evil – Page 6 – Barnstorming

God Among Us: Waiting in Silence

December 3, 2015December 3, 2015 barnstormingblog2 Comments

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We have waited in silence
on your loving-kindness,
O God.
~Psalm 48:8

The Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
Habakkuk 2:20

Then hear now the silence
He comes in the silence
in silence he enters
the womb of the bearer
in silence he goes to
the realm of the shadows
redeeming and shriving
in silence he moves from
the grave cloths, the dark tomb
in silence he rises
ascends to the glory
leaving his promise
leaving his comfort
leaving his silence

So come now, Lord Jesus
Come in your silence
breaking our noising
laughter of panic
breaking this earth’s time
breaking us breaking us
quickly Lord Jesus
make no long tarrying

When will you come
and how will you come
and will we be ready
for silence
your silence
~Madeleine L’Engle “Ready for Silence”

_________________________

In our weakness, we are so noisy.
We think strength
is in shouting and shooting.
Instead we broke you,
we break each other
and ourselves.
We have forgotten the power
of waiting in silence,
waiting for your silence,
so come now
clothed in our weakness,
to carry us home.
~EPG

A new Advent Hymn from Redeemer in New York City

O come, Desired of nations,
Whom priest and prophet long foretold,
Will break the captive fetters,
Redeem the long-lost fold.

O come in peace and meekness,
For lowly will your cradle be:
Though clothed in human weakness,
We shall your God-head see

O come, Divine Messiah,
The world in silence waits the day
When hope shall sing its triumph,
And sadness flee away.
~In Silence, Advent hymn from Redeemer Presbyterian, New York

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
~from “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

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God Among Us: Two Mysteries for the Price of One

November 29, 2015 barnstormingblog2 Comments

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By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.
1Timothy 3:16

Here are two mysteries for the price of one — the plurality of persons within the unity of God, and the union of Godhead and manhood in the person of Jesus. . . . Nothing in fiction is so fantastic as is this truth of the Incarnation.
~J. L. Packer from Knowing God

The Christ is not just a reflection of the Father God onto earth, no mere shadow projected from God’s image in heaven. No, our Savior is real flesh and blood, sinew and tissue, neurons and synapses, exactly as we are.

A fantastic truth and endless mystery to ponder: Jesus as mortal flesh gifts Himself to us so that we may know the Three in One; the powers of hell vanish as the shadows are cleared away.
~EPG

(it is worth waiting through the first minute of silence as the choir enters in darkness bearing candles, a lovely arrangement)

1 Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly minded,
for with blessing in his hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

2 King of kings, yet born of Mary,
as of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
in the body and the blood,
he will give to all the faithful
his own self for heavenly food.

3 Rank on rank the host of heaven
spreads its vanguard on the way,
as the Light of light descendeth
from the realms of endless day,
that the powers of hell may vanish
as the shadows clear away

4 At his feet the six-winged seraph,
cherubim, with sleepless eye,
veil their faces to the presence,
as with ceaseless voice they cry,
“Alleluia, alleluia,
alleluia, Lord most high!”
~from the Liturgy of St. James, 4th century

Tears Need No Translation

November 14, 2015November 14, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

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The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.
— J. R. R. Tolkien

We forget that God is right there, waiting for us to turn to him, no matter how dire our situation. We forget the reassuring words of his messengers: “Fear not.” God always seeks to draw close to us — even in the depths of hell.

…it comes down to this: the only way to truly overcome our fear of death is to live life in such a way that its meaning cannot be taken away by death. It means fighting the impulse to live for ourselves, instead of for others. It means choosing generosity over greed. It also means living humbly, rather than seeking influence and power. Finally, it means being ready to die again and again — to ourselves, and to every self-serving opinion or agenda.
~Johann Christoph Arnold

We watch once again as unspeakable terror strikes down people so much like ourselves — those who are living ordinary lives, doing routine things. Tears never need translation, no matter what foreign or local neighborhood soil is soaked with the blood of innocents.

Evil exists, visits our world daily and yesterday settled like a shroud over Paris. As we learned after the airplanes-as-weapons tragedies of 9/11, massive expense, military action and legislation can barely keep evil-doers at bay and tend to even encourage them. No place on this earth can ever be truly secure through the efforts of mere man. After all, we too are fallen, and those who do evil can look so much like ourselves.

So we must fall back on what we were told long ago and each and every day in 365 different verses in the Word itself: fear not.
Do not be overwhelmed with evil but overcome evil with good.

The goal of this life is to live for others, to live in such a way that death cannot erase the meaning and significance of a life. We are called to give up our selfish agendas in order to consider the needs of the other guy and the greater good. Cherish life, all lives, including, as is crystal clear from Christ’s example, those who hate and want to murder us.

Our only defense against evil is God’s offense; only He will lead us to Tolkien’s “where everything sad will come untrue”, where tears are no longer translated as sorrow, but can only be understood as tears of joy.

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Let my prayer arise~
Lord I have cried to Thee,
hearken unto Thee.
Incline not my heart
to evil words.

Every Small Fold

October 11, 2015 barnstormingblog1 Comment

It is not enough to offer a silent thank you,
looking down at dark mums and the garden’s final offerings
of autumn—late-planted greens, their small leaves
fragile and pale. And bright orange peppers,
the odd liveliness of their color signaling an end.
It is not enough to welcome God
into every small fold of the day’s passing.
To call upon some unknown force
to let the meat be fresh, the house not burn,
the evening to find us all here again. Yet,
we are here again. And we have witnessed
the miracle of nothing. A slight turning of empty time,
bare of grief and illness and pain. We have lived
nondescript this season, this day, these sixty-minutes.
But it is not enough. To bow our heads in silence.
To close our eyes and see in each moment
of each second the uneventful wonder
of none.
~Pamela Steed Hill “The Miracle of Nothing”

As I ponder the tragic commonness of a loved one lost
in the midst of a routine day:
in a classroom
in a church
in a crosswalkon a downed airplane
or sinking boat
taken suddenly without goodbyes,
I realize the miracle of a day of nothing much happening
makes it very special indeed.
God dwells in the folds of our existence;
we dare to risk its unfolding
to set Him free.

You Will Weep and Know Why

October 2, 2015October 2, 2015 barnstormingblog2 Comments

~to a young child~

Márgarét, áre you gríeving

Over Goldengrove unleaving?

Leáves like the things of man, you

With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Ah! ás the heart grows older

It will come to such sights colder

By and by, nor spare a sigh

Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;

And yet you wíll weep and know why.

Now no matter, child, the name:

Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.

Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed

What heart heard of, ghost guessed:

It ís the blight man was born for,

It is Margaret you mourn for.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins “Spring and Fall”

This morning we weep and know why.
It is not simply the sorrowful loss
of the perfection of spring and childhood
giving way to the dying of the fall,
the last gasp coloring of leaves and skies.
It is the loss of innocence, of sense of reverence for life,
this blight man was born for,
this bleeding out for no reason.

What must drive one man’s selfish rage, loneliness and despair to compel him to deprive innocent others of their blood and life?
What unexplained evil overtakes one heart that he seeks to stop the beating hearts of others before his own stops?
When will there ever be safe havens again in society, if not within our schools, our churches and our medical facilities, then where?
This is a day for lament, for tears, and for prayers to God that we cry out and bleed out the spiritual sickness that is infecting us all.

Like a Child From the Womb

September 5, 2015September 5, 2015 barnstormingblog4 Comments

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,

And the nursling of the Sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain when with never a stain

The pavilion of Heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley from “The Cloud”

This has been a week of cloudy images — some light and carefree,
some heavy laden and threatening,
some brilliant, some not so much~~
some lying face down in the water on a Turkish beach,
it seems at a glance almost as if napping, but this sleep is forever.

This has been a week of the world slapped to its senses
to witness children dying trying to escape war and evil —
this is nothing new in the history of humanity.

We kill our unborn children every day in our own private wars
that we justify without guilt or regret.

Now confronted by images of dead children while eating breakfast,
this one boy out of thousands dead made millions cry cloudy with the shame of it,
so many tears falling like raindrops soaking deep on holy ground,
ground we must share with the poor and oppressed,
ground we no longer can hoard.

These images change from one moment to the next,
birthing life, taking life,
a child in the womb to ghost in the tomb,
lying drowned on a beach
we come undone,
we unbuild the walls we hide behind.

This Mysterious Passage

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015 barnstormingblog3 Comments

But a dragon lies in ambush for the traveler;
take care he does not bite you and inject you his poison of unbelief.
Seeing this numerous company winning salvation,
he selects and stalks his prey.
In your journey to the Father of souls,
your way lies past that dragon. |
How shall you pass him?
You must have “your feet stoutly with the gospel of peace,”
so that, even if he does bite you,
he may not hurt you.
~St. Cyril of Jerusalem

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in instructing catechumens, wrote:
“The dragon sits by the side of the road, watching those who pass.
Beware lest he devour you. We go to the Father of Souls,
but it is necessary to pass by the dragon.”
No matter what form the dragon may take,
it is of this mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws,
that stories of any depth will always be concerned to tell,
and this being the case, it requires considerable courage
at any time, in any country, not to turn away from the storyteller.
~Flannery O’Connor

Here be dragons
was any place on the ancient maps
that was unknown and unexplored,
much like the remainder of our days
are on the edge of any map we know.

So many dragons to pass,
so many mysteries remain unsolved,
so many stories of journey to be told,
and above all,
we must listen to what all have to teach us
and not stray from the worn path of the faithful.

Beautiful and Terrible Things Will Happen

July 31, 2015 barnstormingblog4 Comments

Here is the world.
Beautiful and terrible things will happen.
Don’t be afraid.
~Frederich Buechner

(Two local teens died in separate roll over car accidents yesterday)

Most days I depend on beauty
happening in the most unexpected places
and go looking for it.
But when the terrible crushes, bleeds and fractures us,
beauty hides its face,
what I fear most
is that I’ll not ever see beauty happen again.

We are told, again and again and again
every single day, if only we can hear:
here I am with you in this broken world-
do not be afraid
do not be afraid
do not be afraid

Each Other’s Harvest

June 20, 2015 barnstormingblog4 Comments

That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.

Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.
~Gwendolyn Brooks from “Paul Robeson”

We all can hear it now~
the Voices of the Forgiven
forgiving the unforgivable.
They are louder than any gunshot;
penetrate deeper than any bullet.

They are harvesting hearts
with their faith, their obedience,
their tears, their words.

This is how the gospel resounds
through the crushed and broken-hearted.
This is how Christ forgave His enemies
in the midst of His suffering at their hands.
This is His amazing grace in action
with families reaching out in love
to the one who has taken so much from them.

The Colors of Truth

June 19, 2015 barnstormingblog3 Comments

…I forced to mind my vision of a sky

close and enclosed, unlike the space in which these clouds move—

a sky of gray mist it appeared—

and how looking intently at it we saw

its gray was not gray but a milky white

in which radiant traces of opal greens,

fiery blues, gleamed, faded, gleamed again,

and how only then, seeing the color in the gray,

a field sprang into sight, extending

between where we stood and the horizon,

a field of freshest deep spiring grass

starred with dandelions,

green and gold

gold and green alternating in closewoven

chords, madrigal field.

Is death’s chill that visited our bed

other than what it seemed, is it

a gray to be watched keenly?

Wiping my glasses and leaning westward,

clearing my mind of the day’s mist and leaning

into myself to see

the colors of truth

I watch the clouds as I see them

in pomp advancing, pursuing

the fallen sun.

~Denise Levertov from “Clouds”

Tears fell from heaven last night
after a long dry spell;
not nearly enough tears have watered this parched ground
and surely more will come.
No matter what our color,
we are closewoven in our love for unity
and our hatred for hatred.
No matter how broken, how shattered,
we bind each other together
to be a tapestry
woven in colors of truth.

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