Are You Afraid, Carter?

    Look at me here – a half century, plus a bit more, a half century of living among the subterraneans at the edge of the naked city where it smells of marijuana, the neighbors play their music too loud and their dogs bark all night. These mechanics, hairdressers, and taxi drivers. These field-hands, deli-shop owners, and veterinary assistants.

    And look at the news: another protracted war in Europe with sprawling death count. Look at the news: another endless, pointless war in the Middle East.

    “Knock it off, Carter. You lost your idealism years ago.”

    Hear it? That is, despite the sneering belligerence, the voice of trembling fear and no peace. No peace.

    Look at me here, a half century of September reminders – falling leaves and fading memories – a half century of resignations, recriminations, failures, and false starts. I don’t want to live in the past, but I don’t understand the present and I cannot see the future. How do I disrupt the disorder? How do I deescalate the situation without matching their rhetoric? Without meeting violence with violence?

    “Work out your own salvation,” the voice says, “with fear and trembling. Are you afraid, Carter? Are you afraid? You know you should be.”

    It’s true. I am.

    “And why do you fear?”

    Because the secret things belong to God and who can understand his own errors?

Philippians 2:12

How Small Your Strength

    Samira, now living underground in sunless, soulless caves, unable to anticipate the changing of the seasons, and helpless to the elements, with burnt patches and skin lesions. Now suffering beneath the Babylonian spirit industry and hypocrites with cultured countenances. Spiritual influencers without scripture.

    Ignored disjunctive accents. Paused without proceeding. Will goodness itself be raised from the dead? Be not faithless but believing, right? Please. Please.

    House to house, imprisoned by militant Tribulationist agents of the government. Years and years given to cruel blackmailers. Soft vexations behind the stone. Scrubbed of profanity, but the vulgarity remains. A modern murdered disciple.

    “I’m tired of being…” Samira began but could not complete the thought. “Tired of being afraid? Alone? Exhausted? Maybe I’m just tired of being.”

    Heaven for height and unsearchable earth for depth. Climb into heaven and dig into hell.

    “My body. My hunger.” A human desperation out of her hell. A freedom of confusion. “I’ve stumbled my soul.”

    She examined her wounds. Daily injuries and strong stabbings.

    “What do you do when the world spins further into chaos? Overwhelmed by a near constant report of collapse. The housefire spreads and our children are electrocuted at school. What do you do when your heart fails, when you faint in days of adversity?”

    She sobbed. “My strength is not worth much.”

Proverbs 24:10

Shadow Faces Loud Voices

    There are angry faces beneath the window as the day wanes toward darkness. Shadow faces with loud voices. There are boots on the gravel and hot breath fogging the glass.

    “Any last words before we plunge the hole with you?”

    “I told the truth, I swear.”

    How long for crushing shame? How long for speeches? If I’ve erred, my errors are mine. If I’ve stumbled, my feet are my own. If I misspoke, they are my words and I will eat them. Every one.

    “Forget it, asshole. We see you. You have the contradiction contained within your skin. Strange flesh…”

    Can you feel it? The buzzing, cockroach sensation behind your eyes… Clicking, scuttling, hissing. That anxious warning. An inflamed anger...You’ll never know what. You’ll just have to accept the encroaching darkness. It comes from inside.

    Do not open private doors.
    Stay out of sight.
    Come out of this selfish catatonia.
    We won’t be here long.

    Unheard protests against an impassable wall. Assailed from all directions. Rotted flesh beneath the skin. Bones and broken teeth. Uprooted and vanished. Everyone’s gone away.

    Record my words with iron. I have a living defender. After my awakening, set me close. And from my flesh, my skin I will see God.

Job 19

Milo Wonders

     This is the fourth installment of what is becoming a series. I like these character, Milo and Darling. I'm curious what will happen to them. 

Milo Wonders

    Milo sat at his drafting table, work lamp off, magnifying loupe put away in its case. Evening was coming and Darling wasn’t home. He wasn’t worried, not just yet. A loving marriage that had earned his trust. Repenting. Forgiving. Never enemies. Trust. Their marriage in this thirty years war had survived.

    Survived her travel, twenty-five thousand, forty-thousand miles, he’d lost count. Survived illness, and bitterness ongoing. Seasick, airsick Fear. Survived apartment fires. Survived dangerous mobs and riots in the streets.

    And through it all she was keeping the record, writing the report through the regular rhythms of bitter conflict and escalating violence – in the city and the nation beyond. The assaults, black and blue, and unlucky blows.

    He checked his watch and went to the kitchen. He’d start the potatoes and wait.

    “My thoughts have been and will be formed and pass away. I know the dust and dwelling place. I know the frailty of this flesh. Every tombstone. And there are times and there are places – still dwelling, being, living now. Thoughts going. Thoughts drift. I wonder. My struggles before, blood, trouble, and trials of love, and strength, and sorrow when the world comes to an end. My thoughts to the very last will be written.”

    Now the sky was dark and blackout conditions in force. Curtains drawn and lamps down low. Dinner dishes for one cleaned and put away. Her portion waiting in the fridge. He checked his watch.

    “I am a man, well pleased. I am a man of conscience, unashamed. But I’m having a hard time finding my thoughts. My mind. Do you think it strange? Do I love and serve? Am I distracted?”

    He imagined not murderers and thieves, but busybodies and gossips. There was the danger. Evildoers. Purloined letters. The private correspondence of critics. Damaging interoffice memos circulated, copied, and passed on by Darling to her handlers. Undermining the State Press – writing the free press, underground. He imagined fiery hell burning away. The fiery judgment of a living hell. The godly and the free suffer persecution. But fire and water purify.

    He checked his watch. “Fire can save us, yeah? Purify? I hope.”

    Hours later, one in the morning, she came through the door. Returning home, she fell into his arms, burning with fever. Ill. One hundred degrees. One hundred one. He rushed her to bed.

    “Can we live a thousand years like this, Darling?”

1 - Everything’s Back to Normal
2 - One Life and One More
3 - Milo Remembers

One Life and One More

    A lush tone poem by Sibelius played upon the phonograph as Darling sliced vegetables in the apartment kitchenette. The light of a hazy sunset filtered through the flag that hung in the window. She could feel the lush orchestration and soaring melody thrumming inside her.

    “Darling, are you okay?” Milo asked from the door. She was standing at the counter, with peppers and onions on the cutting board and knife held loosely in her hand, but she wasn’t moving. “You seem distracted.”

    “Yes, Milo” she said and then, “No, my love.”

    “You are distracted,” Milo said. He said aside the drafts and drawings he carried and, stepping into the kitchen, relieved her of the knife.

    She clenched her teeth and, looking silently about the room, shook her head. She saw her reflection in the window and again in the cracked mirror on the wall in the living room. “Not distracted,” she whispered.

    “You’re shivering,” Milo said. “Cold too. What is it?”

    “The death of so many. I could not. We couldn’t.”

    Milo led her to the couch at the center of the living room. “Sit, Darling. Sit. Please. Let me get you something.”

    “No,” she said clutching his arm. “I want nothing.” She looked into his eyes. “Just sit with me a while.”

    He sat on the couch with her, and it was a comfort. To them both. A comfort to know that she belonged to him and he to her, in equal measure. They sat that way, together, until the sun was set and the room was dark.

    "We don’t know what we’re doing, do we?” She said later, during dinner. Not really. Your art and my travel. And yet we cannot do nothing. How can these little motions stand against so many lives?”

“If we can save but one,” Milo said.

    She’d fallen in love with him years before, slowly, over occasional conversations and walks to the market. He was patient. Always patient.

    “One life,” he said again. “And one more.”

    Gunshots erupted in the night – as they had most every night that month. These were not so close as some of the others. Perhaps at the train station down the street.

    “One life,” she whispered back.

    “And one more.”

Everything’s Back to Normal

    I don't quite know who these two people are just yet - where they live, or what they're doing - but I've enjoyed finding them and expect that I'll see a bit more from them.

I Have Noticed and I Have Seen

    When wisdom has become the least of these (after a long period of low demand), heart and knowledge. Clean. Free. Clear. But nothing’s yours. And nothing is mine. Discretion and understanding have become a menace. Simple observation is not encouraged.

    What about us? Here where we live and breathe. Where we buy our groceries and go to church.

    We must be unoppresed – free to lift ourselves from every yoke. My head without, my soul still hungry. Goodness and all the day’s security. Dark-dwelling in the house of the Lord. The hungry, cast out. The naked, thrown down. I notice my own flesh too.

    When will we see the word as written?

    We are teachers without questions. We are leaders without strategy. A nation with a soul for greed, for power. We are investigators without a clue. We are travelers without a map. These are all variations of the same story. News without media. Politicians without honor. Is this the family you’ve always wanted?

    Do whatever you need to do, but keep in mind that I am not a theologian, not professionally. Neither am I a doctor, a priest, or psychologist. But I have seen the finger writing on the wall.

Death and Demon Days

 

    We thought we were dead those days – we certainly were not living. Death and demon days when pestilent winds and punishment were piled aheap on our prayers. Putrid sores filled with pus and poison – the purple buboes of the plague -marked the bodies of the dying. And there was no prophet proper to declare the word of God, no impartial priest to bless the people. Only the imposition of demands of our demented king by his proxies – lawyers and creditors as the appointed determiners of our destiny. “Pay up!” they demanded. “Your debts have come due!” 

    “We deserve to burn upon the pyre,” proclaimed the apostate in dark black robes. “To perish in flames!” The impatient crowd pelted him with stones.

    “No peace, no peace,” sang the psalmist and the people dumped dung upon his head. The dizzied mob, disturbed by his presence in the square destroyed his instrument and drowned his voice.

    I could not sleep and I would not dream. Not then. Not in the dark. Perhaps it was despair. Perhaps it was a premonition of the danger yet to come. I do not pretend to know. We longed to return to the anodyne past. We looked to the future with dread.

    No palliative care. No apothecary. No painkiller prescription to break the fever of those days. No penitential prayer for pardon. Only endless days of destruction. Only the deluge of despair when God did not, or would not, hear our pleas.

These Days of Gogmagog

 

I have little, and will lose more
in these days of Gogmagog, 
when the air is thick 
with smoke and purple light,
and the blind musicians 
play after midnight.
Still those who can sing must sing. 

Stretch out your icy hand 
and touch, and touch my face. 
Fire, 
I'm on fire,
light a candle
the sparks fly higher
and shadows tremble on the wall. 

First we dance the mad dance
and then, then comes the death. 
We're slaughtered and martyred, 
dressed in a shroud, 
we're calling 
your name out loud. 
Protect us, Lord to see you soon. 

Danger at Every Door

 

There is danger at every door
ghosts and corpses for our travail
all our heroes and our villains
come at us with their sharpened knives.

There is power, wonder working power
in the blood of the Lamb. 


On the edge of a great abyss,
lost at sea in a rowboat,
we are grieving, we are wounded, 
we are wasted but we'll return. 

And the blood of all our enemies, 
it will never satisfy, 
a crown of thorns on his head
the god of heaven, he will forgive. 

The Owner of this Property Is Armed

 

For the past several months I have been working as a United States Postal Carrier in a rural community in central Iowa. It's hard work, but I enjoy it. I'm outside, working independently, and helping the community. It's good work. 

And I observe a lot as I carry the mail. All through the month of October I watched people putting up thier Halloween decorations. Now those are coming down and Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations are going up. 

One of the things that I've observed at a number of the homes that I deliver to are stickers at the front door that declare: The owner of this property is armed and prepared to protect life and property from criminal offense. There is nothing inside worth risking your life for.

Now - the question I have is is this: IF there is nothing in the house worth dying for AND the owner of the house is still willing to shoot and kill for it - what does that say about the owner of that house? 

If none of it is worth dying for - why are they willing to kill for it? 

One of These Days

 

One of these days I will work out my own destruction,
studying my notes – an incomplete thing
- not yet happy, and nowhere near excellent.

I am moving farther and farther away
from great sorrows
and cruel flesh and blood.

It happens to me sometimes –
mostly when I’m alone
against the secret machines.

I am innocent, but not all right.

Biblical Limericks: Sweaty Sky

To see the Lord is awesome, you bet,
even nature by fear is beset.
The wind stops its bluster,
the heavens get flustered -
the sky sees God and breaks out in sweat.

Psalm 68: 8

Working from Mitchell Dahood's  translation:

The earth quaked and the heavens sprinkled
at the sight of God...

"Just as a person breaks out into a sweat at the sight of an unexpected caller, so the heavens drip with rain when God appears in a theophany " (138)

Dahood, Mitchell. Psalms II 51 - 100: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1968. Print.

A Panic at the Disco

We Must Keep “Evil” Out of our Country

We must keep "evil" out of our country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2017

And how does one do that? How does one keep evil out? As if evil were only “out there” somewhere and not here as well. The immigrant and the refugee coming from out there are no more evil than those already here. Are we any better? No. There’s no one righteous. (Romans 3)

Those seeking to come into this country are no more evil than we already are ourselves. Those seeking to come into this country are no more righteous than we are ourselves.

This kind of statement is divisive fear-mongering; it attempts to pit "noble" us against "evil" them. It is proud and arrogant. It is blind. 

"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the dividing line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being..." (Solzhenitsyn 168)




Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. The Gulag Archipelago. New York, NY: HarperCollins. 1976. Print.

Gaudete - A Sermon for the Third Week of Advent 2016

The third Sunday of Advent is named Gaudete Sunday – “Gaudete” is the Latin word “Rejoice.” Today is a day for rejoicing. “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all, for the Lord is near at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” (Philippians 4: 4 – 6).

Today we rejoice. And this is different somewhat than happiness and good cheer. We hear a lot of songs during these extended weeks of Advent/Christmas about being happiness and good cheer and being merry and bright. But Joy is different. Joy is bigger, deeper, and less dependent upon external circumstances.

Today we rejoice – even if we don’t feel happy and gay and merry and bright. Today we rejoice, even if we don’t have the “Christmas spirit” and our hearts aren’t full of good cheer.  As Pope Francis said in his Gaudete Sunday Sermon last year, “We cannot let ourselves be taken in by weariness; sadness in any form is not allowed, even though we have reasons (for sadness), with many concerns and the many forms of violence which hurt our humanity, the coming of the Lord, however, must fill our hearts with joy.” (Francis)

Even though we may have reason to feel anxious  - world events seem as close as ever to explosive calamity – even though we may have reasons to feel worry – friends and family members in the hospital – even though we may have reasons to fear, we will choose to rejoice today. We will be joyful (if not happy and cheerful) because we know that the Lord is near.

Many biblical scholars believe that the book of Isaiah was not written by one single prophet, but that it is a composite work composed of the words of the prophet along with his students and followers who came later. They believe that our text for this morning (Isaiah 35) and the previous chapter (34) were probably written by two different authors, at different times, but that they have been purposefully arranged this way, next to each other, to heighten the dramatic contrast between them. (Kilpatrick 358) So, even though our text for this morning is a reading from chapter 35, it is good to begin by taking a brief look at chapter 34.

Chapter 34 is filled with doom and destructive gloom, with the stench of rotting corpses. There are mountains flowing with blood and the stars have all disappeared. It is the day of vengeance, burning pitch and billowing smoke. There are dangerous and wild animals in that desert, monsters and desert demons, snakes and buzzards. The land is full of thorns and thistles. And there is no kingdom there.

It is bleak. It is dark. The burning land of despair. It is the wastelands. It is apocalyptically dark, the end of the world as we know it.  It is the place of fear.

But then we turn to chapter 35 and the arid desert now blooms with new and glorious life. The wilderness rejoices and blossoms like a crocus. The Israelite people, living in Babylonian exile, looked back across the burning sand of the Syrian Desert that separated them from their homeland and saw, not the trackless wastes of apocalyptic ash of ruin and decay, but joyful hope.

“At the heart of their dream of a Messiah and his Kingdom has been the vision of the homeland and the return of the exile. Greater than the passion for vengeance on their foes, deeper than the exultation of victory has been the comfort of God’s promise that for them there would come at last a glad homecoming, the great ingathering of the ransomed and the redeemed” (Kilpatrick 358 – 359). They saw a highway leading through the desert of their despair, and they called it The Sacred Way – the road of the redeemed. And they saw themselves - the ransomed of the LORD – returning home, coming back to Zion with shouts, and being crowned with joy everlasting.  Their external circumstances didn’t speak to joy. They were captive. They were prisoners. They were exiles in a foreign and hostile land. Broken. Destroyed. But they saw a vision of joy.

Today, was we wait and anticipate the coming of our Lord Jesus, in his coming as an infant in Bethlehem – which we will celebrate in not too many days, in his glorious coming with his peaceable Kingdom, and in his everyday coming into the now-present of our lives we are standing at the in-between point – between chapters 34 and 35. We are standing between the apocalyptic ash of the burning desert and the lush blooming of crocuses and roses, between streams of burning pitch and streams of water in the desert. We are standing between the long dark nights of cold winter and the increasing light and warmth of spring renewed. We are standing between weak-kneed fear and “Be strong; fear not.” We are standing between despair and joy. Which way will we turn?

Which way will we turn? Back toward the world as it is with chaos and danger around every corner? Or will we turn toward the dawning light of hope and the joy of his coming? Toward the promise of restoration and fulfillment and the blossoming of beautiful life?

Gaudete. Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice for the Lord is near.

The Blessing of the Crocus

Kilpatrick, G.G.D. “Isaiah: Exposition” The Interpreter’s Bible Volume V. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. 1956. Print.

Pope Francis, “Gaudete Sermon – December 13, 2015”

Hate Wins (At Least in the Short-Term)

I am, you will know, disappointed by the results of yesterday’s election. Disappointed, not because Hilary Clinton lost – I had not pinned my hopes on her or the Democratic Party. “Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.” (Psalm 146: 3) But disappointed because Donald Trump won. And while I don’t believe he will be an apocalyptically bad president, I have no confidence that he will be a good one.

This election has shown me that Hate wins – at least in the short term. I say that for at least two reasons that I can describe.

1- Conservative and Evangelical voters hated Clinton enough that they could stomach voting for Trump. Many of them held their noses and voted for him, not because they want him as our president, but because they hate Clinton and the establishment and elite that she represents in their minds. Hate won.

and

2 – I know that not every conservative and Evangelical voter is racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic – but their endorsement of Trump has legitimized the hatred of those groups like the KKK that also supported Trump. His victory is their victory. Hate won.

But I am not hopeless (trying, anyway). Hate may win in the short term. But I believe in Love. And I believe in Justice. And I still believe in Hope and Change (with or without the help of political parties.)  

Mike Pence is Fear Mongering

Republican candidate for vice-president, Mike Pence, shared a video with thousands of Christian churches this Sunday. In the brief video he shared a bit about his own personal faith experience and urged Christian voters to vote for Trump.

In the video he also promised that “President Donald Trump” will repeal the “Johnson Amendment” which Pence says, “threatens tax exempt organizations and churches with losing their tax status if they speak out on important issues facing the nation from the pulpit.”

This is not true. 

The Johnson Amendment prohibits 501(c)(3) organizations from, “directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”

Church leaders can – and should – and do – speak about important issues facing the nation, from the pulpit even. But they cannot endorse or oppose any particular candidate on behalf of their organization. Churches are not threatened by this amendment. Not at all.

But if any particular church feels the need to campaign for a particular candidate they can certainly do that. They are free to do so, if they choose. But they will have to relinquish their 501 (c)(3) status and pay taxes. 

This is not a threat. This is not harassment. This is not an infringement of the first amendment. It is the tradeoff between rights and responsibilities in a pluralistic, democratic society.

Mike Pence is fear-mongering.


Watch the video here

Church Greeting 40MB from Phenomenon Post on Vimeo.

#Halloween 2016

Again, my children (who helped me stage this photo) are creepy.

A Man Feared

a short poem from one of my favorites.

Some Jumped, Some Were Pushed

My beloved wife wrote this recently. I have her permission to share it here.

***

Some jumped, or fell, or were pushed. I’m not really sure. It’s hard to know what caused their flight –their own decision or others-but it’s not hard to see that they are no longer here. I can’t say if they landed safely. Some before them did. Some did not.

I’m here, near the ledge, sometimes about to go over-slipping mostly reluctantly down. I did not run to the ledge, not this time. I was dragged. Pulled by those who think they know me. They think they know me yet what they know is a perception of me. A figment of some cobbled together claims.

They don’t know how the troubles around the place keep me up at night. They don’t know the times I chose them over rest, sanity, and the best good of a few dear ones. They don’t know of the ones who trust me, confide in me, need me to be as Jesus to them when they can’t find Jesus themselves in the mess of living. They don’t know their dragging/pushing has led to me pushing even God away at times. The One Who Knows can be hard to know at the ledge. It’s hard to know if there is more of God behind me or more of God before me.

They don’t know what worries me or what distresses me or what disturbs me. They don’t know that I stubbed my toe and broke my heart on the way this time. They don’t know how long it took those to heal last time.

They don’t know the number of times I limped myself to the ledge to wait and wonder. They don’t know, not really, the other time or two or more someone dragged me to the ledge and pushed me a bit waiting for me to fall off. Likely they don’t know the number of times I stepped or hobbled back and suited up anyway. Or that I kept writing the reports and answering the phones and the emails and shepherding the people because those were the things that needed done.

I kept doing the thing that I had to do because I am me.

Yet, they’ve pulled or pushed me to the ledge and left me here. I turn back to look at them but I can barely see them for how far back from me they’ve retreated. I can barely make them out and I’m sure they can’t hear me asking if they intend for me to jump. I agree with their retreat, the ledge is a scary place to be—uncertainties abound.

There are days I’m closer to the ledge, the ground around me skittering off down into who knows where or maybe to Who Knows What.

It’s not the pushy ones who pull me back. A few of them seem to be causing a wind that would send me over the ledge. 

It’s not the uncertainty after the ledge that keeps me from going over. Even at the ledge I’m convinced that is my place. Yet my conviction gets smaller with each bit that goes over or gets pushed or blown over.

I’ve heard some insist that the ledge does not exist. That there is only here and not here. I question their vision. Disavowing the ledge does us no good. I’m certain there’s a ledge. I’ve been on it. Others have been to the ledge. Some for a moment, then they slip/jump/tumble/leap/fall over. Some for a moment, then they run back to the stable ground too terrified of what might be. Some stay longer at the ledge, waiting to be called back or for their tight grip to be pried off the ledge one finger at a time. Some work days and nights over there but are still at the ledge in spirit.

It can be lonely at the ledge. It can be lonely even on the stable ground. I imagine it’s lonely even after the ledge.

If you’ve run to the ledge or if you’ve been dragged to the ledge or if you’ve limped to the ledge, look around. I’m there too. I’ll sit with you if you want, looking either behind or beyond. I’ll probably be near for a while. I can listen to your story, but I can’t tell you whether to go over or go back.