to medicate

The void within

 

This is no time to sit around

This is a time to act

To do

To perform

 

I must stay busy

Or I will simply sink into despair.

 

And yet

The empty place I fear

Is not an enemy

 

For it is in that space

In that stark and desolate darkness

That I become aware

Of a presence

 

It is there that I see that tiny spark of light

So often unnoticed

 

It is there that I face my own

Incompleteness

 

And find not completeness

But an intimacy

With something I cannot name

 

And that something

missing in my heart

is found

 

I become connected

With the mountains and the sky

With the guy in the produce section

With myself

With Love

 

And I am changed

Made tender, fragile, open

 

An O so very much stronger

In the way of

love

Cold Violence

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

To kill in hot savagery like a beast

Is understandable.  It is forgivable and curable.

But to kill by design, deliberately, without wrath

That is the sullen labor that prefers Hell….

It is man, the inventor of cold violence,

Death as waste, who has made himself lonely among the creatures, and set himself aside, so that he cannot work in the sun with hope,

Or sit at peace in the shade of any tree.

          Wenell Berry

___________________________________

 

They sit in the halls of power

The cold ones

The calculating ones

 

They have lied and cheated their way there

Into those exalted places

They have risen high

Carried by the currents of hate and fear

 

What goes on behind those eyes?

They stare out at the world

Not seeing the pain

Unable to penetrate their own selfish desires

And look beyond

 

Do they lie awake at night,

Orchestrating evil?

Do they dream of wealth, palaces,

Crowns

 

Do their hearts swell

At the idea of dominating others

All others?

Is pain the raw flesh their egos feed on?

 

Oh, what they do when the sunrises

Moving from dreams and mad texts

To executive orders

 

They covet countries and seek to seize them

They rain bombs on faceless people

They murder with impunity,

Causing unjustified death in the name of justice 

They torment and coerce

 

They crush the vulnerable

The immigrant, the refugee, the poor, and the sick

Anyone not them

 

Because they can

It is in their power to do so

They dispense pain and hopelessness

And smirk with delight

 

This is their time

But it is only a moment

For evil begets evil

It turns in on itself

 

As they crush and devour others

They gnaw on their own foul flesh

 

Violating love, betraying God

Is unnatural

 

Woe will come upon these merchants of oppression

These perpetrators of cold violence

 

Hate and fear are unsustainable

Such Empires cannot stand

They will fall

And great will be their fall

 

_____________________________

 

Micah 2:3 

Now, I am devising against this people an evil

    from which you cannot remove your necks,

and you shall not walk arrogantly,

    for it will be an evil time.

Lament runs deep

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Terrors are to come.  The earth

is poisoned with narrow lives.

I think of you.  What you will

 

Live through, or perish by, eat

at my heart.  What have I done? I

need better answers than there are

 

to the pain of coming to see

what was done in blindness,

loving what I cannot save.  Nor,

 

your eyes turning toward me,

can I wish you lives unmade

though the pain of them is on me

          Wendell Barry

__________________________________

 

Terrors are to come

Terrors are here

 

In Gaza, children look toward the sky

expecting death to fall like rain

while old white men

plot and plan

and count their cryptocurrency

 

Immigrants huddle in fear

waiting for the knock on the door

for the masked intruder

who will cast them

nameless and faceless

into perdition

 

The poor wonder how far

their last paycheck will go

and look at empty shelves

 

The houseless know

that they will never have a house

let alone a home

and lie in a wet doorway

watching the rich drive by

unseeing

 

People transformed by lust

seekers of power

insatiable

turn obscene abundance into want

 

sucking the resources of the earth

into a gaping maw

of greed

 

the few leaving the many

destitute and hopeless

 

I have no answers

I have no power

I cannot stop the encroaching darkness

 

I can only watch

and feel

holding the pain

knowing I cannot

undo what has been done

 

I want to unsee

I want to feel nothing.

 

I do not want to know

what fresh horror has been unleashed

by people who, in the name of God

sell hate

and seek to punish and control

 

I do not want to hear that voice

of unreason

and listen to the jumble of words

and watch people who know better

support and enable

terrorism

 

but there is no escape

 

so who do I do?

What can I do?

 

Pray?

I have been praying

Seek to do good?

It barely dents the evil.

 

Lament runs deep, woven into my soul

I have been told, Beloved

That you embrace the brokenhearted and

save those who are crushed in spirit

 

O God of love,

this would be a good time

to feel your presence

 

before I forget how to love

and how to hope

Keep on keeping on

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can,

and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.”  

                                                           Abraham Lincoln

_________________________________________

 

I am scared

I mean it

 

Some very sick people

(it is a sickness unto death)

Have almost unchecked power

 

And it feels as if they are tearing the world

And my soul

Apart

 

God is

God is good

 

But people have an immense capacity for destruction

It appears even God gets tired of it all

Sometimes

 

“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,

Who destroys the whole earth,” declares the Lord,

 

How do we keep on keeping on

In times like these?

 

How did Abraham Lincoln keep going

As he looked at the unfinished dome of the capital building

Saw the campfire smokes of the confederacy

And felt deeply how fragile our democracy really is

 

How did he get the strength to say

All I can do is what I can do

I will keep doing it!

 

How can we reach the place where we say

I will not tire of doing good

 

Because I am tired

I am tired of trying to get people to do their homework

Find the truth

Trying to counter the lies that flow over us

Like a river of ooze and slime

 

Tired of standing up against an ideology of hate and fear

And of resisting people who care about money and power

And not people

 

I am tired of trying to be positive and not angry

I am tired of the knot in my stomach when I read the news

And see the damage being done to the planet

And to the creatures who live upon it

 

And as I look into this New Year

What I see is division and destruction

Hate and violence

Injustice and inequity

 

How do I keep going in the face of all this?

 

I guess this is where faith comes in.

The belief that, despite what we see and hear

Despite what some churches tell us

 

God is compassion, inclusion, acceptance,

God abhors injustice and inequity

God is anguished when people refuse to share

 

God is willing to give God’s self completely

That all people might find life, and find it more abundantly

 

Can I, in faith, do the very best I know how, the very best I can,

until I am completely used up

Can I follow in the footsteps of Jesus

 

Can I live love even as hate does its worst?

Can I stay welcoming

Can I continue to listen and seek to understand

Can I work to help and heal everyone

Who crosses my path?

 

I believe that although I am a beautiful mess

That God is there for me, will always be there for me

 

And I believe that God is there for all others

All

Others

 

That God is waiting

to welcome them into the circle of love

 

Can I live that belief?

And be present, radically and sacrificially, for others?

Honestly, I don’t know

 

But I will try, and keep trying

Because I don’t know what else to do

 

________________________________

 

This is my anthem (my theme song) for the New Year

 

Praise to the Lord of the small broken things,

who sees the poor sparrow that cannot take wing.

who loves the lame child and the wretch in the street

who comforts their sorrows and washes their feet.

 

Praise to the Lord of the faint and afraid

who girds them with courage and lends them His aid,

He pours out his spirit on vessels so weak,

that the timid can serve and the silent can speak.

 

Praise to the Lord of the frail and the ill

who heals their afflictions or carries them till,

they leave this tired frame and to paradise fly.

to never be sick and never to die.

 

Praise him, O praise Him all ye who live

who’ve been given so much and can so little give

our frail lisping praise God will never despise-

He sees His dear children through mercy-filled eyes.

                                           Words, Johanna Anderson

                                           Music, Dan Forrest

New Year Redux

Presbyterian Bloggers

Powered By Ringsurf

Every moment is a new beginning.

          Elie Wiesel

 

As each breath goes out, let it be the end of that moment and the birth of something new. . .

          Pema Chodron

 

To new beginnings. To the pursuit of...somethingness.

Cecelia Ahern

________________________________________

 

Happy New Year

Or not

 

We count the seconds

And celebrate

Happy New Year!

It is time for a fresh start

 

It is a time to think of change

Of new beginnings

 

And yet this New Year has barely begun

And I am thinking mostly of endings

 

Of lives ending (RIP Finn)

Of peace ending in the explosions

In Gaza and Venezuela

 

Of justice ending

As a tainted SCOTUS bought and controlled

Deals injustice

 

Of freedom ending

Not just for immigrants and refugees

But for all who do not bend the knee to a tyrant

(and for those who follow as well, they just don’t know it)

 

Of decency ending

As Pedophiles and rapists

Sit in positions of power

Protected and praised

 

Of truth ending

As policies and actions are based

On lies

 

Of hope ending

With each new morning revealing

That the forces of hate and fear

Reign

 

Yes, I know

The old has to die for the new to be born

But there are good deaths

And there are bad deaths

 

We are dying a bad death

A death full of pain and denial

Hate and retribution

 

An ugly death

 

I want to believe in the Phoenix

That something good will rise out of the ashes

 

I want to believe in the gift of impermanence

And move from attachment to appreciation

Living in this moment

Anticipating the next

 

I want to believe in resurrection

Now

That the old will pass away and

The new will come!

 

Hallelujah

 

But it is hard to see

Beyond the deaths

The endings

 

I feel no hope

But may I have enough faith

To live it

 

“...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

          Barbara Brown Taylor