Thursday is for Imperfect Prose: At the Eastern Gate

Verse I wrote last year during Lent...still thinking about it this year.

Genesis 3:24

Shalom broken,

shattered,

rent in two.

Guarded now by flaming swords,

we stand on the outside looking in.

Starved for shalom, 

grasping,

drooling,

eating stones for bread.

We cower in thistle and branch,

bursting the seams of our animal skins.

Eyes that once saw God

in the cool of the day

now watch cold metal ignite

with the glint of distant Sun.

Right and left,

back and forth, 

side to side.

Shalom barricaded,

dead-bolted,

barred,

obstructed from view.

Hypnotized by swinging metal,

we dream awake of old peace.

Capturing shalom,

in memories,

glimpses,

ancient instincts.

Could we crash the cherubim,

lay siege on contentment?

Rotten fruit falls,

drops,

rolls,

teeters into sight.

Capturing for a moment,

our attention from the angels.

Slurping up shalom,

a dripping,

shepherd's
stew bloats our bellies.

Pretending we are full,

we nap at the eastern gate of Paradise.

Linking with the imperfect and broken today.

Wednesday is for Words (& sometimes pictures): Barbara Brown Taylor

*Thinking about these words today as we await news of Brian's impending lay-off from his second job within one year.  There's a kind of "breath knocked out of you" kind of peace....

Solid resting place

When the safety net has split, when the resources are gone, when the way ahead is not clear, the sudden exposure can be both frightening and revealing.  We spend so much of our time protecting ourselves from this exposure that a weird kind of relief can result when we fail.  To lie flat on the ground with the breath knocked out of you is to find a solid resting place.  This is as low as you can go.  You told yourself you would die if it ever came to this, but here you are.  You cannot help yourself and yet you live.

Barbara Brown Taylor

An Altar in the World

from culture is not optional

Tuesday is for Nesting: a Passover repost for Lent

reposting from May 21, 2009:


On March 28 we held special prayer service at Union Center. The purpose for the evening was for all the Good Friday volunteers (and any others from our church family who wanted to join us) to learn together and pray together before we did tons and tons of work together. Messianic Rabbi Ron Goldberg taught us about the Jewish tradition of removing every speck of yeast from the house leading up to the first day of Passover.

In the Hebrew mind leaven represented the evil impulses of the heart. And these evil impulses can not just be pushed aside or ignored, they must be destroyed. He explained why yeast is such a perfect picture for this -- even a small amount of yeast grows and spreads through the whole mound of dough.

Yeast is also a perfect picture because it is so ordinary. Baking bread is such an ordinary activity. This is not only about getting rid of the capital-E evil offenses. It's about every little ordinary speck of evil that follows us around in our everyday, ordinary lives.

In the same way that the Hebrew housekeeper -- and then the whole family -- would take extreme measures to destroy or remove all yeast from their homes before Passover (even going so far as to temporarily sell whole vineyards and foodstuffs to Gentiles until after Passover) so, too, we must be diligent to destroy all evil impulses from our own lives.

Rabbi Goldberg did the thesaurus work for us. Destroy = remove, evacuate, evict, move, oust, purge, relocate, take away. And what can be harder to destroy than microscopic specks of yeast? The evil, hidden impulses inside of us. The unspoken thoughts, attitudes and behaviors that spread throughout us like specks of yeast multiplying in a rising lump of dough.

The Hebrew tradition, searching for chometz, is a family activity. Historically, it started with the housewife, as the main keeper of the home, but as the first day of Passover grew closer the whole family became involved hunting through every nook and cranny of the house to destroy every sign of yeast. Really, it is a community activity as each family unit is doing the same activity at the same time, holding each other accountable. The local rabbi acts as a sort of clearing house for yeast -- making temporary business transactions with neighborly Gentiles who are willing to hold onto bulk food items, vineyards, shop goods until the completion of Passover.

This picture of removing sin as a community event has captured my stunted, individualistic, evangelical imagination for a couple of years. It really started when I found myself in the place to make confessions in a small group setting. I had imagined this to be painful and risky and ostracizing. I was right on two counts, but not the third. I had guessed that when I brought into public truths about me -- sins committed against me and sins I had committed -- to form into words that crossed my lips for the first time ever in my life that these words would be held against me as accusations and condemnations. 

I couldn't have been more wrong....

Tuesday is for Nesting: hospitality of confession

Reading the account of history's first murder in Genesis 4 today.  Struck by the metaphor that God uses, telling Cain that "sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce".  As if sin were a mugger waiting around the corner while we stroll midnight streets, eyes glazed over from staring into our mobile device, oblivious to anything in the world but our own interests and pursuits.  

When we dropped our son in Washington, D.C. for the semester, the Capitol police told the kids to never travel alone and to always be alert when they were walking through the city.  That these were the two most certain ways to discourage the attention of would-be assailants.  

And I think that I need to remember these cautions in my everyday, walking-about life.  Don't walk alone.  Pay attention. Sin is a thief ready to kill, steal and destroy.  Temptation is the bait to draw me in and most of the time, I'm pretty naive about the whole deal.  I need community and I need the discipline of confession.  I need the welcoming invitation to confess and to hear confession in community.  Certainly, Cain would have done well to tell his friends he felt mad enough to kill when his brother received God's favor and he didn't.  Instead he threw a tantrum, ignored God's safety warning and sulked himself headlong into committing history's first homicide.

I wrote about confession and community here a few times.  Unfortunately, not everyone appreciated what I wrote so I've had to remove some of my story.  There's still this post remaining. In the meantime, I confess to my welcoming circle of confessors so that I don't follow in the bloody tracks of my ancestor.

Lord, have mercy.  Christ, have mercy.  Lord, have mercy on me.

An ancestor to the season of Lent is the Jewish preparation for Passover.  Jewish families understood well the  power of lurking temptation.  Preparing for the yeast-free days of Passover, the whole family turned the house upside down, cleaning out every corner of every cupboard for even the tiniest crumb of temptation, literally. 

Re-posting that learning next....

Monday Mix Tape: [prone-to-wander edition]

Lent 1

Eve tempted by the serpant. Adam tempted by the woman. Jesus tempted in the wilderness. Us tempted between mundane, trifling days and rushes of exotic fantasy.  It's dangerous out there and we're surprised on every side by forbidden fruit and ordinarily-innocent chocolates.  We enter the season dumbed to our bent to wander, the power of flesh denied.  Even the littlest things denied stir up the devilish whispering within and without.

Somehow this week's mixtape ended up mostly gritty old rockers, wizened to the truth that not every tree is good for food.  Not all knowing brings life.

1.  Hurt, Johnny Cash
2.  Last to Die, Bruce Springsteen
3.  O Death, Ralph Stanley (O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack)
4.  Devil Town, Bright Eyes (ht: Kari and Friday Night Lights)
5.  Curse Your Branches, David Bazan
6.  The Maker, Daniel Lanois
7.  Longest Days, John Mellencamp
8.  Devil's Arcade, Bruce Springsteen
9.  Come Thou Fount, Sufjan Stevens (the hope of redemption for all of us prone to wander)
10. Thistle & Weeds, Mumford and Sons

the mix

Brother john / Have you seen the homeless daughters / standing there

with broken dreams / I have seen the flaming swords / there over east of eden

burning in the eyes of the maker (Daniel Lanois, The Maker)

Friday is for new finds: free Lenten resources

Add caption

Music

From Cardiphonia:  Red Mountain Music along with a number of other fantastic musicians largely from the New York area have released a new CD today called “Songs for Lent.”  The texts were curated by Cardiphonia from the Sacred Harp as they entered into conversation with the traditional Stations of the Cross.  The music is available on NoiseTrade for Free, but please make a donation. The money will go to support Plywood People – a 501c3 organization helping address social need.

<Listen and Download Album @ Noise Trade>

<PDF of the Texts>

Also, a few years back, a few churches in the Pacific Northwest patroned an album for Lent through By/For. 

Michael Card, Brian Moss and others wrote and produced the thirteen songs that make up the album, Sweet Sacrifice.

Follow instructions for the free download here. 

Album cover derived from
Golden Countenance by Makoto Fujmura

Liturgical Readings

(another ht to Cardiphonia)  The Stations of the Cross service

Daily Reading and Artwork

My friend, Terri Fisher, is an arts pastor in Austin.  She shared with me the work that her community is doing to mark the season of Lent and I'm fascinated with their collaboration. From Christ Church's website:

This Lenten season, we created a collaborative art piece with several intersecting parts. It began with a vision for using the luminous encaustic medium, creating 19 abstract pieces for the devotional, out of naturally whitened beeswax. The colors you see applied are densely pigmented oil pastels fused into the wax. The black is palm ash (the same as used on Ash Wednesday) melted into the wax and then painted on. There were 11 artists; six from Christ Church and five from Hope Chapel, who took part in the creation of the pieces. Two of our professional photographers photographed the work in progress, as well as, each finished 5”X5” square. These pieces were created with the intention of being the visual counterparts to the writings in the Lenten devotional. The final destination for the encaustic pieces will be found in the construction of an eight foot tall cross. We hope that you find much to meditate on, in both the writings and the artwork.

Today's entry. Beautiful.

What new-found glories have you discovered lately?  I'm opening up the link-sharing on Fridays for all of your great finds.

Bloggers, use the Simply Linked function below to share the link from your post with us.  I'd be honored if you included a link back to me on your blog.  Not a blogger? Share with us through the comment feature!  Neither of these work for you?  I also accept carrier pigeons.

the living and dying palm, part 2

Part 2 of this story is that this year my birthday landed on Ash Wednesday.  Not just any birthday, either; my fortieth birthday.  Ashes ended up feeling quite appropriate, as it turns out.

Having grown up without the church calendar, I'm not really sure if it's gauche to take pictures of yourself with the mark of the cross?  Either way, I figured it was my birthday so who'd give me too much trouble?

When I'd proceeded forward to receive the charred palm thumbed onto my forehead, the priest said, "Turn from sin and be faithful to the Gospel."   I couldn't help but think that may be the most appropriate birthday greeting I've ever been given.  Turn away from all the failures, rebellions, missed opportunities, unbelief of the past thirty-nine years and live faithfully to the Gospel instead.  

Perhaps this is why all my mind could reply, waiting in the unprogrammed silence for the priest to wash his blackened hands, lyrics from  Failed Christian:

I'm a failed Christian  / I don't go to Church / I smoke and I drink / And I lie and I curse

Which isn't totally true of me, of course.  I still go to church. Also, I am giving up cursing for Lent.  But the feeling of being a failed Christian overwhelmed me as I contemplated the admonishing words, "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel".  Obviously, I can't make that happen. Before I get home, I'll be turning toward sin in one form or another.  I'm prone to wander and I need mercy.

Kyrie, indeed.

Later, when the doorbell rang, I headed toward the front of the house a bit sheepish about opening the door with the black smudge on my forehead.  Until I relieved the delivery man of the gigantic birthday bouquet from my sweet sister and noticed he had the same smudge. 

"Boy he got you good there." He shoved back his cap further and motioned toward his own misshapen hash line underneath a mop of silvery hair.  

"Yep, I guess he did.  I just came from there, though." 

"So did I!"   He chuckled and moved back toward the porch door.  "Have a good holiday.  Even though it won't be here for awhile."

Forty-six days until resurrection holiday.  Thirty-nine whole years mixed up full of birth, life, death, rebirth, sin and the Gospel.  Plus this day.  This new day of a new decade.  I wished I'd asked that old florist what he was giving up these days before the holiday.  I'm giving up cussing, Diet Pepsi (it's taken me three years to be willing to do this), television, movies and facebook.  In their place, I'm hoping to pray more, write more, be more present and prayerful in my neighborhood and for the rest of the world. We're not eating meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.  Mostly because that's just one more way to join the saints of old -- including, probably, the silver-haired flower man on my porch. 

Lent is not intended to be an annual ordeal during which we begrudgingly forgo a handful of pleasures. It is meant to be the church’s springtime, a time when, out of the darkness of sin’s winter, a repentant, empowered people emerges.

Put another way, Lent is the season in which we ought to be surprised by joy. Our self-sacrifices serve no purpose unless, by laying aside this or that desire, we are able to focus on our heart’s deepest longing: unity with Christ. In him--in his suffering and death, his resurrection and triumph--we find our truest joy.

—Dorothy Sayers, Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (ht: Sixty Piggies)

Thursday is for Imperfect Prose: living and dying palm, part 1

Litania*

My name is Tamara.  It was my parents' choice to name me as this Hebrew maiden.  Tamara is palm branch, like we see in the triumphal entry laid at the feet of the donkey-riding Messiah.  Crushed under the feet of hopeful crowd, obedient animal hoof, verdant branches return to arid desert soil.  Become dust again. For centuries the Church ground up the branches waved in worship on Palm Sunday, lived the cycle of life and light again, and marked the foreheads withe the charry cross on Ash Wednesday.  

^{Joel 2:12 - 17:} "Yet even now," declares the LORD,    "return to me with all your heart,with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments."Return to the LORD your God,   for he is gracious and merciful,slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;   and he relents over disaster.

At mass yesterday with my beloved Macia, we watched the foreheads of our little city go from shiny oil to blackened grit.  Each sign of the cross a mirror over bodies all-too-familiar with death, sin, decay.  Even the least among us, the baby carried to the priest, darkened with the visible sign of invisible truth.  From dust we came, to dust we return.  

I find it strangely peculiar that the very people naming themselves after the Christ who took on dusty flesh in order to redeem peoples from their flesh, try so hard to forget the frailty of their humanity.  Who long only for triumphal entries without crucifixion and death, which of course means no resurrection and life.  We keep trying to make the Church walk on coloured coats instead of ground, thinking our mass-marketed liturgies and worship noise will drown out the hungry rumbles in our stomachs.  The creaking of our broken hearts.  The rattly breath of death blowing on our necks.  

Even the baby in that church yesterday knew better.  So did the one sleeping in Bethlehem dirt.  

 Blow the trumpet in Zion;    consecrate a fast;call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation;   assemble the elders; gather the children,   even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room,   and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the  altar    let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weepand say, "Spare your people, O LORD,   and make not your heritage a reproach,   a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples,   'Where is their God?'"

*artwork credit: Created by Jen Grabarczyk and photographed by Ken Wagner
Creative Commons Licenses through By/For Project


Linking with the imperfect and broken today:

Wednesday is for Words (& sometimes pictures): Les Murray

Church

by Les Murray

In memoriam Joseph Brodsky

The wish to be right
Has decamped in great numbers
But some come to God
In hopes of being wrong.

Goodbye to gentrifical force,
To being than under that horse
As the poor climbed its every leg.
The building is an angular egg:

High on the end wall hangs
The Gospel, from before he was books.
All judging ends in his fix,
all, including his own.

Freedom still eats freedom,
Justice eats justice, love –
Even love. But the retarded man says
Church makes me want to be naughty.

In English evolution, we’re money,
genes to spend in the Darwin shops
on more genes, till personhood stops.
Church rose from the original, Jewish evolution.

Naked in a muddy trench
With many thousands, one is saying
The true god gives his flesh and blood.
Idols demand yours off you.

From Transpositions, November 3, 2010

This poem elicits something in me I have not been able to define.  I'd love to hear what thoughts and feelings it provokes in you?

Tuesday is for Nesting: bearing each other's experiences

Portrait of You as the Good Samaritan
James B. Janknegt

The season of Lent matters beyond my own discipline and introspection.  Engaging in self-discipline only finds fulfillment to the extent the act frees us to notice those outside of our own inner circle.  To notice the cause of the weak, the marginalized, the diminished in our neighborhoods -- local and global.

For this reason, I hope to not only give up certain nourishments of mind and body for Lent, but to make space for others' in my thoughts, prayers, and actions.  This is a form of hospitality that James reminds us is the true sign of pure religion.  We often think well of people who claim to be spiritual rather than religious as some sort of badge of authenticity.  Truly, that statement should more often be spoken as a corporate confession.

Forgive us, God.  We and our fathers have sinned.  

In my blogging community [ht: bearing blog] this week, I learned the sorrow of the Granjus family in Knoxville, TN.  Eighteen-year-old Henry died last May of a drug overdose after many years of battling an addiction, despite the love and support of his entire extended family.  The grief of loss is compounded by, what appears to be, a miscarriage of justice by the local authorities.  For the past two days I have been reading this heartbreaking story, willing myself to hear the plea for justice and not close my ears to it.  

In the process I've been able to empathize more with the criticism I've received from my church family.  Those who feel that I am promoting death rather than life by making space in our services for prayers and songs of confession and lament in tandem with our proclamations and anthems of praise.  I realized that, perhaps, some people struggle with some of the same emotional distress I discovered in myself while reading Katie Allison Granju's almost-unbelievable account of being dismissed by the very institutions that should be providing protection and care. 

When I read her words, a sort of hardness enters my emotional being.  Her story represents some of my worst fears -- being disbelieved and unprotected -- and I find myself wanting to push those feelings away by refusing to enter the truth of her story.  I do not want to make room for her in the home of my understanding and experience.  I do not want to practice hospitality for these people I've never met.

Last week, my husband reminded me that what we're all most afraid of in this kind of discomfort is feeling alone.  When we traffic in the familiar, it's easier to feel Jesus and each other.  When we experience awkward and uncomfortable emotions, it's easy to believe that no one is with us, especially Jesus.  No wonder my critics keep using the word death.  


The truth is that Jesus is already there.  All that's missing when we refuse to enter the experience of another is us.  

Hospitality demands that I make room for those suffering injustice.  Hospitality in true worship demands that we make space for each other.  To move toward each other with open hearts and minds rather than dismissing and blaming each other for forcing us to face emotions and experiences that make us uncomfortable.  

In the same way Jesus freely entered our broken experience, let it be true of us toward each other.

Let it be so.

For that reason, today I make space on my blog for the story of Henry Granjus.  He breaks my heart and allows me to bear the cause of another. 

Linking with L.L. today...

Monday Mix Tape: [ash wednesday edition]

Inger Asleep by the River

Created by Scott Kolbo and photographed by Tony Jacobson

Creative Commons License through By/For Project

This week marks the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent.  I have only paid attention to what this means for the past few years.  I feel a bit like a child in catechism -- each year teaching me a new paragraph -- learning from my ancient Christian family.  On its own, the tradition of giving something up for Lent, has some value to becoming a mature adult. The habit of self-denial teaches us, disciplines us, prepares us, even, for inevitable sorrow in this broken world.


This past year, I'm learning the value of Lent as one part of a whole -- the whole cycle of the Church year that teaches feasting as well as fasting, a rhythm that ebbs and flows between celebration and lament.  In the past months, I have been, on several occasions,  accused of worshipping death, promoting a morbidity in worship because I have led us to explore this continuum, this wholeness found in Scripture.  I do not wish to defend myself (at least not when I'm in my right mind) but I do believe, with all of my heart, that unless the evangelical fellowship of which I am a committed member learns to embrace this continuum we will remain as immature worshippers, and ultimately,  ineffective lights in this dark and broken world.


These are my thoughts two days before Ash Wednesday.  I hope that you will consider walking the journey with me, the journey that follows our brokenhearted Messiah who was, yes fully God, but also fully man.


The tunes I've selected for this week's mix tape include some of the songs that tell the stories of broken people hoping for redemption.  In other words, as Leonard Cohen poeticizes, these songs offer up a broken hallelujah.

the mix

Music that reminds you of your humanity:  what's your favorite?   Feel free to add to my theme or share what's playing in your ears right now...

Bloggers, use the Simply Linked function below to share the link from your post with us.  I'd be honored if you included a link back to me on your blog.  Not a blogger? Share with us through the comment feature!  Neither of these work for you?  I also accept carrier pigeons.

in the meantime, a little Welcome Wagon

Just in case you never quite made it to the end of last week's playlist (ahem...) to hear The Welcome Wagon's Sold! to the Nice Rich Man, take a few minutes to watch it here.  Actually, enjoy a little mini-concert with the charming Vito and Monique:  first, the heartbreaking Up On A Mountain, then the Nice Rich Man song, third, crow the blues with the call + response Rice and Beans, but No Beans.  (it's a candle-lit show so the video's a little dark; light a candle yourself, and roll with it...)

When you just can't sleep and you're out of sheep and the night is longer than the Nile.
There was a time you knew what to do, but it's sure been a long, long while.
Miserable soup (mis-erable soup!)
Slotted spoon  (slotted spooon!)
Faded stars   (faaded stars!)
Big, mean moon  (bigmeanmoon)
Heart may break
Blood run blue
At the end of the day, I'm glad to have a friend like you!

At the end of the day, I'm glad to have a friend like yoooooooou!

a *&(#&*)$& kind of week

Translated:  a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week in which I've decided to retreat for awhile, drink beer and watch cooking shows on my television.  I'll be back next week.  If you don't see me here by Monday, send help.