Monday, April 15, 2024
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Together Forever? Why Not?
Stay together and break the psychic connection.
Together forever? Why not?
And after tomorrow all the concrete blocks of sweet pain and all the bricks painted luminescent against the blackening sky would come down around him. It was time to go home. No more emotional fantasy. No my more butterfly picnics. Only a balance of hope against promises as empty as the county road out of town.
Stay together and die to deepest desire. Together forever? Why not?
Monday, April 8, 2024
A Song for the Eclipse -A Dragon Swallowed the Moon
After today’s eclipse I thought it good to share a song that I was involved in creating.
A Dragon Swallowed the Moon
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Ready Now To Live
This is a song I wrote last year with a new final verse.
The hardest part is waiting but he wants to come back
A long time dead - he’s ready now to live
He gasps, his heart begins to beat
Oh, oh, oh
All these chaos reactions are sometimes self aware
See how the light dances in the air
I won’t speak, not even when I’m dead
Oh, oh, oh
Moving forward now like waking from a dream
Rising up into red light
This is motion, this is mystery
Oh, oh, oh
No more time now, the worst has come and gone
Still I try to wish you well
He gasps, his heart begins to beat
Oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
We Have Incriminations
There was nothing more. No one suspected anything. Nothing. What was there? And no one asked why. It was reckless but no one cared. This trip was different. It was strange, but he was glad to be free. Natural.
The roar of his ego telling him, “You’re beautiful.
You’re bright.” If he screamed, it was unheard. If he screamed again, it was thrilling. The roar telling him, “Make your millions; drink your champagne.” Slowly he moved from the corner, out of the shadow, out of the smoke of a furnace funhouse.
There was more to it, of course. The smell of secret money inextricably entwined, enmeshed with every aspect of his private life. Love and mercy disguised. Call it spiritual legitimacy but it’s nothing but power. Take advantage. Get even. Double life. Double standards. Predatory addictions will not let go. We have photographs. We have incriminations. Behind the savage scenes. Subtle hints and controlling forces, blinded and blinding. He has a lot to hide.
Friday, March 22, 2024
All This Was Done To Fulfill What Had Been Spoken by the Prophet
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
The Kingdom of Heaven Is Hers
How blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is hers.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
I Was Possessed by the Devil
So it was a nightmare, that moonless night just after we’d moved into the house. Strange things. Demonic things. The sound of children speaking vulgarities in the dark. I remember my mother leaning over the bed as I was rapidly shaking. Shaking harder than before.
Monday, March 11, 2024
Instructions for an Auto-Appendectomy
Saturday, March 9, 2024
The Halfway Point
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
She Says, “No.”
Sunday, February 11, 2024
Dislocated in Time and Space - A Transfiguration Event
Transfiguration Sunday comes early this year. It seems that
we’ve only just wrapped up the Christmas festivities and put away the trees and
lights and decorations and already we’re at the Transfiguration. In a few days, on Wednesday, we’ll exchange
beauty for ashes; we’ll trade the joy of Christmas for the mourning of lent (to
invert Isaiah 61:3). We’ll put away our hallelujahs
and begin the long trek toward the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of our
Lord.
But that’s the way of things in this life. Life turns
quickly. Yesterday the children were born, today they’re grown, tomorrow they’ll
have children of their own. Our lives move from one moment to the next in a
continual blur. It all happens so fast, everything changes. It’s here and it’s
gone, every moment fleeting.
In our gospel reading for today we find Jesus along with his
friends, Peter, James and John atop a very high mountain experiencing one of
those fleeing moments – a literal mountain top experience that is over all too
soon. The glory of the theophany fades and Jesus and his disciples return to
the plains below.
But for that one glorious moment, they were overwhelmed by a
theophany, an appearance of God. God, who is a separate reality distinct from
and unlimited by the word, sometimes embraces the self-limitations of a
specific time and a particular form in order to appear to us in this world. God
appears as a thunderstorm, with thunder and hail, lightning and torrents of
rain. Or God appears as an infinitely burning bush. And there atop the mountain
in the glory of God’s appearance, Jesus was transfigured, transformed, changed.
It is a strange experience, dislocated in both space and
time. Heaven and earth meet, the past and the future overlap in a moment of
transcending present. Time and space are warped, blending forward and backward.
And the mountain is the place for this kind of experience. The mountain is the
place where one can meet with God, the place where one can leave the world of
the natural and the mundane and to ascend into very heavens. Around the world,
in nearly every culture, from Israel to Greece, from India to China, from Japan
to the Americas, the mountain is a place where the reality of our world touches
the divine realms. There is a mystery there – a sense of awe, surrounded by
banks of clouds with an expansive view, unlimited vision of both the clouds of heaven
and the horizons of earth. The God of the bible is sometimes named El-Shaddai which may mean the God of the
mountain. He meets with Moses on the mountain. He meets with Elijah on the
mountain. And this is not without relevance to our story today.
The mountain is unnamed in our gospel account; Mark
describes it only as a “very high mountain.” Some have suggested that it was Mount
Hermon, or perhaps Mount Tabor, but neither of these are especially high
mountains. Others suggest that Mark is thinking of the same mountain of the north
that apocalyptic authors, like the author of 1 Enoch, described as the place
where there would be a manifestation of the divine in the last days. This is a
place of mysterium tremendum – a place
of strange harmony between fear and awe, a place of both fascination and great
danger. A place of wonder and of terrible power.
Jesus was transformed there in front of them on top of that
mountain. Elijah and Moses appeared with him and a cloud of glory overshadowed
them all. And from that cloud a voice from heaven spoke saying, “This is my
son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”
Here on the mountain with Jesus we are dislocated in both
time and space. The same voice that spoke to Jesus at this baptism, speaks
again to say, “This is my son, the beloved.” Moses and Elijah, prophets from
the past are there to speak with Jesus about his soon coming death. Time and
space blend back and forward. The Greek language has two words for time,
chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to
chronological or sequential time, the tick, tick, tick, of the clock hands one
moment following after another. Kairos
signifies a time between, moments of indeterminate time in which something
special happens. Chronos is quantitative and measurable. Kairos is qualitative and cannot be measured
or marked or preserved. It can only be
experienced.
“Jesus took John and James and Peter up the mountain in
ordinary, daily chronos; during the glory of the Transfiguration they were
dwelling in Kairos” (L’Engle, 93)
Indeed – the transfiguration event has sometimes been
interpreted by theologians as a misplaced story of the resurrection. The description
of Jesus’ transfiguration shares some similarity with the resurrection and it
is thought by some scholars that the events of the resurrection were moved
backward in the story so as to help make sense of the inexplicable resurrection
event. Jesus had just before this event, told his disciples that he would
suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of
the law, and that he would be, that he must
be killed – but that after three
days he would rise again. He spoke to them plainly about this, but they didn’t
understand. (Mark 8: 31 – 32). The passion prediction – not understood in the
moment is finally comprehended when seen through the eyes of the resurrection. We
didn’t, we don’t understand how death can be glory – not until after the
resurrection. I’m not convinced that this is the case – that the
transfiguration story is a resurrection account transplaced in time - but it is
true that the mystery of the transfiguration event expects the resurrection, and
the resurrection explains the mystery of the transfiguration.
Peter’s desire to memorialize the moment is understandable.
Time is fleeting. Everything fades. The voice speaks and then is silent. The cloud
of glory envelops them and then is gone. The moment on the mountain fades and
Jesus and his friends return to the plains below.
'Tis good, Lord,
to be here!
Your glory fills the night;
Your face and garments, like the sun,
Shine with unborrowed light.
Fulfiller of the past!
Promise of things to be!
We hail your body glorified,
And our redemption see.
Before we taste of death,
We see your kingdom come;
We long to hold the vision bright,
And make this hill our home.
‘Tis Good, Lord, To Be Here - J. Armitage Robinson
Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten season – a time of preparation. We only just recently celebrated the birth of Lord and Savior and already we are getting ourselves ready to consider his gruesome death and glorious resurrection. But here on the mountain, in this transfiguration event, we see and hear and experience the fulfillment of that preparation. In the words of Robinson’s hymn, “We hail his body glorified, and our redemption see.”
And
with Peter we might say, “Rabbi, Teacher, Master, it is good that we are here.”
But Peter didn’t really understand what was happening and he definitely didn’t
know what he was saying. He was so afraid. He was sore afraid (to steal from
Luke’s phraseology.) On the mountain, surrounded by the cloud of glory, with the
prediction of pain and suffering and death blotted out by the awe and wonder of
the moment, Peter says, “let’s build three shrines here. One for Moses, one for
Elijah, and one for Jesus.” But he didn’t know what he was saying. He was
afraid.
But
time moves on, and as suddenly as it began, it was all over. Time is fleeting,
every moment bleeding into the next. The vision fades, the cloud evaporates and
the transfiguration is over. Jesus and
his friends come back down from the mountain and he tells them to keep quiet
about it all – until after the Human one, the Son of God, had risen from the dead.
“History cannot be stopped, and we must
grasp it significance. The light of the resurrection enables us to see it with
hope. The death of Jesus is not the victory of darkness, which is already
overcome” (Gutierrez, 51).
Lent is
the time of preparation. We’ve had the glory and joy on the mountain, but now
we’ll go back down to the plain and begin the long, hard road towards death and
suffering and to the wonder and mystery of the resurrection. We may not
understand, but we will take that journey.
Gutierrez, Gustavo. Sharing the Word through the
Liturgical Year. Orbis Book, Mary Knoll, NY. 1997.
L’Engle Madeline. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith
and Art, North Point Press, New York, NY, 1980.
Robinson, J. Armitage. ‘Tis
Good, Lord, To Be Here. 1890.
Saturday, February 10, 2024
Imponderabilia
It was late and I was tired after a twelve and a half hour
shift at the factory and I knew I shouldn’t have done it – but I turned on the
radio to listen to the news as I drove home in the freezing rain and the dark. It
was a poor choice, tired and worn as I was. The highway was dark and the lane
markers covered with snow and ice. Reports came through of the war in Ukraine
and more bombings in Gaza with unnumbered civilian deaths. Reports of
earthquakes in South America, of wildfires in the south-west, of another school
shooting in the heartland.
Everything hurt.
It seems like I feel that way all the time these days. I am
exhausted and weary from work and still grieving old wounds. Everything hurt in
the cold and dark as I drove through the night, crying alone in my car. Alone and
cold in the dark on a lonely road between here and nowhere.
“The world is dying,” I said aloud as I clicked off the
radio with its ceaseless bad news broadcasts. “The world is dying,” I said
again, “and there is nothing to replace it.” Someone once described this as a
time of monsters and I will not disagree. The world is dying and full monsters.
The human ones are the worst.
I arrived at home and made dinner for myself but in the
process I broke a glass pitcher given to me as a wedding gift. Then I spilt a
beverage on the couch which will probably stain the fabric. I tried to put it
all out of my mind by watching police dramas on TV until bed, but when I
finally slept I struggled with dreams of my ex-wife.
“I don’t want the
world to see me, ‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand,” the song says,
but I say, “I don’t want to see the world ‘cause I don’t understand it either.”
I am lonely even in my dreams. Separated
and alone and I think that maybe I should go ahead and separate myself from it
all. I can’t fix it. I can’t change it. Why not go live out in the desert?
I remembered the stories of those devout men of faith who
lived as hermits beyond the fringes of civilized society, or in caves, or alone
atop high pillars, relying on ravens to bring them food day after day for forty
years. I know it sounds fantastic, but ravens have been known to bring gifts to
people they consider friendly, so why couldn’t these avian benefactors bring
bread to hermits in the desert? It may be a pious legend, but it could still be
true.
I woke the next day, still weary. Still worn, still
pondering all the imponderabilia of this strange life. But with a stretch and a
cup of coffee I was ready to step out into another new day. As I drove to work
there was a carpet of fire across the eastern sky. Maybe the world is on fire
but the sun is rising in the east and I think that I can try again.
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
From the Winter Walks
I’m a postal carrier these days. I walk every day- in the wind, in the snow, in the fog, in the sleet and freezing rain. Every day, five to ten miles. It’s not much, but it’s honest work. It gives me time to think, time to write, to compose.
ratings: 1 (avg rating 5.00)