this is a parable
We are all parables
Stories of light and darkness
It takes only one
Candle lit in the dark
To make light
Someone always must be
Burning, held high
For all the dying
shadows to see
Don’t worry, I know we are all cowards
Reply
Splitting the difference
According to His most ardent biographers, when Jesus was born he got a star, an angel choir, multiple prophetic and celestial intros, a visit from some prominent foreign astronomers, and an animal feed tray for a bed.
It seems like the divine side of the birth announcement for this kid was legit–angel choirs and all. But the human side was sub-par. The innkeeper could have let the pregnant girl use his digs. But he did not.
Easy, I suppose, to judge the inhospitable of Bethlehem for their general indifference to an infant King. Harder to face our own.
The question for each so-called believer in this tiny bundle of Infinite Light is–do you see Him? At the breakfast table or the DMV? In the bad driver or the white-collar criminal?
It is hard to see Jesus in us. We are often a selfish, short-sighted, venal bunch of sheep.
Sheep on a hill somewhere in the night.
Beneath a star.
In the presence of angels, so close to our King.
The other alternative
The sermon was lovely–feeding of the five (to 20 plus) thousand.
Five loaves and two fish expanding out to a feast for thousands.
Is it difficult to miss the metaphors? The abundance of God? Jesus providing through his own personality to satisfy all those souls by the sea.
But what if the boy had said no?
What if he had not shared?
Jesus never needed us to contribute. He tells us that if we don’t praise Him, the rocks will cry out.
He doesn’t need our help.
But if we keep our lunch to ourselves? We miss our portion in the miracle.
We need Him to make us characters in His story, not the other way around.
Good reminder when I am hungry and not sure it is a good idea to share my lunch.
When Jesus gives, He pours it all out for us.
Down to the last drop.
Good Will Tenting
when I was wee-small I corrected the store name Goodwill to Oldwill. Also I once inadvertently hurt the feelings of a much-beloved pre-school teacher when I applied an age-equals-wisdom rubric to her chronological age.
She seemed exceedingly wise and kind and calm. So I told her she was 85. At the time this was the Nobel Peace prize of ages to me. I did not see wrinkles or old as a factor with humans.
Resale stores, absolutely, but people–not so much. My teacher was probably in her late twenties to mid-thirties?
I am going somewhere with this: assessment.
When I scan my junk mail for the misplaced real mail, I find message after message from hardworking Davises and Millers trying to give me some relief from student loans and a variety of entities using female given names and announcing their desire to date me or worse.
Oh, the anomalous anonymity of the Internet! These hardworking phishers and scammers just don’t get me.
We all want to be truly known and loved for who we really are, yet this is mostly a mirage. At least in my culture.
We are often not capable of deep commitment or unswerving faithfulness, and we are quite damaged by the sturm and drang of this flawed and broken world. We like empty images and cliches, not the challenges of maturity, restoration, and love.
Which leads me to Big Agnes tents…
After one disastrous night in a tent at the beach during a storm, I do not consider myself a camping girl, but when I saw the (again, junk email!) ad for Big Agnes tents it was love at first sight. Big? When seeking shelter, big is good. And Agnes? Agnes rocks. The name means pure but sounds a lot like the Latin word for lamb–agnus. Big Pure? Big Lamb? Lamb of God?
Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the world
Have mercy on us...
…damaged goods
Damaged goods in a storm
In need of shelter
I will run to the Lamb, find shelter in Him.
Forever
“I will never leave you nor forsake you”
Over the course of my life I have been booted out of a variety of clubs..oh…I mean communities of faith. Always for taking a stand on some issue, always with the subsequent silence and loss.
Financial accountability. Child safety. Confronting greed, lust or both–there are all kinds of ways to trudge down the “narrow road” in christianity.
Which is sometimes confusing and disorienting but never totally forsaken.
Jesus is there, saying what he says to all of us–I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
We will never get that kind of promise from anyone else. We humans are nothing if not forsakers. We bolt at a pin drop.
Not him. Jesus stays with us.
And always he says the same thing. “You are in good company, darling…always.”
Saul Alinsky, kerfluffles for old radicals
I just read a poorly-written article from the Washington Post desperately attempting to disentangle Hillary Clinton from Saul Alinsky and Lucifer.
While I personally doubt she will ever be able to divorce herself from Satan, there seems to be little reason for Mrs. Clinton to distance herself from Alinsky. He was a bit of a badass, sloppy theology notwithstanding.
Jesus (the original anti-Lucifer) told a parable about two brothers who had opposite responses to their father’s request that they both go work in the fields.
One said sure then did nothing; the other said naw then went to work.
Mr. Alinsky seemed to have been the second guy. He went to the poorest, least powerful communities in this country during a time when the people in those communities were genuinely oppressed and disenfranchised and gave them power and a voice.
When asked why he focused on African American “ghettos” he spoke of pervasive oppression of African Americans through lynchings, the Klan, and systematic disenfranchisement.
He chose to go to the people who had the least reason to refuse any offer of hope.
Saul Alinsky was a do-gooder. He refused labels, especially political labels.
He was wrong about metaphysical hell–there are few have-nots there. But right about the hells on earth that men engender through systemic avarice and racism.
I don’t know Alinsky well. In fact after Carson and the bedraggled WP article I plan on getting to know him better.
But I leave you with a fact and a suggestion–
Alinsky once suggested a fart-in at a concert to combat social injustice.
And I bet you a pork-pie hat that Alinsky’s version of the Fox TV show Lucifer would actually be worth watching.
“Most Americans” and “This message has no content”
There are these nuggets of meaning (or anti-meaning) floating around
Zika fears, Pokéstops
Two presidential candidates
Each holding silk screened banners
The lesser of two evils!
2016,
When “most Americans”
Were once again depicted by
The hastily gathered
Opinions of just a few of us
Through the ghostly-lit rectangular screen
The message seems important somehow
But when we look further
The news is bleak-
This message has no content
Hey, Boo
See you
In the face of the girl dancing across the circle
So much so that I stare
Think I might have to tell her
The story of the lost you
Who reminds me
Of all the other Boos
So beloved
To their Mama
Missing still
Quest
gone too long
A litany of good-byes
Signifying everything
We want from Light
The shapes of letters resemble
Hands raised in supplication
Bottomless things
Somewhere in between I find you
In the story you beg me not to tell
Even though you are the hero of it
The boy who quietly
Saves the headstrong girl
From so many foolish choices
Chili Recipes
slow cooked, tail-gated
Cumin-laced
Beans or no beans
Chili recipes seem innocuous enough
Unless you are a cow
Then
They are simply another
Recipe for disaster
Carrying Light 