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) 

Prince of Peace

The kings of earth
walk in noble pomp
crusted and laden with finery
protected with layers of men,
swords, palaces, titles,
ceremonies, traditions, and splendor
Ring upon glorious ring
surrounding
frail clay
easily smashed, like a child's toy grown brittle
Strength
protecting
paper-thin weakness

My king, when first he came
lay helpless in the straw
His titles: "bastard","refugee", "orphan", "working man"
paper thin frailty
plastered against broken world
Casing of vulnerability
protecting
unfathomable, majestic space

Do you wonder that I love him?

The kings of earth prove their power
flaunt their might
take their rights
casually
As a man plucks a plum from
a passing tree
consumes the juicy sweetness
and tosses the pit away

My king
made himself nothing
surrendered every right
As a hungry man plucks the last plum
from his own tree
and gives it to a beggar
saying, "take the pit,
and plant it. then you also
will have plums to give away"

Do you wonder that I love him?
For such a man
to drop your nets, still dripping, and pad
barefoot
down the street after him
your eyes fixed to his back--
this is the only reasonable response

Such a man you follow to the end of the world
and
arriving there with nothing,
count yourself rich

Such a god you would never
dare to imagine in your wildest
dreams--only kneel, voiceless
in worship
when He appears

Reflections on Poverty and Possibilities

God seems to speak with reoccurring themes in my life.  I'm pretty sure I'm not exceptional in this regard.  It's lovely to have that "ooohh" moment when you realize that the brush strokes aren't random, but are actually pieces of the whole...and God being incredibly patient and painstaking...sometimes it's years down the road that you realize that something meant far more than you realized at the time. 

When I posted on "Possibilities", mostly it was just because I had been reading Hard Times and liked the quote.  But I've come to realize those thoughts are related to the other ways that God has been changing the way that I see ministry and my place in it.

I've been reading in a book called When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fickkert. (Excellent book--I highly recommend it).

http://www.whenhelpinghurts.org/book.php

The book has given me a lot of food for thought...not only relating to anti-poverty efforts, but to ministry in general and has linked up with other things that God has been teaching me this summer.  Point 1: I am not the answer. (Shamelessly stolen from Kathy Ryan;p)

"until we embrace our mutual brokenness, our work with low-income people is likely to do far more harm than good"--When Helping Hurts

When I try to fill all the needs that I see from my own strength, it's presumptuous--a sin as a friend of mine points out--and also ineffective.  If Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, how arrogant of me to think that I can and should try to speak to every need that I see!  I am here for Him to work through me.  Not to say that there won't be a cost, but it's the difference between joyous work and burdensome, between dancing and drudgery.  Side note: working in the kitchen is one of the best places that I know for character development:)  Also, God is not planning to do all His work in the world through me!  Which brings me to...

Point 2: Labor in ministry from the standpoint of humility and honor.

"We are not bringing Christ to poor communities. He has been active in these communities since the creation of the world, sustaining them "by his powerful word" (Heb. 1:3). Hence, a significant part of working in poor communities involves discovering and appreciating what God has been doing there for a long time! This should give us a sense of humility and awe as we enter poor communities, for part of what we see there reflects the very hand of God.  Of course, the residents of these communities may not recognize that God has been at work.  In fact, they might not even know who God is.  So part of our task may include introducing the community to who God is and to helping them to appreciate all that He has been doing for them since the creation of the world." --When Helping Hurts

Nobody likes to have someone trying to fix them.  This applies beyond the borders of working with poor communities. May we fear God and walk towards those we minister to honoring the image of God that they bear, honoring their own responsibility and the freedom that God has given them, honoring the work of God in their life, honoring the secret name given by God that they alone will know.

And finally Point 3: God values and honors me also.

Will you believe that the very first post on this blog (Psalm 8) addresses this?  Going back to the whole process thing, I didn't actually figure out that honor and humility are the themes of the Psalm till outreach this past spring.  And He is still teaching me to believe those very things about myself. Humility--who I am and who I'm not.  Honor--that He values and trusts me despite my brokenness and finiteness.

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ALMIGHTY God, who hast poured upon us the new light of thine incarnate Word; Grant that the same light enkindled in our hearts may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Book of Common Prayer

Incarnation

"If we who are the body of Christ are not Jesus, who will ever be? The world has need of the presence of Jesus, in the word of the gospels, in the holy bread and wine, and in us. Somewhere in all the cynicisms and disappointments that bind and stunt their lives, men need to find a living Jesus, one who can hear their pain and understand their grief and shame; someone to be the love of God with them. It has to be a poor man...doesn't it? To touch and heal the pain of men's poverty? I mean all kinds of poverty: the poverty of their need, and their brokenheartedness, of their sin...It would need a man poor in spirit and poor and means to comfort the loneliness of the poor. It is not possible for a rich man's hand to dry the tears of the poor--is it?"

The Hawk and the Dove Trilogy, Penelope Wilcock.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Jesus

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Possibilities

"So many hundred Hands in this Mill; so many hundred horse Steam Power.  It is known, to the force of a single pound weight, what the engine will do; but, not all the calculators of the National Debt can tell me the capacity for good or evil, for love or hatred, for patriotism or discontent, for the decomposition of virtue into vice, or the reverse, at any single moment in the soul of one of these its quiet servants, with the composed faces and the regulated actions.  There is no mystery in  it; there is an unfathomable mystery in the meanest of them, for ever.--Supposing we were to reserve our arithmetic for material objects, and to govern these awful unknown quantities by other means!"   

Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

C. S. Lewis

 

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