I-YOUniverse

Gordon Atkinson’s comment at CCblogs on my piece Requiem for Cannibals prompts me to write about homophobia, the church, and me.

A prayer for healing

A couple decades ago the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond offered a service for healing at which unidentified people who were gay and HIV+ or living with AIDS assisted. If you wished, you could receive anointing and prayer for healing. I was anointed and prayed to be healed of my homophobia, which flared up in my training to be a pastoral counselor.

 About then, a Southern Baptist Convention president announced in San Francisco that AIDS was God’s judgment on homosexuals. Of course, most people don’t know that in Baptist polity, rightly construed, he was speaking for himself alone.

I felt I must do something. So I began volunteering with the local AIDS ministry. In those days we still didn’t know much about how the disease was spread; antiviral cocktails hadn’t been discovered yet.

(Although this is about 20 years ago, I am not disclosing identifying details about clients or volunteers.)

Panic up close and personal

The training I received in a neighborhood Episcopal parish house was glorious. I met vibrant Christians who were really making a difference. Sunlight literally bathed the room.

But nothing prepared me for my first visit. On the living room wall was the large family portrait like they take for church directories: a vigorous healthy young minister in all his pastoral dignity, his beaming wife, and two-year-old daughter. When I met him, however, he lay on the bed, weighing less than 100 pounds. Half conscious, he rolled about, crying out, “Lord, have mercy! Have mercy!”

I used up my latex gloves changing his diapers. When I wrongly fed him a bit of cheese, he choked. I had to reach my unprotected hand into his mouth to remove the cheese. Of course, now we know that, although dumb, that action is not as life-threatening as it felt.

I drove home, and succumbed to a panic attack.

The prodigal Sonny

I decided, given my own physical challenges, to volunteer in an AIDS hospice rather than in private homes. My client now was a 6′4″ skinny 20-something man with a sunny smile, so let’s call him Sonny. I met him once a week for a couple years.

When His Baptist family of birth ejected him because of his addictions and attendant problems, Sonny learned to survive on the street. His vocabulary, however, was better than mine. I quickly learned to trust Sonny to use all his survival skills at all times. He knew how to direct my guilt symphony with the expertise of a Leonard Bernstein.

I had to stop seeing Sonny for my favorite pastime, spine surgery. But, when he was baptized by a Baptist pastor and received into the church, he called me to tell me. Shortly before his death, he enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast at home. His father gave him a key to the family home.  

I love Sonny. I miss him to this day.

For simplicity’s sake I’ll use “gay” as shorthand for “male homosexual, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered” persons.

 Entering into the church’s closet

While the church is wrangling about homosexuality, about one in ten of its members wrestles with core identity concerns about being gay. A much larger percentage love gay family members, co-workers or friends. Gay teens experience a much higher rate of depression, addiction, and suicide than other teens. Unlike minorities whose difference is visible, gay youth often feel utterly alone; they know no one like them. Church is the last place they dare go for help. Many media images of gays are unhealthy or destructive.

Several years after leaving a church, I got a phone call from a member. (Again, identifying details changed.) ”Can I come see you?” she said. The issue was her son’s being gay. After her own conversion, she lived totally for Jesus. She believed the Bible condemns homosexuals. But her son hurt so deeply. He rejected his homosexual nature, but could not change; he felt damned.

His mother called to ask me to share my understanding. She took it and studied the Bible intensively on her own. I passed on copies of Fr. John McNeill’s Taking a Chance on God and Walter Wink’s Homosexuality and the Christian Faith.

Frankly, I was dumbfounded. Years earlier, she was closed. Now, not having seen her for a long time, I found her heart tender and open to her son’s suffering. The seed God’s Spirit had hidden in the soil of her heart, after long dormancy, had germinated.

After walking away from—where to turn to

A third instance, more recent. Homosexuality was the headline everywhere. When my Sunday School class asked me to teach what the Bible says about homosexuals, I did. The pastor told me to stick to the safe parts of the Bible; instead, I walked away. I should have done it sooner, more simply. People have a right to their beliefs; I, however, will never again be involved in a church that does not expressly welcome gay people.

You’ll find whispers of openness (often more powerful than shouts) on my blog. From day one, I described e-thou encounter (precursor to I-YOUniverse) as a welcoming affirming space. Those words describe Baptist churches who welcome gay members (go here: http://www.wabaptists.org/.) 

On the side bar is a link to What We Wish We’d Known, a fabulous resource nicknamed The Blue Book compiled by caring friends, here: http://www.pcmk.org/Blue_Book_V5.pdf.

Other resources can be found at the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, here: http://www.bpfna.org/.

I never thought my post about enduring schism and living to tell the tale might covertly endorse the fear and hatred of people who are lesbian, gay, transgendered or bisexual.

Fighting is not the best way. Use your good energies to make a difference. If you can’t agree, walk away. Shake the dust off your feet. Put the church assets in God’s hands, and walk away.

What Paul did

One biblical model is how Paul dealt with Hebrew-Greek racism:

When [the legalist faction] opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.” Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue.

Acts 18:6-7 (NRSV)

In taking up the Collection for the poor of Jerusalem, he continued throughout his life to reach out to those who excluded themselves (Rom. 15.26-27).

Where I am now and here

Concerning this phobia (like all the others), still I have miles to go. But it’s way past time for followers of Christ like me to get up off our assertions and

reach out to,
learn about,
get acquainted with,
invite home for dinner,
celebrate the weddings and anniversaries of,
share the heartbreak of,
be politically active on behalf of

gay people, black people, Hispanic people, undocumented immigrant people, Jewish people, Muslim people—

 WHOSOEVER’s a pretty big group of people—

It’s way past time for followers of Jesus to be and to do everything, anything you do when you’re for real.

What God can do with open Bibles, open minds, and open hearts sometimes takes my breath away.

Here we are, four people–reading Genesis 14, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 4, 5 and 7. Lisa, her daughter Emily, and Linda, whose son recently returned from Iraq.

(We’re expecting my wife Sandy, Methodist minister, pastoral counselor, who visited a former client now in hospice. Having had a day from hell, she gets there an hour after everyone has left.)

Meet Up with Melchizedek

Melchizedek, king of righteousness, king of peace, blesses Abram, serves bread and wine, receives a tithe from him.

“It’s stupid, I guess,” says Lisa, “but I’m thinking, could this be Christ some way?”

“Many people think Melchizedek is Christ on earth long before his birth in Bethlehem,” I assure her.

We bat that around. I acknowledge others think he was a Canaanite priest, in whom Abram recognized a worthy servant of Yahweh.

My Favorite Four Letter (Hebrew) Word

Which brings us to Psalm 110.1, “The Lord said to my lord…” When you see Lord in small caps like that, it stands for the holy name of God which Jews won’t pronounce.

No one had ever noticed that. Which sparked interest in Exodus 3.13-15, and the holy name YHWH, now thought to be pronounced Yahweh, similar to verb forms of to be like hayah and ehyeh; influenced by German scholars, we used to pronounce it Jehovah.

People are intrigued, gonna take that bit of Bible knowledge home.

How come they don’t know this stuff?

I think, these women have attended Sunday School their whole lives. The last four Tuesdays Linda’s been doing committee work at her church. These are sharp people. Linda’s a nurse. Emily’s a college student. Lisa has a keen eye for people. Whenever Lisa says something about a stupid idea or thick skull, I get ready to jot down what she says because often she’s right on the money.

I’ve taught Sunday School most of my life, followed each week by a sermon. For a decade I wrote Bible study materials for junior highs, and I’m proud of the work the team and I did, grateful for the editors, and pissed at the politics at the top. I also believe the Bible study aids I’m familiar with aren’t doing the job.

®  People don’t know Bible basics.

®  People don’t connect Bible knowledge and a life-changing relationship to Christ.

®  People don’t take what little they know out of the classroom.

  BEFORE and AFTER BSing¹ in SS they’re NO DIFFERENT!

Compare your average SS class with an AA group. What a difference!

I’m a fan of a good study Bible, a systematic plan to cover the whole Bible appropriately in each age group, and teachers with access to commentaries, computer software, and other aids.

I’d be interested to know if anyone’s curriculum includes measuring knowledge and application.

 This Teacher Needs a Little Mercy

Anyway, back to Tuesday. We read

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Heb 4:15-16 (NRSV)

That gives some juice to the potentially dry discussion of the order of Melchizedek in Hebrews, after which we return to psalm 110. Using typology we apply what’s said about Zion to our lives. “What does that mean to you?” I ask lamely.

I was struggling. I can think of many specific ways to apply Psalm 110.5-6:

The Lord is at your right hand;
     he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
He will execute judgment among the nations,
     filling them with corpses;
he will shatter heads
     over the wide earth.

But I don’t.

 Nail Prints N’ All

At the close the women note my wife Sandy’s not home. We get into a discussion of hospice. In the group two had mothers die recently in hospice. We talk about pain management, the patient’s looking forward to death, how relatives cope, how God blesses us when we need it most.

When people in a small group trust each other, and focus on God’s Word in their lives, amazing things occur, despite the group leader’s lame use of typology.

I don’t know for sure if it was Christ way back there with Abram. But, right there Tuesday night in my living room where two or three were gathered, for sure–it was Christ.

___________________________________

¹That’s “Bible studying.” In higher criticism aka “Bull Geschichte.”

My first 20 years I lived at the foot of the Franklin Mountains in El Paso, Texas. But the past 40 years I’ve lived in Kentucky, Indiana and Virginia. I still feel drawn to the quiet darkness of the Socorro mission and the shimmering bluegrass of rural Kentucky, however.

Working 40 years in the church, feeling more and more alienated, today I don’t belong to any church.

An American, I disavow policies in Iraq as well as the economic hegemony of American multinationals. No individual President, no matter how enlightened and determined, can overcome bureaucracy and vested interests to change all that needs to be changed.

So where do I call home? About three weeks from my 60^th birthday, how do I sum up my life?

Before I start, I have to acknowledge the extent to which my culture has suckered me into believing youth and physical beauty are the best. Age is trashy. Wisdom? These days you get 15 seconds of fame, and the gong sounds before wisdom even gets its breath.

Looking for answers

Psalm 90 is a good place to go for some answers.

You can discern a structure in the psalter, briefly stated: the rise and fall of the Davidic monarchy (pss 3-89) followed by the rule of Yahweh (pss 90-150). In 586 BCE the Babylonians destroyed Israel, carried the people into exile, which becomes a fundamental theological metaphor.

Ps 90 faces some harsh realities: the brevity and sinfulness of human life, the wrath of God. But it nests these in the mothering of God, and in God’s compassion, steadfast love and favor.

Beginning and End

It begins with the primeval fact: God, you have been our dwelling place, our refuge, in all generations. You transcend the birth of mountains, the evolution of species. You shatter time. You are God. By using the metaphor of a mother giving birth, the psalm softens and makes incredibly intimate the Big Bang.

Then, the psalm rolls to its conclusion, appealing to God to turn (the great Hebrew word for repentance, shuv) from wrath and anger to compassion, steadfast love, favor.

Nestled in between the immensities of creation and compassion is human life, a momentary flowering marred by iniquity and secret sin, marked by toil and trouble. A life may last no longer than from morning to evening. But time in this psalm is elastic; a thousand years are like yesterday.

Is one lifetime enough?

If one lifetime seems way too short, that’s no surprise.

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in one lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite so virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Niebuhr, quoted in New Interpreter’s BIble, IV pp. 1044-1045.

Summing Up

If I were to sum up my life at the end of my 60^th year, I might say something like this:

I loved God, my wife and my son.

I loved the Word.

I served the people of God.

I endured.

Not perfectly, not even close.

Or I might not say anything. For, silence holds truth that words cannot conceive of.

Is it enough?

As Gandhi once said in response to a reporter, “It’s a bad question.”

Don’t you wonder what the ascension of Christ was like? Some sacred rendition of “Beam me up, Scottie”?

Or the disciples’ walk home?

Luke says they worshiped and were filled with great joy. Matthew adds “but some doubted.”

We don’t really know what a video camera would have recorded. My money’s on nothing. The Risen Christ is only for human eyes (and perhaps other critters’, too). But that still begs the question of what a skeptical reporter would have seen.

It all smacks of hocus pocus.

My childhood tradition ignored the Ascension. Oh, maybe a preacher pitched a sermon at it now and then, but mostly it got swallowed up by the Old Rugged Cross.

Baal Cult, Yahweh Style

The daily lectionary calls for the reading of Psalm 68 on the eve of the ascension. That I can get into.

Depending on who you read, psalm 68 is early or late. Everybody agrees it’s difficult, at points barely translatable.

It celebrates Yah, rider on the clouds, Anglo-Saxon like:

Yah Cloud-Rider, Clap of Thunder-Roarer.

It’s also barely Yahwistic, a brash borrowing from the cult of Baal, Canaanite God of thunder. “Escape from death” (68.20) alludes to the primordial conflict between Baal and Mot, God of death. It celebrates how God shatters the hairy crown of the guilty, and promises a blood bath for the righteous to enjoy.

Worship in Temple and Heart

It transports us to the Temple, filled with the smoke of incense and sacrifice, maidens dancing, beating tambourines on palm and thigh, shofars blaring, the mighty Ark of the Covenant Shaddai’s throne taking its place at the head of the great congregation.

It reminds us that, although Yahweh’s might exceeds that of Egypt and all the wild animals that live among the reeds, compassion for orphans, widows, the desolate and prisoners is God’s key attribute.

It insists that we humans define ourselves by our response to God, that the humble and faithful will spiritually prosper, but the rebellious will live in a parched land.

Wilderness Wandering

I’ve been trudging through the desert these past few weeks:

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
     as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalms 63:1 (NRSV)

Or is it, “God, I’m sick of you”? Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!

The whirr of my visiting friend’s jam packed schedule, extravert’s delight, and his bone-shattering fatigue. The stunning poverty and degradation which is Africa. My wife’s joyful integration into the United Methodist fold, while I remain of my own choosing outside the camp (Heb 13.13).

Outside the Camp

I prefer the Tent of meeting to the Tabernacle (Exo 33.7-11). A verse or two, a deep commentary (not just intellectual, but spirit-filled), a blank sheet of paper, a waiting heart.

I remember as a college student serving on staff at Glorieta Baptist Conference Center for the summer, and during music week the presentation of Handel’s Messiah, 2500 trained voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus together.

But that’s all gone with the wind.

What remains is the sound of sheer silence, and the fresh scent of rain far out across the desolation of the desert.

Relates to RCL Gospel John 10.1-10 Fourth Sunday of Easter

As I sit at my computer, my cat Jazzi calls for my attention with short chopped cries: “Myow! Myow!” She wants me to hold her in my lap. She’s mostly black but her left front leg has white and orange markings that remind me of a lady’s long evening glove. That’s why we named her Jazzi, for the night club in The Preacher’s Wife.

People who know nothing about the Bible know the 23^rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” As a child they learned it by heart, the pastor read it at Mama’s funeral.

In John 10 Jesus paints potent word pictures of shepherds. The New Interpreter’s Bible connects this chapter with the previous, where the Pharisees put the once blind man out of the synagogue. If you make the link, the images get starker.

The fold is the synagogue, center of village life; to be put out is to be shunned. Isolation meant danger, sometimes death. The sheep are followers of Jesus who pay dearly for their faith; thieves and bandits, predatory religious leaders; you find rulers of their ilk in all faiths, all countries.

Matthew wrote, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” Matt 9:36 (NRSV).

Now frustrated at being ignored, Jazzi draws out her cry to a kind of harangue: “Meooww!” Get with it, Mac!

Confronting David the king who took another’s wife, then his life, Nathan told a parable of a poor man who “had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.” 2 Sam 12:3 (NRSV)

The prophet Ezekiel condemned wicked kings who neglected their people and prophesied that the caring Lord would replace them.

Jazzi is not yet ready to give up. She hops from the shelf to my chair and rubs against me, making it difficult to type. She purrs loudly and snuggles in my arm, bringing the task of writing to a cease.

We love these images. Trouble is, we’re totally cut off from the sounds of the herd, the feel of wool, the smell of manure. We’ve rarely if ever seen sheep or shepherd. We don’t know that in Jesus’ time animals and humans lived in one structure, sheep on one side, humans on the other.

We buy Serta counting sheep on eBay. Google “good shepherd,” and you get the 2006 film starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, social service agencies, rehab services, and traditional churches.

Many will associate shepherding with Brokeback Mountain, the short story by Annie Proulx of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, two teenage boys who spend a summer herding sheep in the high mountains of the West and a lifetime being in love with each other. Jack snuggles a wagtail lamb in front of him on his saddle as they move the flock to the high meadow on federal land. When he fails to spend one night with the sheep, Ennis finds a bloody carcass of one, left by a wolf or bear.

Playing with images of people on whom animals are dependent and thought of pet lovers; my wife, however, commented she didn’t want to be anyone’s pet (a valid point). Being a sheep, a timid, stupid person, isn’t high-or low-praise for that matter.

Continuing to play with the image I tried my hand at the pet’s 23^rd psalm:

The God of all life, my care-giver, never lets me go without;
creates habitat for me to nest, play and feed;
shows me quiet safe watering places;
is my alpha, taking the lead in forest or flight, migration or hunt.

When I lose ground to humans building suburbs or vacation homes,
when climate changes faster than my kind can adapt,
when I become too old or weak to be happy and free,
when I longer see the face of God,
wrapped in light as a garment,
then I have no fear.
Breath slips from my body,
as if let off a leash or loosed from a trap,
and returns to You.

You prepare a nest, a warren, a den, or a roost just right for me,
You stroke my fur or preen my feathers,
Goodness and Loyal Love look after me
like animal rescuers after a storm,
and I will prowl and play and nap at your place for ever.

I often wonder why God created house cats. Oh, I know you can say a lot for the species. A good cat can keep your house free of mice and rats. But my cats wouldn’t know a mouse from a marshmallow. Though they fancy themselves great hunters as they peer out the screen door at the vast green jungle of the yard, they’ve never been outside. I feed and water them daily.

I think God creates them out of sheer delight. God animal rescuer, animal lover, isn’t a flawless metaphor, but it’s not bad.

What do you think, Jazzi?

Grunewald’s Crucifixion

Friday March 21, 2008

A Meditation for Good Friday

Part 2

Jesus said, “”If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23 (NRSV)

Keener than a brain surgeon’s laser Jesus’ Word divides between soul and spirit. He begins with intention, not deeds; and the intention is following him. A popular school of thought associates sacred with sour and suffering. (My mother was principal of the school.)

But Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,” will have none of that carping, pharisaical spirit. Following Christ isn’t psychological masochism, “bearing your cross,” nor parading down the street beating your back raw. I can’t imagine a Jesus who didn’t run down country roads, breathless and joyous in the grace of a young man’s muscle. Who didn’t show off the day’s catch of fish to competitive brothers. Who didn’t polish fine carpentry for love of cedar.

Intention: “if any want to become my followers.” It’s incredible who Jesus called “evil-doers,” a pet term of some politicians today.

“Lord, Lord,” people will protest on the last day, “did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Preaching, casting out demons, doing deeds of power-evil? Then I have more to answer for than I figured.

The Father’s will isn’t a saint’s death (my fifteen minutes of fame), but a saint. Saints, at the least, are people who belong to God.

After identifying the intention of the daily cross-follow me!-Jesus next identifies two friction points. You’re 15 ½ years old, in driver’s ed behind the wheel of a manual transmission, parked facing upward on a slope, and the instructor’s blabbing about the friction point, the position of the clutch at which the car won’t roll backwards, but if you give it a little gas will begin rolling upward.

You find friction points-where the gospel meets resistance-immediately, in yourself. Jesus said, “Deny yourself.” In our sales pitch and appointment books we like to minimize this part of the gospel. And that involves a half truth (which has the half life of half a banana).

You can’t pour anything out of an empty cup. If it’s utterly empty, it’s a vacuum; it sucks into its void whatever it can. In The Screwtape Letters CS Lewis depicts demons as cannibals who feast on each other, when they can’t get human flesh.

Rather than face the anxiety of being made in God’s image, we semi-saints like to leapfrog over God’s intention that we be a self, define our likes and dislikes, become the work of art created for good works (Eph. 2.10, NJB). Instead, we say, “let Moses do it.” Let him face the fire on the mountain, let him tell us what God wants.

Jesus, however, spent 30 years becoming and being a self, ten times longer than in ministry, although I doubt he made the distinction. After Joseph’s death he managed a brood of brothers and sisters, ran the carpenter’s shop, debated Torah, listened to God. I doubt he made clay pigeons fly. But he felt adolescent hormones, smashed his fingers with loose beams, perhaps tangoed with a bossy elders. His love of all things everyday evident in the parables-yeast, the lost coin, the farmer sowing seed-suggests how deeply he invested himself in Nazareth goings on.

Psychology concerns our becoming mature, authentic selves, and (to the extent that we can) our discarding fake self-indulgent narcissistic selves. Spirituality concerns surrendering both fake and authentic selves to God-not throwing self away in humiliation, but simply opening your hands and offering whatever you hold to God. Sometimes God takes what lies on your palm, sometimes God does not.

Another friction point-here it is-”take up your cross daily.” Those of us who dodge the daily cross may not even recognize when Gabbatha and Golgotha arrive. The cross casts its shadow in Peter’s rebuke, the concerned church official’s advice, the empty pew and lagging budget offering, the subtle and not so subtle pressure of society to conform or at least be still. Paul speaks of the stumbling block, the scandal, and the folly; the author of Hebrews, the shame, of the cross. Those feelings, the foe friend’s confidential advisory, the group’s stolid inertia should set off the alarm: Calvary’s at hand, come, follow.

We preachers all know where the cross is: it’s where your career is buried.

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down your life for your friends” (John 15.13) You find crosses motivated by love of country, neighbor, truth everywhere. They don’t belong exclusively to church-goers or even Christians. Whistleblowers know about crosses. So do soldiers, aid workers, journalists, college students and teachers, the suffering and the aged.

Real followers of Christ always face the cross one way or another. This week the body of Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul Monsignor Paulos Faraj Rahho was recovered. Kidnappers also killed his driver and two bodyguards.  The Catholic agency PIME reports 47 Christians were killed in Iraq in 2007.

Shortly before his murder, Luis Espinal, a Latin American priest, wrote:

The faithful do not have a vocation to be martyrs. When they fall in the struggle, they fall with simplicity and without posing….Life ought to be given by working, not by dying….And if the day comes when they must give their lives, they will do it with the simplicity of someone who is carrying out one more task. (Gustavo Gutierrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2002], p. 117.)

Jesus said, “Follow me.” When we do, we’re never alone. We live in solidarity with all who have followed through the ages.
 

Friday March 21, 2008

Eli
pain blurs everything can’t
move can’t adjust so weight doesn’t drag
shoulders grind. pain’s
all there is

faces, women’s Mother’s wracked, that young rich
kid John’s
son of thunder, you don’t look like you could
whimper now. he 

trusted in God let God deliver
him jeers taunts buzz ears. pain at least shoves
all that in
background. Papa Joseph, where’d you come
from? missed you long
talk in carpenter’s shop you knew cross coming didn’t you when
you died you. eyes

stinging can’t wipe them
can’t wait to
see everybody loud
crowding together. pulling at 

hands can’t move,
much harder now to breathe, dry lips mouth full of
leaves dark cursing
soldiers throwing dice for my
robe Eli, used to heal people who touched hem of 

people not born praise-Eli
where- You-
are- people in the dust
valley of shadow You are
with-You where are
I -Eli-

Friday March 21, 2008

Good Friday

 Dereliction

 Jesus cried, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”

 Sunday’s a cinch, Lord-
what about mean days, moan mundane days,
you’re off holding revival meeting someplace far
from me,

pain day someday pays today in full.
The pills aren’t working, Lord.
My sweet Lord, you listening?

You’re American as Toyota, Lord,
My Methodist ancestors conquered the continent in your name.
Not so sure any more how the conquered ones felt about it,
happy as Tibetans under Chinese rule, maybe.
But my great grands sang “Glory, hallelujah!”
every step along the Santa Fe.
You bore them through on eagles’ wings
wars and depression and the 60s.

Me?

Folks don’t talk to the one in the chair.
Plenty of people, if they think of me
(which they don’t),
say, “He had it coming.”
They sing me a chorus of “Cabaret”
and swing out the door slinging over their shoulders
“Lemme know if you need anything”
like their eye balls don’t work.

 I came out of the belly three months early, should not’ve lived.
Guess you had other plans.
(You can clue me in any time.)
First thing, Momma taught me
not to drink, and “Jesus loves me.”

You still there?
If you’re not there, my sweet Jesus, I’m done.
Nobody gets it -constant pain-
like you.
There’s only so much loving people can do,
Then it’s just me and pain,
6 on a 1-10 scale,
(get to 10, bite the stick in two)
Well, it’s 7 really,
but gimme a few deep breaths, and I can call it a 6.
What’s one point between friends, huh?
Pain?

I feel like death in the afternoon,
Fresh meat for a pride of lions,
a carcass for a pack of pit bulls.

The physical stuff ain’t the worst.
Inside, I’m worn thin like losing to cancer gets;
you wouldn’t notice, just looking,
unless you took a soul scan. 

This is my 911 call, Lord, on my 9-11.
You’ve helped me before,
I’m ashamed to ask,
but I got nobody else,
I got nuthin’ else.

If you ain’t there…

Sunday March 16, 2008

                New York (JP)- Palm Sunday 2008. Traffic on 5^th Ave came to a standstill today as JC a young preacher from Mexico rode a beat up bicycle down the fashionable thoroughfare, gaining attention from thousands of onlookers. The fabled blizzard of ticker tape didn’t fall, but video cams and cell phones recorded the surreal scene, now everywhere on the Internet. As one pundit put it, “What was he thinking?”

                William Browning III, lead statistician for WORSHIPORG, stated that such an irresponsible circus stunt will mark the end of any serious influence that JC might have had on faith in America.

                Another commented, “It’s yet another example of how the pop culture mongrelizes genuine religious faith. His action is an affront to every decent God-fearing American.”

                The crowd could be heard chanting “Feed us! Lead us!” and “USA! USA!”

                The Reverend Dr. G. Forbes Lewellen, dean of the Liberal Seminary of New York, explained that this man’s remarkable speaking ability combined with anecdotal accounts of healings and miracles contribute to a frenzy of interest among the unwashed and uninformed.

                Billy Gene, founder of Focus on Fundamentals, stated this sort of uncontrolled spiritualism often has its roots in demonic possession.

                Meanwhile, a CIA spokeman declined to rule out terrorist connections. “We’re watching him closely,” the source stated on condition of anonymity. “He’s come out of nowhere. We don’t know who he’s fronting for, and we’re not sure what all this kingdom talk amounts to.”

                Meanwhile, Entertainment Now reporter Liza Liza has scooped the journalism world with her uncut no-holds-barred interview with Mary M., JC’s reputed longtime lover, who answers the question on everybody’s lips: was JC’s father an Extra-Terrestrial? Sources in Nazareth report that JC’s mother was the victim of alien abduction.

Tuesday March 25th, 2008

 Dueling Sacrifices

 Out of the wilderness Elijah the prophet appeared, declaring jihad against the priests of Baal, and for three and a half years he turned Israel into a dust bowl. Then, he challenged the king and his stylish queen and their 950 prophets to dueling sacrifices. “How long will you go limping between two opinions?” he asked Israel. (1 Kings 18.11)

They agreed, “The God who answers by fire is God.” Americans, of course, would take a poll.

All day long, the priests of Baal hopped about the altar like so many Easter bunnies, crying out, gashing themselves in their frenzy. “Maybe your god’s napping,” Elijah said. “Maybe he’s relieving himself.”

At the time of the evening sacrifice, Elijah prepared the altar, pouring copious amounts of water on it-perhaps symbolizing repentance (1 Samuel 7.6)-and simply called on God. Fire fell from heaven, consuming offering, altar stones, and water. Elijah then led in slaughtering all the infidel priests; the long drought in Israel ended.

Drought of Doubt

But a drought of spirit began for Elijah. He fled the furious queen for fear of his life. At Mt. Horeb he spent the night in a cave; experienced wind, earthquake, fire-God not in any of them. What a letdown for a guy who pronounced drought and summoned a lightning strike from the blue.

In the sound of silence that came after, there was God. Elijah came to the mouth of the cave, and God asked, “What are you doing here?”

Elijah whined, “I’m the only one left who worships you, and they’re out to get me.”

Doubt = double-crossing, doublespeak

“Doubt” and “double” have the same root. Doubting is hesitating, being torn between two lovers, hopping between two gods. Jesus said, you can’t serve two masters. You’ll love the one and hate the other,  be devoted to one and despise the other. (Matt 6.24)

A double-dealing person is deceitful, underhanded; double crossing someone is betraying them, like Judas did. Your doppelganger is your shadow self, in psychology more positive than in pop culture. Mr. Hyde was Dr. Jekyll’s vicious doppelganger. In his novel 1984 George Orwell coined the term “doublespeak,” personal, political or business equivocation.

The National Council of Teachers of English bestow a Doublespeak Award each year. The 2007 winner was Alberto Gonzales, whose Senate testimony was evasive and confusing in the extreme. In response to questioning by Senator Edward Kennedy, Mr. Gonzales said, “Senator, I have in my mind a recollection as to knowing as to some of these United States attorneys. There are two that I do not recall knowing in my mind what I understood to be the reasons for the removal.”

Gonzales’ boss George W. Bush won in 2006 for his speech in New Orleans on September 15, 2006, calling for an end to deep, persistent poverty with roots in racial discrimination. However, a week before the President’s speech, he signed an executive order suspending the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act, thereby allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.

Does W  stand for double-dealing, double speaking?

You’ll find more about the NCTE Doublespeak Awards at http://www.ncte.org/about/awards/council/other/106868.htm

Double-minded 

James says, “The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. James 1:6-7 (NRSV)

Doubt is Thomas’s Domain 

In the New Testament the doubt domain belongs to Thomas the Twin. He certainly was two-faced. He could say, “Let’s go die with Jesus,” (John 11.16); but, faced with the witness of Jesus’ resurrection, he replied, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” John 20:25 (NRSV).

When the Risen Christ bared his wounds for Thomas’ touch, he didn’t need to touch to know for sure, answering instead, “My Lord and my God!”

Sometimes I throwback to the cave dweller, sniffing to myself, “I’m the only one who…” You fill in the blank. Other times my brave avowals of bearing the cross with Jesus are so much doublespeak. I confess that I’m even double-minded on occasion.

“If only I could see Jesus, like Thomas,” the seducer whispers, “it’d be easy to follow Jesus.”

Let us be One

Martin Buber in “The Way of Man” wrote,

“The man with the divided, complicated, contradictory soul is not helpless: the core of his soul, the divine force in its depths, is capable of acting upon it, changing it, binding the conflicting forces together, amalgamating the diverging elements - is capable of unifying it.” (Pendle Hill pamphlet #106, p. 18) http://www.pendlehill.org/resources/files/pdf%20files/php106.pdf

The fire of God’s love can meld us into one, one with self, one with others, one with creation, one with God. Let it begin in me.