No Man Is an Island, or The Implications of Store-Bought Milk

    “Let it go down in history as a scattering of ash: Rugged Individualism is a myth.” The walls shifted. The ceiling pulled back. Wooden furniture splintered on the floor. The words were my own. I spoke them gently; it was my friend who burst in to bring down the roof.

    “I wouldn’t expect anything else from someone like you.”

    “Someone like me?” I asked.

    “Commies like you who admire socialists.” Paintings fell from their frames. The windows fell open. The front door fell off its hinges.

    “Ah…” I said. “I think maybe you’ve got that backwards, but it’s still true. We are stronger together.”

    “People just need to take accountability for their station. Grow your own food and you’ll never have to worry about another government recall. I grow my own. Why don’t you?” My shelves shuddered to the floor, spilling books into a heap.

    “There’s no pure independence. We are, each one of us, interdependent. We rely on each other.”

    “I raise chickens and trade eggs for pork. We have a cow and we tried pasteurizing our own milk, but we’ve mostly returned to store-bought milk. Our water comes from a well. I make diesel from used oil and fryer grease. I won’t be a slave to other producers or to the government.”

    “Hold up a beat,” I interrupted. “You buy milk?”

    “Well, we had trouble controlling the pasteurizing temperatures. The point is, either control your own resources to meet your needs or you depend on others. Choose your path. Choose wisely.”

    The whole house lurched on its cracked foundation.

    “Okay. Okay. Slow down there, Garfunkle. No man is an island. I said it before and I’ll say it again. Rugged Individualism is a myth. We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing.”

    My friend scoffed a laugh and looked around. “This place is falling apart. You should do something about that. Take accountability for your place.” I sighed and picked up my copy of Donne’s devotions from the floor as he made his exit.

Golden Fire

    The expanse of the universe
    from one burning star
    to another
    waiting for the impossible,
    watching the revolution
    from grief and suffering
    to comfort

    The entire collection of angels
    past, present, future
    singing funeral hymns
    soothed into silence

    Thoughts turn to golden fire

Blessings in a Heat Wave - sung

 I wrote the words for this little prayer yesterday while out in my route. Today I composed a little melody for it. Please ignore the fact that my satchel twisted up my collar. It was hot and I didn’t notice. 

A Sabbath Garden – Another Troll Conversation

    Sunday afternoons, with sun and breeze, are made for yard work – though I don’t think of it as work. I come home from church, still humming the hymns, change my clothes, put on an old pair of work gloves (it’s not work) and haul out the push mower. No engine, just spinning blades as I walk back and forth across the lawn – to and fro upon the lawn, walking up and down in it.

    With a portable speaker on the porch, I listen to music as I walk the yard. I sing along, full voiced – or as full voiced as I can be. Sometimes I get a little winded pushing the mower and pulling weeds. Maybe the neighbors hear me. Maybe they don’t. Doesn’t matter. I enjoy it.

    Today I also dug up some new flower beds. I shoveled up the soil, laid in some compost from my heap in the backyard, and planted a variety of annuals and perennials: Coneflowers, Black-Eyed Susans, Morning Glories, 4 O’clock Flowers, Sweet Basil, Poppies, Dahlias, Lilies, and a mix of assorted wildflowers.

    Sweated and slightly exhausted I surveyed my handiwork (it’s not work) and realized that Gunner was there. Watching with his arms crossed across his chest. He was not amused.

    “Shouldn’t you be resting, Carter? It’s the Sabbath.”

    I pulled off the gloves and knocked the dirt from them. I also noticed the dirt under my fingernails. “Gunner. Good to see you as always,” I said. I used my pocketknife to dig the dirt out.

    “Six days you shall labor, Carter.” Gunner said. “You’ve got six days to do all your work but the seventh – Sunday – is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God.”

    “Gunner,” I said. “You are a joy and a wonder, aren’t you?”

    “No work or labor of any kind. No kindling fire. No gathering food. No commerce -buying or selling. No carrying of burdens.”

    I took a large drink of water from my thermos. It’s important to stay hydrated, after all. I took off my cap and wiped sweat from my brow. “It’s not work, Gunner. I enjoy this. The sun on my face. The smell of the cut grass and the dirt. This is not work; this is a pleasure.”

    “That’s out too, Carter. You must refrain from doing thy pleasure on the Lord’s holy day. You can’t call the Sabbath a delight. The Sabbath is not for personal pleasure. It is reserved for honoring the Lord. You need to find an inward posture of reverence and worship instead of these self-centered activities.

    “Self-centered?” I asked. “Self-centered? Do you think this is all for me? And I think you’re missing the point of that chapter in Isaiah.” He glared at me. “Yeah, I recognize the reference.”

    “Work, trade, and trivial pursuits are beyond the Sabbath boundaries.”

    “Trivial? Trivial?” I said. “All the produce of the garden is with resurrection filled, that the Lord may have a city fruits of resurrection build.”

    “What? Is that supposed to be a hymn or something?”

    “It’s here in the yard that I rest,” I continued. “I am restored. I am resurrected. My body, fresh, my mind attuned to the day. It’s here that I am made whole again. The garden of the world is remade. Order and beauty are brought out of chaos. The bees are fed. The neighborhood is filled with color. And God is praised.”

    Gunner kicked a clod of dirt

    “And yes. It is a hymn, though not often sung. You should look it up; Margaret Jenkins Harris had a few good ones.” I offered him a trowel. “Would you like to lend a hand?”

    He kicked another clod of dirt and turned away.

The Previous Conversations:

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll (the first of the series) 
I Will Not Fight the Argument (the second)
Supermarket Wrestling (third conversation)
Do You Even Pray (the troll returns)
All Means All (A fifth conversation)
The Doctrine that Cannot Be Challenged (sixth conversation)
Toward Sodom - (a halfhearted seventh conversation)
Millions of Years of Death (the eighth conversation)
Truth with Untruth (the ninth conversation)
Bulls, Dogs, and Villains (the tenth conversation)
The Righteous Forsaken (the eleventh conversation)

Mischief Night – Friday, 1987

    It was another Friday in that long ago and misremembered 1987, October 30^th. Mischief Night, or Devil’s Night as some of the more alarmist voices were already starting to call it. All Hallow’s Eve Eve… The threshold of the threshold.

    “We should go out to the cemetery and watch for Satanists,” Dave suggested. “They’re bound to be out, right? Getting ready for the great ritual, the high holy Samhain.”

    We were all together again – in the attic space above Dave’s family apartment that we’d claimed as our own. The television was on, some eurotrash horror film called The Sweet Terrors of the Succubus, but we’d grown bored of it and lost track of the plot, such as it was, and we were casting about for something to do. Dave’s mom had suggested that we could help her make rice crispy treats for Halloween trick-or-treaters, but we’d declined.

    She also brought up a small box of Halloween decorations – mostly paper cutouts of skeletons and ghosts and witches. “Mom,” Dave whined. “That’s kids’ stuff. It’s corny.” She smiled and left the box anyway and Micah was sorting through it. He hung a few of the spiders and skeletons from the ceiling.

    “If we wanna go to the cemetery,” I said, “we’re going to need to call Allison.”

    “No, dude,” Dave said. I’m not exactly sure why Dave didn’t care for Allison. He called her “Yoko.” I told him that was uncool, and he shrugged. Anyway, Micah was already dialing the phone. Dave saw it. “Dude, no.” Micah handed the phone to me.

    “Hey,” Allison said. “Whatever it is, I’m down.”

    “Trip to the cemetery,” I told her.

    “On Mischief Night? Groovy.” I could hear her grin through the phone. Twenty minutes later she was in the alley behind Dave’s apartment, and we were sneaking down the back stairs.

    “How’d you get the car?” I asked as Allison drove us across town towards the Resurrection Cemetery. “You don’t have your license yet, do you?” Dave and I were in the back seat. Micah was up front with her.

    “No. Beth and the parentals are out of town. They’re taking her to visit one of the colleges she’s interested in. They don’t know I’ve got the car.”

    I nudged Dave with an elbow to the ribs. “Well, thanks for driving us to the graveyard. It’s cool you’re coming.”

    “Actually,” Allison said without taking her eyes from the road, “It’s a cemetery. Though we use the words somewhat interchangeably. Cemeteries are larger and not connected to a church. Graveyards are smaller and associated with a church.”

    “Cool,” Micah said.

    “Same’s true of coffin and casket,” Allison continued. “We use them to mean the same, but they’re different. Caskets are rectangular with four sides. Coffins are tapered with six sides.”

    “Cool,” Micah said again. I don’t think I’d ever heard him so verbose.

    Allison turned off the headlights and parked the car a ways up the road. “Quiet now,” she warned. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

    But she needn’t have bothered. The place was dead. Bad pun, I know. I know. People had been there but now it was only us and the remains of someone else’s party. We shone our flashlights around the scene and saw the remains of their revelries. There was trash everywhere. Empty beer cans and vodka bottles, empty cigarette packs and cigarette butts. Dave found a used condom and Micah found a stray shoe and a very large black bra. There were a few broken candles scattered around one tombstone and lots of pieces of paper blowing around in the grass.

    Dave stepped on one to stop it from blowing away. He picked it up and read from it. “It’s from the Bible,” he said. “This page is Isaiah. ‘My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me...”

    That caught my ear. “That’s… I recognize that one. Why do I know that one?” I looked at Allison for help. “It’s so familiar. Why do I know that passage?”

    “Beats me,” she said. “But maybe we should clean this up. I mean, we just can’t leave it like this. It’s so…”

    “Disrespectful,” I suggested.

    “Ugly,” Dave said at the same time.

    “Yeah,” she said to both. “I think Beth’s got a trash bag in the back of the car.”

    So we spent the next half hour walking between the graves, using our flashlights to find the trash and detritus left behind by the unknown revelers and mischief makers. We worked methodically in silence to gather up all the Bible pages and beer cans and other assorted debris. Dave used a small branch to pick up the used condom and to drop it in with the rest of the trash. We nearly filled the bag.

    When we finished, we gathered around Micah who was pointing his flashlight at a headstone with a pile of small stones on top. We watched in wonder as Micah added one more stone to the pile.

    He pointed his flashlight at the grave marker again and said, “My uncle.”

    LEVI ABELMAN – 1932 – 1984
    BELOVED HUSBAND – DEVOTED FATHER

    Allison turned and hugged him. And we all sat there in silence on the ground.

    “It’s like that song by This Corpse Alive – Dark Gethsemane,” I said as we sat together there at Micah’s uncle’s headstone.

    Early hasten to the tomb
    where they lay
    this lifeless clay
    all is solitude and gloom.

    We huddled together in silence for several minutes. Not speaking. Not moving. Just listening and thinking. After what seemed like a long while I asked a question. “Do you ever wonder if this is all there is? I mean, these bodies. This flesh… This life. There’s more, right?”

    Dave nodded. “But what is it?” I asked again. Now he looked slightly panicked. Micah shook his head and shrugged.

    We went out that night looking for performative blasphemy, all the satanic rituals of death in the Resurrection Cemetery, but we found something like the meaning of life. Or at least the right questions. And that’s still the question. All these years later. Is this all there is? All our assumptions about life and death and life after death and life after life. Spirit disembodied, removed from the material and the physical. A presence without weight and a weight without presence. Is there more? Are we more?

    “I don’t know what comes after life,” Allison said. “But whatever it is, it’s not worth much without love.” She placed another small stone on Micah’s uncle’s headstone.

    That’s when the police rolled up and turned on the flashing blue and red lights.

    “Shit! We’re busted,” Allison hissed.

    “Should we run?” Dave asked.

    “No,” I said as I stood. “He’s probably already got the license plate from the car. Even if we ran, he’d still track us down.”

    “Okay, you punks. Just hold it there. Don’t move,” called out the police officer as he turned his powerful flashlight on us. “Every year it’s this same damn thing. You kids come out here on Devil’s Night to topple some gravestones or spray paint pentagrams all over everything.”

    “Sir,” I said raising my hands over my head. “We’re not satanists. We came out to see satanists, but we didn’t find any...”

    “But they were here,” Dave interrupted. “They left their trash all over everything.”

    “We just cleaned it all up,” Allison finished the explanation. And Micah pointed to the trash bag at our feet.

    “Open that up and let me see,” the officer instructed. Micah knelt down and opened the bag wide enough to see inside. The condom was still right there on top of all the beer cans.

    The officer spoke into his radio, “This is Richardson out at the Resurrection Cemetery. You got anything on that license plate?”

    “Negative. No tickets or outstanding warrants.”

    “All right kids. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to haul ass out of here before I have to arrest you for trespassing. You’re going to go home. Straight home. And I’m going to file a report saying that I didn’t find any evidence of satanic mischief out here tonight. Which not only saves me a lot of other paperwork but has the added blessing of being true. Now haul ass.”

    We took off running for Allison’s car. But he shouted again, “Hold on, hold on! Take this trash with you.” Micah ran back and grabbed the bag, and we all beat feet for the car.

Rituali de Sangue - Friday, 1987
Twilight at Saint Gerald's - Another Friday, 1987
Exorcism Live - Another Friday, 1987

A Meditation A Few Days After Easter

    My song is love unknown, my savior’s love for me…

    The sun is up, the day is bright, crossing lawns of green and blue and purple, and I am whistling hymns into the wind. Thrust forward by the gust. Launched into my daily lurching.

    Oh who am I…?

    This marathon, this long hike, with shoulders back and head upraised. Eyes up into the sky. The wind will not relent. Twenty, thirty, forty-five mile per hour gusts. Tree limbs down and unsecured porch chairs sent flying. Holy Saturday’s sussuras in the pines have become jubilant sibilants and jangling wind chimes. Clanging gongs and cracking branches.

    Resounding all the day Hosannas to their king…

    There are women shouting, swearing from their door and dogs snarling on the steps. There are white nationalists flags ripping away from their swaying staffs. What makes this rage and spite? “You know what you’re saying, boy? You know what you’re saying?”

    Crucify is all their breath...

    And what has changed? The weather (if not the wind)… The world is still at war. The fires still flame. Love to the loveless shown. And am I so fickle, so changeable?

    But oh my friend, my friend in deed... 

    Who at my need his life would spend?



- My Song Is Love Unknown - Samuel Crossman 1629-1683

Our Earth We Now Lament To See

 

    I found this hymn by Charles Wesley in our methodist hymnal (#449) today. I came home after church and quickly recorded my own little version of it. Wesley's words, my melody. 

    Our earth we now lament to see
    with floods of wickedness overflowed,
    with violence, wrong, and cruelty,
    one wide-extended field of blood,
    where men like fiends each other tear
    in all the hellish rage of war.

    As listed on Abaddon's side,
    they mangle their own flesh, and slay; 
    Tophet is moved, and opens wide
    its mouth for its enormous prey;
    and myriads sink beneath the grave,
    and plunge into the flaming wave. 

    O might the universal Friend
    this havoc of his creatures see!
    Bid our unnatural discord end,
    declare us reconciled in thee!
    Write kindness on our inward parts
    and chase the murderer from our hearts!

    Who now against each other rise,
    the nations of the earth constrain
    to follow after peace, and prize
    the blessings of thy righteous reign,
    the joys of unity to prove,
    the paradise of perfect love!
    

Awake, My Soul - A Basement Hymn

 Here's another hymn recording - with words by Thomas Ken (1637 - 1711) and music by me. 

Awake, my soul, and with the sun
thy daily stage of duty run;
shake off dull sloth,
and joyful rise
to pay the morning sacrifice. 

All praise to thee, who safe has kept
and has refreshed me while I slept; 
Grant, Lord when I
from death shall wake
I may of endless life partake. 

Lord, I my vows to thee renew; 
disperse my sins as morning dew; 
guard my first steps
of thought and will
and with thyself my spirit fill. 

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
praise him all creatures here below; 
praise him above,
ye heavenly host;
praise the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Greater Things - a Basement Hymn

 Here's another lofi, basement recording of a hymn - with words by Albert Orsborn (1866 - 1967) and music by myself. You'll have to excuse the fact that I managed to cut off my head for most of the video. 

But you didn't come here to look at me anyway, did you? 

What a work the Lord has done
by his saving grace;
let us praise him every one,
in his holy place.
He has saved us gloriously,
led us onward faithfully,
yet he promised we should see
even greater things.

Greater things. Greater things.
Give us faith, O Lord, we pray
faith for greater things. 

Sanctify thy name, O Lord,
by thy people here.
For the altar or the sword!
Save us from our fear. 
When the battle rages fast;
help us in the fiery blast,
let us not be overcast. 
Prove thy greater things. 

Every comrade, Lord, we pray,
thou would richly bless;
lead us forth into the fray,
one in holiness.
One in faith and harmony,
one in perfect charity;
then we know that we shall see
even greater things. 

Let Us Sing of His Love Once Again

 

Here's another lofi, basement recording of a hymn-  words by Francis Bottome 1823-94, music by me. 

Let us sing of his love once again
of the love that can never decay
of the blood of the Lamb who was slain
till we praise him again in that day.

There is cleansing and healing for all
who will wash in the life-giving flood
there is perfect deliverance and joy
to be had in this world through the blood. 

I believe Jesus saves. 
I believe Jesus saves. 
And his blood washes whiter than snow.  

Even now while we taste of his love
we are filled with delight through his name
but what will it be when above
we shall join in the song of the Lamb!

Then we'll march in his name till we come 
at his bidding to cease from the fight
and our savior shall welcome us home
to our mansions of glory and light. 

I believe Jesus saves. 
I believe Jesus saves. 
And his blood washes whiter than snow.  

So with banners unfurled to the breeze
our motto shall holiness be
till the crown from his hand we shall seize
and the king in his glory we see. 

Let us sing of his love once again
of the love that can never decay
of the blood of the Lamb who was slain
till we praise him again in that day.

How Shall I Rise in Brightness? A Christmas Sermon

     At long last and with great joy, we say, Merry Christmas! Joy to the world, the Lord is come and we celebrate and rejoice. After the long and cold weeks of waiting through the season of Advent, where we focused on the small but potent image of the seeds of promise – the seeds of Hope, and Peace, and Joy and Love – we’ve come to the season of Christmas.

He is born the holy child
Play the oboe and the bagpipes merrily!
He is born the holy child
Sing we all of the Savior mild.
    (French 18^th century)

    With lights and songs, with gifts and feasting, with laughter and family, we’ve come together, in our own homes and in our own ways, to celebrate the joy and wonder of this day, to celebrate the gift of God, redemption and salvation from heaven. The word became flesh and lived among us. And we have seen his glory – the light that shines into every darkness. Praise God and celebrate, amen!

    I want to say more about the festivities and the celebration. I want us to linger in the light and laughter, and love of this day but we cannot. I’m sorry. Our scripture reading for this morning sends us wham and whiplash into terror and screaming and slaughter. We are dragged from delight into danger. We are dragged from the light back into the darkness.

    After the departure of the magi, who’d come to give homage to infant prophesied to be the King of the Jews, King Herod realized that he had been fooled. The wise men did not return to him to tell him what they had found and where. And he furious, full of wrath. He sent his soldiers to kill all the youngling boys in Bethlehem.

    In some Byzantine liturgies, we are told that Herod’s soldiers slaughtered some 14,000 of Israel’s sons. In a Syrian text the number is 64,000. In some medieval texts the number is expanded to 144,000 to match those martyrs of Israel described in the book of Revelation, sealed and preserved by God. But these are unnecessary embellishments. Bethlehem in the first century was little more than a hamlet, a few miles south of Jerusalem. The number of slaughtered innocents could scarcely have been more than 20 at most. (Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, 204) But even twenty is an incalculable tragedy. One slaughtered innocent is too many to endure.

    Saint Augustine called these murdered children “the Church’s first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief.”

    We have no historical evidence of this cruelty. Josephus, the Jewish historian of those times, doesn’t mention it. There is no other contemporary account of the slaughter outside of the book of Matthew. But it certainly fits within what we know from other historical records of King Herod’s character. He was a murderous and vengeful king, who was fearful and paranoid and willing to have even members of his own family killed in order to keep his grasp on the throne of Israel. He ordered the deaths of chief priests and scribes and members of the Sanhedrin, as well as his own brother, his own sister and her husband, three of his sons, and his beloved wife Mariam. And years later, when he was ill and knew that he was about to die he ordered that several prominent Jewish leaders be rounded up and executed at the moment of his death, so that the people of Jerusalem would have reason to mourn his passing.

    It’s a story that leaves us uncomfortable – and it should. There’s no historical record of the slaughter of the boys in and around Bethlehem. And we certainly don’t sing about it. Not often anyway. We have hundreds – even thousands of Christmas carols, songs, and hymns but how many of them are about this part of the Christmas story? The Coventry Carol is somewhat familiar

    Herod the King, in his raging,
    Charged he hath this day,
    his men of might
    in his own sight
    all young children to slay.

    Then woe is me, poor child for thee
    and ever mourn and say
    for thy parting
    neither say nor sing
    by, by, lully, lullay.
        (English 16^th century)

    But that might be the only one that most people know. After a bit of digging around I found a Catalan carol entitled El Rei Herodes.

    One day Joseph resting, the Child by his side
    heard shouting and tumult that evil betide;
    The wicked King Herod has made a decree
    for soldiers to kill ev’ry infant they see.
        (Catalan Traditional)

    There are a few others, but not many – and none that are a part of our usual Christmas festivities. We are reluctant to sing of this cruelty. We rarely bring it to mind. We sing of the angels, and the shepherds, and the star, and the magi. We sing of Joseph and Mary. We sing of wassail and figgy pudding. We sing of holly and ivy. We sing about partridges and pear trees and the whole assorted list. But the slaughter of innocent children by a mad bastard of a king – no. We rarely sing of that.

    The Slaughter of the Innocents

    When the solders came with sharpened swords
    obeying orders from a paranoid and murderous king
    the holy family fled across the sands to a pagan land.
    Mothers screamed into the silent starry night
    as their tiny infants bled out and died.
    Rachel weeping for her children would not be comforted.

    When heavy booted soldiers come again with rifles and grenades
    obeying orders as patriotic soldiers always do,
    when refugees flee across barb-wire borders
    when innocents are crushed beneath the rubble
    when mothers scream into satellite skies
    how will they be comforted?

    Matthew connects the story of Herod’s slaughter with a text from the prophet Jeremiah

    “A voice was heard in Rama,
    weeping and much grieving.
    Rachel weeping for her children,
    and she did not want to be comforted
    because they were no more.”

    How dare we sing of Santa in the face of that grief? How dare we sing of flying reindeer, and magic snowmen and all the other innocuous traditions of the holiday when Mother Rachel is crying out for her dead children?

    And she is still crying even today. Still refusing to be comforted for her dead children. Her weeping has not been stilled; her grief has not be silenced. She is weeping in the face of war in the Ukraine. She is screaming against the genocide in Gaza. She is keening in Cambodia and Thailand after another explosion. She is shrieking after every mass shooting in the United States. In the gospel story, Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus and flee into the safety of Egypt. The immigrant family, refugees from horror and death. But immigrants and refugees still face that horror here and now.

    How shall I rise in brightness while Mother Rachel weeps?

    There is no magic escape here. There is no hallmark happy ending. The children are slaughtered. Mary, Joseph and Jesus flee into the night, barely escaping the violence themselves. They traverse across desert terrain to the relative safety of a foreign land until they hear that Herod the King has finally died himself.

    But take comfort there. Tyrants die. Their power is not forever. Their empires crumble. Their thrones are pulled down in disgrace.

    And we sing the songs of despair. Lament is not faithlessness. Lament is resistance to tyranny. We refuse to normalize the slaughter. We refuse to accept the violence. We refuse to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to Mother Rachel still weeping today in every land, across every border.

    This mystery of glory
    that joy and pain come mixed
    is like frankincense perfume,
    a bittersweet fragrance.
    O Lord of light and glory
    bright shining star of dawn
    the myrrh that anoints in death
    gives way to heaven’s gold.

    Jesus, the word of God become flesh and living among us, inhabits the lowly plains of this dark world with us. God with us. God with the mothers of Ukraine. God with the mothers in Gaza and Thailand and Cambodia and in a hundred other places. God inhabits our tragedy with us. God is here, the light that shines into every darkness.

    We will sing another couple of hymns this morning. We will pray our prayers and go back to our lives. Back to our homes. And we will go back to the joy and celebration of Christmas. And we should. This is indeed a time to celebrate and merry – even if that delight is mixed with pain and grief. Sing the songs of joy. Sing the songs of woe. God hears them all.

    How Shall I Rise in Brightness

    How shall I rise in brightness
    while mother Rachel weeps?
    And how accept the gifts
    of magi from the east?
    O Lord of light and glory,
    bright shining star of dawn,
    bring light to those in darkness,
    bring light to all our hearts.

    This mystery of glory
    that joy and pain come mixed
    is like frankincense perfume,
    a bittersweet fragrance.
    O Lord of light and glory
    bright shining star of dawn
    the myrrh that anoints in death
    gives way to heaven’s gold.

An Imaginary Conversation with a Real Troll

     He came to me from out of the cold, wind and snow outside. I’d worked the day – hauling myself and letters and parcels through the snow, eight and a half miles. A long day and then more. I came home and shoveled my driveway and sidewalks. Tired and worn, I sat down to rest. And he came to me from out of the cold.

    “You’re a false teacher,” he said. Flat. Solid. No doubt, all conviction. “Satanic, even.”

    “We’ve gone over this already,” I grinned. “I’m a Methodist, not a monster.”

    “Whatever.” He waved me off and continued on. “God has a purpose and a plan with no exceptions. God’s authority will be acknowledged.”

    “Yes. God’s universal kingdom…”

    “Render obedience. Give what is due. You are a man and little else. You are a man and nothing more. You’ve come to destroy heaven and earth – jot and tittle. You do and teach the same. What you need…”

    “What I need is the nobler moments. The ideals realized and true.”

    He said nothing immediately so I offered him a drink. “I have some homemade lavender and lemon wine.” He sniffed at the glass I handed him before setting it down.

    “No rebellion – Christ is truth. And as long as sin commands you’re playing the wrong notes. Your lifestyle and pattern are all wrong. Stay away from children. I’ll tie the millstone around your neck myself. You’ve been warned.”

    “Give me grace upon the lips, hope and consolation, realized and true. In the law of love there is no injustice, no loss. The poor are not exploited and the workers enjoy the fruit of their labor. Every man beneath his own fig tree.”

    “Socialist crap. The pipe-dreams of Babylon. God never promised…”

    “Earth shall be fair, and all her people one. Not till that hour…”

    “God never promised that life would be fair. That’s completely unbiblical.” He paused and smoothed his hair into place. “Not only are you a false teacher of false idols and false doctrine, but you are a false convert as well.”

    He turned and went out and it was night.

A Hymn for Christ the King Sunday

Happy Antifa Sunday. This is a hymn I wrote for our church service this morning. 

Let congress, and parliament,
kings, and premiers and presidents,
Confess the truth and now repent
Before the King.

Confess that we have gone to war,
Killed our enemies and ten thousand more,
We’ve ignored the voice of the poor
And suffering.

All our violent, warring states,
Founded on vicious crimes of hate,
And built with greed insatiate
Are worthless things.

May all earthly empires fall,
Scattered hard and not recalled,
Let the Lord’s victorious call
Forever ring.

Let the whole world be amazed
By the one who died and was raised,
Lives forever to be praised
And hailed as King.

All the humble and broken ones,
Neglected daughters and forgotten sons,
Will be like the stars and the sun
Bright shining.

Christ the King, with nail-scarred hands,
Will bless the people of the lands
Who acquiesce to Love’s demands
For living.

Sing the Penitential Hymns (updated and recorded)

     I posted the words to this song the other day. After adding two additional verses and writing a melody for it, I sang it at church this morning. 

Sing the Penitential Hymns

Sing the penitential hymns
of modern, troubled saints
who watch the news
with breaking hearts
and whisper their complaints

We struggle on the narrow way
to enter through the gate
collapsing now
and stumbling too
we cannot bear the weight.

The imprecision of the words
that lay upon our tongues
the choked off prayers
and treasured hymns
by voices no longer sung

Oh Christ of all and lord of light
oh emperor of love
light the light and fan the flame
that will restore all things right

Christians, to the Paschal Victim

 I sang this song at church this morning. The music is by Ken Canedo. The words go back to the 11th century. 

We Wave Our Branches and We Shout Hosanna

This is a hymn I wrote for Palm Sunday several years ago. It’s sung to the tune Sine Nomine, and is based on Psalm 47 and John 12: 12-16. 

For God’s Gifts

I found these words, written by Howard Thurman, in The United Methodist Hymnal - #489 - For God’s Gifts

O Holy God, open unto me light for my darkness, courage for my fear, hope for my despair. 

O loving God, open unto me wisdom for my confusion, forgiveness for my sins, love for my hate. 

O God of peace, open unto me peace for my turmoil, joy for my sorrow, strength for my weakness. 

O generous God, open my heart to receive all your gifts. 

It Was Spring and It Was Lent

It was spring and he struggled against the wind as he walked his route. A storm had blown through recently and the lingering winds still buffeted. There was trash and debris in the streets, empty pizza cartons tumbling across yards and fallen tree limbs across the sidewalks. He stumbled occasionally over broken bricks and dislodged chunks of concrete. These things, however, would not keep him from his appointed rounds.

It was spring and it was Lent and somewhere overhead a hawk was screeching. Was it a warning? He thought about the passion and the pain that waited in the next few weeks. “Not everyone can carry the weight of the world,” he said to himself and was reminded of a song.

He thought of T. and of J. and C., his friend, his colleague, his brother, all of whom had reached out to him in the past year to say something of their struggles with life and their wrestling against death. “How can I carry that weight,” he thought to himself and he remembered his own occasional suicidal contemplations. “I can barely handle my own.”

He’d always felt like the family failure – with no college degree and two failed marriages. “How can I carry this?” He shifted the load he carried and stretched. His neck popped twice. He stretched again and his back popped as well. He sighed and continued along his path.

J. was there along his route, out for his regular morning walk. “How are you, J?” he called out to him. 
            “Not too good,” J answered in his halting manner. “I’ve been thinking about God and it hurts.” Then he let out a long and warbling wail. “It’s not been a good day.” He offered what solace and comfort he could to J. and promised to see him again the next day. Perhaps things would be better then…

Somewhere overhead the hawk was still screeching. Was it a warning? Was it a comfort?

Later, as he neared the end of his route, something triggered the memory of the way old Mrs. D. would play the piano in the lounge area of the nursing home. She kept her foot constantly on the sustain pedal so all the wrong notes – and there were many of them – continued to ring. And he remembered her singing through the dissonance:

“Let peace begin with me; let this be the moment now.
            With every step I take, let this by my solemn vow:
            To take each moment and  live each moment eternally
            Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

It was spring and it was Lent and he had miles to go before the end, but he would walk. He would carry what weight could shoulder and he would talk about the passion.  

Let There Be Peace on Earth – words and music by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson
Talk About the Passion - words and music by REM 

Through the Clouds He’s Lifted Up

I wrote a short hymn to share with my church yesterday, Ascension Sunday. And now I’ll share it with you.  In the video the song starts at about the 10 minute mark. 

This the day when Christ ascends 

Space and time around him bends 

Through the clouds he’s lifted up. 

Down from Heaven he condescends  

The grave and hell now transcends 

 Hymns of praise be lifted up. 

 And if we falter here, 

 In our weakness and our sorrow 

Still he will receive us. 

 All our error he amends 

 Lonely people he befriends 

 Let his name be lifted up 

 The weak and poor we’ll defend 

 The grace of God we’ll extend 

 In our lives we’ll lift him up 

 And if we falter here, 

 In our weakness and our sorrow 

Still he will receive us.