Dream Records #626-635 with Alchemical Notation

    #626 – Ted Bundy doing drugs to self-medicate. He tried to kill himself, you know. He had personal conversations like this one to lure you in. Brutal things. Burning, sinful lusts. 🜂

    #627 – The crowd is shouting for Cassius Clay to get up from the floor. “Get up!” The stress of panic attacks and manic episodes is too much. “What are you doing? Get up!” 🜃

    #628 – That duck is drunk. Or the other way ‘round. And I’m sorry if this embarrasses you. 🜄

    #629 – I’m in Russia, visiting. Seeing the monumental memorials again. I’m to meet my ex-wife at the flag garden honoring national alliances. But she doesn’t show and I have to raise the flag myself. 🜃

    #630 – I’m with Dahmer’s mother chasing UFOs. Her ways are movable. Her car is fast. Aimless down a crooked trail. We took photos, but they all came back blurred. 🜁

    #631 – A dozen parachutist soldiers in our church. Unannounced. They knock over the sanctuary lamp as they crash through the ceiling. But no one is watching. I think they should apologize but no one is listening. And the altar is burning. 🜂

    #632 – He moves his bishop across the board, favoring the concrete over the abstract. Food. Drink. Sex. These are the forces that motivate him. Because. Since. Cause and effect. Calculated pauses. No affect. No blinking. Bishop takes queen. 🜃

    #633 – His fingers. Her lip. And teeth. Too many teeth. And blood. So much blood. His screaming. Her smile. 🜂

    #634 – Martin Luther is pouring me a beer. “Come drink with me,” he says (though I don’t speak German). “The devil harasses, but you amuse me. Tell me again what you wrote in your book about the socialist Jesus.” Jack Lemmon is there too, but he doesn’t say a word. 🜄

    #635 – It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering frame. But the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering frame but the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film stuttering. Frame by flickering flame but the convertible is empty. Loop. It’s the Zapruder film...🜂

The Holiday Tree Doesn’t Matter

It is one of those urban legends of the internet age, a fake news outrage that will not go away; the story has circulated for years. It’s not true, of course, but that doesn’t inhibit the story’s circulation: President Barack Obama has not ordered that the traditional White House Christmas Tree be referred to as a “holiday tree.” It is not true this year. It was not true last year or the year before or the year before that.

I can imagine that next year we will have memes floating around on the Facebook and the Twitter about the fact (ha!) that we can have Christmas trees at the White House again now that Donald Trump is president. It still won’t be true, but … (sigh) … whatever.

But I’d like you to imagine something with me, just for a moment. Imagine an even grimmer scenario. Imagine that President Obama had announced that there would be no White House Christmas Tree at all – not merely that the tree would be referred to as a “holiday tree,” but that there would be no decorated evergreen tree with lights, and tinsel, and baubles at the White House at all. Can you imagine the outrage and fury of those who believe that there is, in fact (there isn’t), a war on Christmas?

If the legends are true (and they probably are not) it wasn’t until Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) that the evergreen tree was connected with Christian celebration of Jesus’ nativity. So for some twelve hundred years Christians were perfectly able to celebrate the miracle of Jesus’ birth without a holiday tree.* Ϫ

But who cares? The tree is not the important part. Call it a Christmas tree, an Xmas tree, a Holiday tree, or a Tannenbaum (which means generically “fir tree” (and I notice that no one freaks out at the carolers singing oh Tannenbaum, oh Tannenbaum, wie treu sind deine Blätter…)) or don’t have one at all. It doesn’t really matter.

*Yes, twelve hundred, not fifteen hundred. Christians didn’t even celebrate Christmas until around the year 300…  

Ϫ And why not call it a holiday tree?  If we’re putting them up as early as Thanksgiving (as many people do) and leaving them up until New Year’s Day or Epiphany - the tree is part of the decorations for several holidays. And the word “holiday” itself means “Holy Day” for crying out loud. If Christmas Day isn’t a holiday holy-day, I don’t know what is…

A Limerick for the Reformers: Martin Luther

For Martin Luther let’s raise a glass
who, though he was a bit of an ass,
who let his insults spew,
and vilified the Jew,
helped bring the Reformation to pass.

A Limerick for the Reformers: Zwingli

What Swiss reformer to us brings glee,
who stirs up our glad hearts to sing, “Whee,”
on Eucharist’s moral
with Luther he’d quarrel,
why, none other than Huldrych Zwingli

Planting a Tree at the End of the World

It’s an apocryphal story (one that doesn’t go back any further than the middle of the 20^th century) that Martin Luther, when asked what he would do if he knew the world were to end the next day, responded by saying that he would plant a tree. It’s nothing more than a pious legend, but I thought about that story this afternoon.

I received news today that the world is ending for a very good friend of mine. His life, his career,his hope, all of it is collapsing. And there’s little that he can do about it. And there’s even less that I can do about it for him. I have no influence over anything. I can’t fix the broken things. I can’t restore the dying things. And he lives too far away for me to hop in the car and go over to visit - even if I did make the drive, the best that I could do would be to sit in stupid silence for him.

My schedule for today included helping another friend of mine, one who lives here in town, “Garden Jim.” He needed help transplanting a magnolia tree. I changed out of my Salvation Army uniform and drove over to his place to meet him. Together we loaded the tree, along with shovels and gallons of water into the back of the pickup truck, and moved the tree to its new spot, right near Jim’s garden.

We dug a new hole for it, put it in place, poured water over the roots, replaced the dirt, poured more water into the soil around the tree, tamped down the dirt, and poured more water over it all.

I don’t know if the tree will survive the transplant, but as it was going to be cut down anyway, if it doesn’t survive nothing will have been lost. But I’m really hoping that it does. I’m planting a tree at the end of the world for a friend of mine and hoping for the best.

This Divine Aeneid

I recently finished reading The Aeneid by the Roman poet, Virgil. It’s part of my personal challenge to read (or re-read) some of the classics of western civilization.

As I was reading it I was struck by an idea – a comparison that could be made to some parts of the Bible, but I hesitated to write them up, thinking that perhaps I was reaching.  That I was stretching too far.  But a blog post from that perpetual snark, Dr. Jim West, has convinced me that I was on the right track and that I shouldn’t have succumbed to my self-doubting. 

It occurred to me, as I read Virgil’s epic poem, that a comparison could be made between Aeneus and Abraham.  Both commenced upon long and dangerous journeys in order to find a promised city, Aeneus for the city that would become the great and powerful Rome, Abraham for a heavenly city.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to set out for a place that he was to receive as an inheritance; and he set out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he stayed for a time in the land he had been promised, as in a foreign land, living in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11: 8 – 10)

And, apparently, Martin Luther thought that comparison valid as well.  Tucked in among the very last things he wrote were these lines:

Nobody can understand Vergil in his Bucolics and Georgics unless he has first been a shepherd or a farmer for five years.  Nobody understands Cicero in his letters unless he has been engaged in public affairs of some consequence for twenty years.Let nobody suppose that he has tasted the Holy Scriptures sufficiently unless he has ruled over the churches with the prophets for a hundred years. Therefore there is something wonderful, first, about John the Baptist; second, about Christ; third, about the apostles. ‘Lay not your hand on this divine Aeneid, but bow before it, adore its every trace.’ We are beggars. That is true.

Hymnical Limericks – A Mighty Fortress Is our God

In recent days I have been writing a series of Biblical Limericks.  Today I thought I'd try something slightly different: a Hymnical Limerick, if you will.

I give you A Mighty Fortress Is our God in 9.9.6.6.9. meter

We sing Martin Luther’s mighty song, 

a bulwark never failing, always strong,
for still our ancient foe
doth seek to work us woe
but, armed as he is, he is still wrong.

It’s not in our own strength we confide
but we trust in the one at our side.
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus it is he;
with him in battle we are allied.

There may be foul demons in our way
even so, we won’t fear, come what may.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
with one word from Christ he can be slayed.

The Word of God above all powers,
the Spirit and all the gifts are ours,
so we let all else go
this mortal life also.
God’s kingdom over all things towers.

Things Martin Luther(s) Didn’t Say

In 1521 the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V – a serious minded young man, summoned Martin Luther for a formal hearing before the Diet of Worms.  He was ordered to give an answer of “yes” or “no” to the question: “Will you recant?” Luther asked for a day of grace in order to answer the question.

The next day Luther stood before the assembled council and gave his answer – which was much more than the one word the council demanded.

He would recant nothing:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.

 And then came those two short sentences, immortalized by the first editor of Luther’s collected works

“Here I stand. I can do no other!”

But as inspiring as those two simple statements are – it’s not likely that Luther actually said them.  They are not found in the earliest versions of the speech and were not recorded by witness to the proceedings.

They are, in a word, propaganda.

But does that matter?  Whether Luther said those very words or not, they do, indeed, encapsulate Luther’s attitude and actions.  They are TRUE words if not FACTUAL words.

A little over a year ago now, in the moments after it was announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed (murdered), I – like many others – shared a quotation, allegedly from a different Martin Luther- Martin Luther King Jr.- without checking it’s authenticity.

I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.

                                                                                                             

While the second part of that quotation comes from Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 book Strength to Love,  MLKjr. didn’t actually write that first sentence. Yet it is something that, I believe, he would have said.

Does it matter that Martin Luther didn’t actually say “Here I stand. I can do no other” ?  We know that he lived that statement even if he didn’t speak it.

Does it matter that Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t actually write the words “I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.”  We know that he lived that way.

Which is more important?  Does it matter?