The Congress of the United States passed by an overwhelming margin an act authorizing the US embassy in Israel be located in its capital–Jerusalem…during Clinton’s presidency.
He refused to sign it.
We decided this as a representative democracy more than 20 years ago.
70 years after the birth of the modern state of Israel and 73 years after the end of the Holocaust.
We name the fox Kristofferson after the character in the Wes Anderson movie. He sticks to the shadows but when he emerges you know it is him–not a cat or stray dog, too vulpine to be anything else and we are worried because the kittens are in the woods somewhere while their mother is out.
What can I do?
Leave the children in the running car? Leave the headlights on? Turn on the flashlight? Stomp through the tall grass into no-man’s-land? Keeping eye contact with him all the while? As if I could just scare him off from where the young ones are?
…pray they survive the night.
Matthew 1:1 NIV
[1] This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
Matthew seems pretty confident that Jesus is the Messiah, a word with so much power to reckon with us and all that has captured us that I am not sure how big or long or loud our explanations of Messiah could be and still be only an approximation of the real.
Some synonyms: King, Anointed, Savior, Redeemer, Ransomer, Hero, Deliverer, Protector
The Reckoner.
I have been writing regularly and publishing nothing. I would say I have had a crisis of words–too much of mine, not enough of His, so I have decided to return to my Remedy and try to stick close. I need an antidote to my parochialism and old wounds and a Balm in Gilead.
The moon recites the prayer with me, tethered to a God who never sleeps Our Father, who art in heaven…where does the slivery-thin-orange moon go when it passes below the shoulder of the hill? To all the other insomniacs…hallowed be thy name…indeed You hear me, Maker of that smoke wisp moon, Maker of the metonymy of darkness, a body can rob a body of light until You are here …Thy kingdom come…thy will be done…among the sleepless…on earth as it is in heaven.
Numbers 6:22-27 NIV
[22] The Lord said to Moses, [23] “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: [24] “ ‘ “The Lord bless you and keep you; [25] the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; [26] the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. ” ‘ [27] “So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
Sometimes I can hear them through the digital quilt of my son’s smartphone, San Antonio songbirds not unlike the full-throated prophets I hear in the backyard, not minor prophets, like Micah or Nahum, although come to think of it these would be good names for the night birds. No. They are small, easily overlooked, not altogether heard which leads me to my theory about Isaiah, not a minor prophet at all but must’ve wanted to be for awhile in the naked days when his voice competed with the spectacle of it all–ordinary-man-naked, not rendered complete until the blood-and-agony Redeemer he sang about
Proves true.
Matthew 28:5-7 NIV
[5] The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. [6] He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. [7] Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
It is a small label inside a second-hand London fog. Sez “waterproof” in a way that means tell the dam story. Which I tell in my head in one way or another
Every day
Protagonists too vivid to fictionalize and actual jackass antagonists who are surprisingly two dimensional for real people in a small
Awful story I don’t want to tell, but my lovely black raincoat says I must.
I have always marveled at the risk involved in the parable of the lost sheep. In fact, I can actually see the economists in the crowd shaking their heads and coming up to J. afterwards and trying to convince him that it just doesn’t make sense.
One lost sheep? Who is gonna watch the others?
I have a tendency to worry about all the sheep. What if there are wolves? Wolves stress me out. But J is unswerving. He leaves the 99 and goes to find the one. lost. sheep.
Of course he knows some secrets.
Like: the 99 are actually supposed to watch out for each other.
Like: a few stubborn jackasses in the flock help keep the wolves at bay.
Like: I am the one lost sheep. You are the one lost sheep.
We are all lost without him.
For J every last flipping one of us is that solitary-witless-easily-confused-fluffy-lost sheep.
Sometimes the only thing one needs to do to be found is to admit that one is lost.
Real lost
Without him.
Carrying Light 