The Prophet's Lament

Prophet, why do you sit on the watchtower?

Prophet, what do you see?

Child, cover your eyes.

As you walk down the street, shut your ears.

If you look, you will see men kissing the wives of their neighbors.

If you listen, you will hear the weeping of the widow cast from her home.

If you look, you will see the judge extorting money from the foreigner.

If you listen, you will hear the screams of the children thrown into Molech's lap.

Even you, little one, carry bread for the idols.

You take flour for your mother to make her Asherah cakes.

Is this why you weep, O prophet?

Is this why you cry perched on your tower like a bird?

My heart is shattered, Child, like a dropped cooking pot.

Anger consumes me like the flames of a dry forest burning.

For our courts oppose the righteous,
and justice is nowhere to be found.
Truth stumbles in the streets,
and honesty has been outlawed.

Yes, truth is gone,
and anyone who renounces evil is attacked.

Hurry home, Child, for the night is coming soon.

And you, Prophet?

Will you go home to your fire?

No, Child, I will sit here.

I will sit here underneath the bright stars of heaven.

I will sit under the bright stars of heaven and wait.

Daybreak in Alabama

When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

--Langston Hughes

 

bing images

 

The Acorn That Wanted To Be An Oak Tree

Once upon a time…

...there was an acorn that wanted to be an oak tree.

The tallest tree in the forest was the great oak tree. Its massive roots were twined among the boulders alongside the river. Its strong branches were home to many forest creatures. Its leafy crest towered above the rest of the trees of the forest and seemed to touch heaven.

The acorn wanted to be an oak tree.

When the acorn expressed this desire to one of his friends, the other acorn laughed. “Have you seen yourself lately midget? You could never be an oak tree.” And he went away, still chuckling.

Another acorn overhead the conversation.

“You can be an oak tree,” he said.

“I can?”, said the first acorn. “Please tell me how.”

“You must do oak tree exercises every morning and every night” replied the other. “If you practice enough, you will become a very great oak tree.”

The acorn began that very night. He exercised with all his might. Every day when he woke up and was still an acorn he said to himself “I will work even harder today. Then surely, tomorrow I will be an oak tree.

But he never was.

One day the acorn was in the middle of his exercises when a squirrel came by. “What are you doing?” asked the squirrel. “I am doing my exercises, so I may grow into a great oak tree,” replied the acorn. “But I have been working for a long time and I don't feel any more like an oak tree than before”.

“The material world will not help you come an oak tree,” said the squirrel with a wise expression.

“Then how am I to become an oak tree?,” asked the acorn.

“You must go to the Great Mountain and think oak tree thoughts for seventy-nine days and seventy-nine nights. On the morning of the eightieth day your soul will have absorbed the fullness of oakness and you will find yourself to be an oak tree.”

So the acorn traveled through many dangers to the Great Mountain. He climbed to the summit where the icy winds whistle and emptied his mind of everything but oak trees for seventy-nine days and seventy-nine nights. But when the sun rose on the eightieth day, he was still an acorn.

The acorn climbed down the mountain and made his way back home. He passed through a great city and saw a large building filled with books. “Maybe one of those books will tell me what I need to know to become an oak tree” thought the acorn. So he enrolled himself as a student in the oak tree school and studied with all diligence. The acorn studied at the university for many years. In time he became an expert, and taught classes on oak trees. But he grew old, and his cap became dusty and brittle and he was no closer to being an oak tree. “I will go home to the forest,” said the acorn. “There at least I can look at the oak tree even if I cannot become one.”

The acorn returned to the forest and went to the great oak tree. “You are so beautiful,” he said to the oak tree. “But I have searched my whole life, and now I know that I will never be anything more than an acorn.” And a silver tear fell from the acorn to the ground.

“Why are you crying?” said a voice suddenly. The acorn looked up, and saw the oak tree fairy sitting next to him. “I am crying because all my life I have tried to become an oak tree, and now I know that it is impossible”.

The oak fairy looked thoughtful. “Do you know where you come from acorn?”. “No,” said the acorn peevishly, feeling the fairy was intruding. “You came from the oak tree. You were designed to grow into an oak tree”.

“Well I haven't,” said the acorn.

“Of course not,” replied the fairy. “For that you have to die”.

“I have to die!?” cried the acorn aghast. “What if I don't want to?”

“Then you will never become an oak tree” said the fairy matter of factly.

The acorn thought for a moment. “I want to be an oak tree more than anything,” he said. “Show me how to die”. “Let me bury you in the ground,” said the fairy. So the acorn let the fairy cover him with the velvet darkness of the soil, and fell asleep.

When the acorn awoke, he was confused. No longer was he a small nut, but he was not a great tree either. “What have you done!” he said to the fairy in outrage. The fairy raised an eyebrow. “You are now an oak tree”, he stated. “Did you think that you would be a big tree overnight?”

“O,” said the acorn. “How do I grow?”

“Drink in the sun and rain. And take your acorn cap off. You won't be able to grow wearing it.”

The acorn did as the fairy said. He took off his acorn cap. He drank in the sun and rain.

Days, and weeks, and seasons, and years passed.

And in time…

The former acorn grew into a mighty oak.

His roots twined among the boulders by the river.

His branches housed forest creatures.

And his leafy crest seemed to touch heaven.

Photo: Bing Images

The Father

I saw it all. When you are a servant, people don’t tend to notice you. You’re just a part of the landscape. The Master wasn’t like that. When he looked at you he didn’t see Rachel the housemaid who was responsible for serving him his dinner late, but Rachel who had been holding back tears all day because she’d gotten bad news from home. But his sons weren’t like that. To them a servant was another piece of furniture--so they would talk in front of me like I wasn't even there.

I think maybe the Master saw what was coming when his younger son walked into the room. “Father,” he said, “give me the money that I would inherit when you die—my half of the estate”. The master walked over to the window and stood looking out of it for a long minute. When he turned back, it was as though a heavy weight had fallen on his shoulders. He looked into his son’s face searchingly. “Son,” he said, “are you sure this is what you want?”. “Of course, I’m sure” he replied. “I think I’m old enough to know what I want”. “Very well,” the master replied. “I will divide the property between you and your brother”.

Not long later, I was walking back from an errand in town, when I saw strangers bustling in and out of the house on the younger son’s share of the property. I watched puzzled, and turned when I heard a voice behind me. “Been in the family a hundred years”, said the old man behind me. “Now it’s housing strangers”. “He sold the family land to strangers? But why...?” The old man snorted. “The idiot’s taken all he has ans taken off—to have a good time, he says”. I turned and walked slowly home.

When I arrived home, it was like walking into a house were someone has died. I couldn’t bear to look into the master’s face. It makes me afraid when grown men cry.
That was a long summer. It seemed whenever you went to look for the Master you would find him looking down the road. Once he was so focused on a dusty traveler in the distance, that I spoke to him three times before he heard me. “Yes, Rachel”, he replied finally, and looked back at the traveler. He was close enough to see more clearly now. “Not tall enough” he said softly. 

“Saw your son in Nineveh”, the traveling merchant said casually. The activity and murmur of people enjoying a meal was instantly stilled. “Having a fine old time that one was”. He laughed. “Too drunk to see straight and with woman on each arm”. I couldn’t bear to look at the Master’s face. The grief covering it was too raw.

I met him later in the hall. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Thank you,” he replied. “Me too”. I looked up at him and I guess the questions that it wouldn’t be proper for me to ask were clear on my face. “I had to let him go,” he told me gently. “You control the behavior of oxen and mules, not men. He had the freedom to choose.”
I’ll never forget that hot September afternoon. I heard shouts outside, and hurried to the porch, nearly falling into the cook, Joanne. She wasn’t interested in me though. “The Master’s lost his mind," she cried and I followed her gaze to the figure of the master flying down the road towards a distant ragged stranger. 

I guess you can run pretty fast when you are excited—and I was quite a bit younger than the master. He had just caught up with his son by the time I reached them. The son was skinny as a rail and stunk like a pigsty. His head was bowed in shame. “Father,” he began “I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son...” his voice cracked. But he didn’t get a chance to get any further. The master had thrown his arms around him and was kissing him. “My son, my son,” he cried. I wish I could tell you how he said those words. They were filled with compassion for all his son had gone through, grief at his leaving, and joy at his return at the same time. I guess it’s not so bad when grown men cry when its tears of happiness. Then the master saw me and cried “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found”.

When I brought the son his robe, he took it gratefully. “Thank you, Rachel” he said. I think that he really saw me as a person for the first time.

It was a lovely party. There was dancing and singing and delicious food and it felt like springtime in the house. One person wasn’t happy though. The older son had watched the festivities with a frown darkening on his face. Finally he turned rigidly on his heel and walked out. I timidly followed him. "Sir..." I began. He swung around to face me. "Don't try to talk to me!" he snapped, his voice simmering with rage. "I've tried so hard all these years! Every day I tried to be the best son possible for my father. But he values that...failure...inside more than all my efforts!" He laughed bitterly. "And now I'm reduced to complaining about my feelings to a mere servant while my father fusses over the wastrel." The older son turned away from me and faced the autumn evening. "I tried so hard..." he said in a softer voice that was suspiciously thick. For a moment I stood helplessly behind him, and then turned to slip back inside.

"Master," I said quietly. He turned to look up at me with a smile that faded as he saw the trouble on my face. "Please come." We walked to the back porch with the older son's silhouette stiff against the evening sky. The master gave a sigh. “My son” he said. “I can’t believe it!” the son responded without facing his father. “Here I am doing everything you ever told me and you never threw me a party. But when this idiot son of yours comes home after wasting your property with prostitutes, you give him the very best!” “My son,” the master replied tenderly, “I don’t love you because you are good enough. I love you because you are mine. You are always with me, and everything I have already belongs to you. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found”. Suddenly I felt like an intruder and turned to go inside. But as I looked back, I saw the older son, shoulders shaking, with his face buried in his father's chest. My heart was light as I rejoined the lighted room.

I know that there are many stories about what happened all those years ago. This is a true account of all that occurred, for I saw it all. And I have never grown tired of thinking over the events of that year. Nor have I ever grown tired of telling it--as I have faithfully told the story to you, the story of two sons and the father that loved them.

On Loving Our Neighbors (Selections from "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family" by G.K. Chesterton)

The common defense of the family is that, amid the stress and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one.  But there is another defense of the family which is possible, and to me evident; this defense is that the family is not peaceful and not pleasant and not at one.


The complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbors is that they will not, as we express it, mind their own business.  If our neighbors did not mind their own business they would be asked abruptly for their rent, and would rapidly cease to be our neighbors.  What we really mean when we say that they cannot mind their own business is something much deeper.  We do not dislike them because they have so little force and fire that they cannot be interested in themselves.  We dislike them because they have so much force and fire that they can be interested in us as well.


Of course, this shrinking from the brutal vivacity and brutal variety of common men is a perfectly reasonable and excusable thing as long as it does not pretend to any point of superiority.  It it is when it calls itself aristocracy or aestheticism or a superiority to the bourgeoisie that its inherent weakness has in justice to be pointed out.  Fastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices; but it is the most unpardonable of virtues.  Nietzsche, who represents most prominently this pretentious claim of the fastidious, has a description somewhere--a very powerful description in the purely literary sense--of the disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the common people with their common faces, their common voices, and their common minds.  As I have said, this attitude is almost beautiful if we may regard it as pathetic...When he makes us feel that he cannot endure the innumerable faces, the incessant voices, the overpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob, he will have the sympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a crowded omnibus.  Every man has hated mankind when he was less than a man.  Every man has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog, humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell.  But when Nietzsche has the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us to believe that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or an aristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth.  It is an aristocracy of weak nerves.
   We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour.  Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain.  He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts.  That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp as wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty towards one's neighbour.  The duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable.  That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation.  We may work in the East End because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, or because we think we are; we may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting.  The most monstrous martyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choice, or a kind of taste.  We may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy...But we have to love our neighbour because he is there--a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation.


The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb  down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside.  And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day he was born.
   This is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family.  It is romantic because it is a toss-up.  It is romantic because it is arbitrary.  It is romantic because it is there.  So long as you have groups of men chosen rationally, you have some special or sectarian atmosphere.  It is when you have groups of men chosen irrationally that you have men.  The element of adventure begins to exist; for an adventure is, buy its nature, a thing that comes to us.  It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose...The supreme adventure is being born.  There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap.  There we do see something of which we have not dreamed before.  Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush.  Our uncle is a surprise.  Out aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue.  When we step into our family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a world that we have not made.  In other words, when we step into the family we step into a fairy tale.

UN (Titled)

Another endless day
Nothing to do, and no energy to do it.
Who am I?
What am I?
I am an endless pill bottle
medicines continually forced down my throat
and dropping to oblivion.
I am barely enough flesh to cover my fragile bones.
I am the one left behind
Refuse legacy of rubbish parents
A shadow staining the sunshine of others
lives until the heat of life scorches
My listless leaves and stunted roots
and I too,
fade away.
I am sick.

A voice says
"you are a princess"
and I see a crack of light on the dark floor
of my room.
Weakly
I push my hand into the strip
and stretch out my fingers in the ray.
It is warm.
One, two, three, four
My fingers beat a slow dance
Pulling dust motes
through the current of light.

I had forgotten the voice
but He speaks again.
His voice is warm
like a mug of hot milk before bed
like a thick blanket on a wet
night during the rainy season
like the hand of my mother on my shoulder.
"Do you know what a princess is?"
This is a silly question.
Princesses have fine shiny clothes.
They live in palaces.
They are never sick.
But to explain these things requires
energy--too much energy
So I reply
"no"
"a princess is just the daughter of a king"

A long silence.
Thoughts dance slowly
like dust motes in the beam of light.
The daughter of a king...
How many kings are in the world?
Some.
If I had gone to school I would
know how many
The daughter of a king...
Who is the greatest king
in the world?
The greatest king is not in the world--
It is God
He is the High King over all
Rules all sheep and cattle
birds and men
High, high king
Who are His children?
A phrase from church
"to as many as received Him
He gave the right to become
Children of God"
I walk my fingers down the ray of light.
I have received Him
I am a child
I am a child of the King
I am a--
My fingers stop their journey.
In the quiet my voice seems loud

"I am a princess"

for Jesus

also Finona, Silvia, Christine

and Susan 

http://blog.ywammadison.org/archives/1997

It's not fair

Not long ago my brother and I went to hear a guest speaker at his university.  Joseph Sebarenzi, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide spoke about his personal journey of healing.  This healing began when he met a man--an official in the town where many of his slain family members had lived--who bore responsibility for the  slaughter of his loved ones.  In that moment, Mr. Sebarenzi was able to see this man as another human being who was also suffering, and was even able to show compassion to him giving him some money to help meet his desperate physical needs.

We sat in that room of college students, professors, and odds and ends of other kinds of people that turned up. As the lecturer exhorted us on the importance of showing kindness, of forgiving, of the pain and suffering caused to oneself by bitterness and anger, I thought of how counter-cultural his message was.  Behind me sat a sweet former student from the urban high school where I had taught.  Forgiveness and kindness there?--perceived as weakness. The people who sat around me...how many carried seething bitterness and disdain or simple coldness towards parents, exes, colleagues and bosses?  Later I also thought of how not long before, the same auditorium was the site of the "slut talks" addressing sexual violence against women.  I wasn't there, but I bet forgiveness and kindness towards those who have raped and abused women wasn't one of the advocated responses. 

Driving home, the centrality of forgiveness to the gospel hit me with new force.  Of course God requires us to forgive--forgiveness is in a way the central point of Christianity.  The brutal and wonderful and awe-ful fact is that none of us get what we deserve.  This is one of the things that sets Christianity apart from every other religion.  Christ didn't get what He deserved.  The man that Joseph Sebarenzi forgave didn't get what he deserved. You don't get what you deserve. I don't get what I deserve. Of course we must pass along the air we breathe, the food we eat.  There is no other way.

 

Forgiveness is completely unfair.  So is grace.  The man carrying guilt for the death of Mr. Sebarenzi's family has a hand held out to him with compassion and the means relief from some of his sufferings.   The opportunity to reconcile a relationship that has left me stung by guilt is brought literally right in front of me. The disciples have their filthy feet washed by their tired Master. We don't get what we deserve and we receive what we do not deserve. I think that if we really truly got this idea through our thick heads it would make a drastic difference in the way that we related to God, to ourselves, and to others.  Isn't this the whole story of the prodigal son(s)?  The younger son thinking he has lost his sonship by his behavior.  The older son thinking he has earned his sonship by his behavior.  When the whole point is that relationship is not earned--or dependent on--behavior.  Not now.  Not then.  Not ever.  I think that if I grasped this I would cease to be so hard on myself.  Upon discovering yet another ugly frailty in my life, instead of having an identity crisis I would go quickly to my Daddy for help.  Upon seeing the faults of others, I would neither judge nor excuse but reach down lovingly to help with one hand and point to the cross with the other. I would not allow the awareness of my smallness and inadequacy absorb me but come humbly, hungrily, and hopefully to the presence of God.

"Stift Heiligenkreuz - Kreuzgang Fußwaschung" by Wolfgang Sauber - Own work. Wikimedia Commons.

There are a couple of corollaries to this reality.  One is that we must be willing to receive what we don't deserve--which is humbling.  The other is that we are expected to freely offer this grace to others in turn.  That is the way of the kingdom.  This doesn't mean that justice is unimportant or that the law of sowing and reaping does not apply.  These things are just as real and solid.  But the shocking truth is that the flesh and bone of mercy and grace is that I truly don't deserve it...and never will.




Gerald Sittser lost his wife, mother-in-law, and one of his daughters in a tragic car accident caused by a drunk driver.  He went on to write a book on grief called A Grace Disguised.  He says...


"The problem of expecting to live in a perfectly fair world is that there is no grace in that world, for grace is grace only when it is undeserved...So, God spare us a life of fairness! To live in a world with grace is far better than to live in a world of absolute fairness. A fair world may make life nice for us, but only as nice as we are. We may get what we deserve, but I wonder how much that is and whether or not we would really be satisfied. A world with grace will give us more than we deserve. It will give us life, even in our suffering."

--Gerald L. Sittser, A Grace Disguised

Prayer

"Thanks be to you,

our Lord Jesus Christ

For all the benefits

you have given us,

For all the pains and insults

you have borne for us

O most merciful Redeemer,

friend and brother,

May we see you more clearly,

Love you more dearly,

Follow you more nearly

--Richard, Bp of Chichester (1253)