Tag: religion

It Is Good…

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(credit for this poem is given below)

Until God says “Light” all matches stay box
-stashed. Then Boom. Ever since, night,
day, night. Never two nights in a row.
God says It is Good. Day One. Backstage
Clipboard Angel (that’s me) says Good
is not good enough. Some day a hard
-ass atheist will claim it’s random.

Day Two. God rolls up his monogrammed
sleeve, pushes water aside and hauls
out land. The flourishes are mine: tundra,
marshes, quicksand, mangrove islands.
Without stepping out for a smoke,
I poke tubers, rysomes, and seeds
in soil. Blow dandelions and toss
maple whirligigs so they can
have their fun before settling down.

When God opens the Day Three box,
trees pop out. Because Yours Truly
packed the Day Three Box on Day Two.
Am I the only one who knows atheists
will second guess, double check?
Sloppiness feeds the Aha gotcha frenzy.

Day four, God says, Run to the store and get
all the helium and hydrogen they have.
Sun and moon. It is Good. Blah blah blah.
It’s supposed to be my day off, but I know
I have to make eggs for Day Five, so what’s the diff?

Day Five is Bird-Fish-Beast day. Birds
Day Five means eggs Day Four. Scary
to think what would happen without me.

Day Six he makes atheists and I lose it.
I actually throw my clipboard. I know
I’m overworked, under listened to. I say
wait a day. Rest. He says I’ll rest after
I make atheists. He’s Mr. Big Picture.
I’m Mr. Yelled At If Things Go
South. I put in for overtime—first
time all week. Sidekicks get no sick days.
~Paul Jolly, “Creation Story” from Why Ice Cream Trucks Play Christmas Songs

Rodin – Eve
Adam – Alexei Kazansev
Man with a broken arm – by David Marshall
Degas – Dancer Looking at the Sole of her Foot
Hope by Scott Emory
AI image created for this post

Hardly random.

What we see and hear and taste and feel every day is directly from the hand of the Creator, working overtime.

Those who don’t believe came from Him and through Him.
He meant them to be.

God saying ‘It is good” is good enough.
It is good to work hard, and then rest.

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The Sunrise Shall Visit Us: Walking in Darkness

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The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
~Isaiah 9:2

Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness.

As our Lord Jesus tells us, unless we see the light of God clearly, what we call light is actually darkness: “how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23). Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within.

Advent is designed to show that
the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point
if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness.
~Fleming Rutledge from Advent- The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ

It is this great absence
that is like a presence, that compels
me to address it without hope
of a reply. It is a room I enter

from which someone has just
gone, the vestibule for the arrival
of one who has not yet come. 
I modernise the anachronism

of my language, but he is no more here
than before. Genes and molecules
have no more power to call
him up than the incense of the Hebrews

at their altars. My equations fail
as my words do. What resources have I
other than the emptiness without him of my whole
being, a vacuum he may not abhor?
~R.S. Thomas “The Absence”

There is no light in the incarnation
without witnessing the empty darkness
that precedes His arrival;
His reason for entering our world
is to fill our increasing spiritual void,
our hollow hearts,
our growing deficit of hope and faith.

God abhors a vacuum.

We find our God most when
we keenly feel His absence,
hearing no reply to our prayers,
our faith shaken, not knowing if such
unanswered prayers are heard.

In response, He has answered.
He comes to walk beside us.
He comes to be present among us,
to ransom us from our self-captivity
by offering up Himself instead.

He fills the vacuum completely and forever.

Advent 2023 theme
…because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high 
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song

O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
dispel the shadows of the night,
and turn our darkness into light.

The people that in darkness sat
a glorious light have seen;
the Light has shined on them who long
in shades of death have been.

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A Soul Set Free

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turningred

 

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We know when we are following our vocation
when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself
and is able to seek God and even to find Him,
even though it may not appear to find Him.

Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves:
these are signs that we have found our vocation
and are living up to it
even though everything else
may seem to have gone wrong. 

They give us peace in any suffering.
They teach us to laugh at despair.
And we may have to.
— Thomas Merton from No Man is an Island

 

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For three decades I have worked in a public setting,
my faith checked at the threshold as I walk in the door.

Preoccupied with the needs of the day,
my prayers for patients and co-workers
stay silent but not unheard
as God knows how to find His way in
through the cracks, under the door.

Even where He is deemed unnecessary
He is present, incognito.

I’ll turn a corner and find Him there,
in streaming rays through the window
illuminating a polished tile floor.
He’s streaming down the face of a patient,
or behind the smile of a co-worker.

He will not be turned away
even when we bar the door to keep Him out.

Knowing this helps me laugh
when I need it most.
Knowing this sets my soul free
from worries;
Knowing this, I shall look to find Him
wherever He may be,
even where He is unwelcome.

 

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Preparing the Heart: Bend Our Angers

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…the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;
Romans 13:12

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Does anyone have the foggiest idea of what sort of power we so blithely invoke?
Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it?
The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets,
mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.
It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church;
we should all be wearing crash helmets.
Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares;
they should lash us to our pews.
~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk

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barnchurch2

Unexpected God,
your advent alarms us.
Wake us from drowsy worship,
from the sleep that neglects love,
and the sedative of misdirected frenzy.
Awaken us now to your coming,
and bend our angers into your peace.
Amen.
~Revised Common Lectionary First Sunday of Advent

decemberbakernate
photo by Nate Gibson

During Advent there are times when I am very guilty of blithely invoking the gentle story of that silent night, the sleeping infant away in a manger, the devoted parents hovering, the humble shepherds peering in the stable door.

The reality, I’m confident, was far different.

There was nothing gentle about a teenage mother giving birth in a stable, laying her baby in a feed trough–I’m sure there were times when Mary could have used a life preserver.
There was nothing gentle about the heavenly host appearing to the shepherds, shouting and singing the glories and leaving them “sore afraid.” The shepherds needed crash helmets.
There was nothing gentle about Herod’s response to the news that a Messiah had been born–he swept overboard a legion of male children whose parents undoubtedly begged for mercy, clinging to their children about to be murdered.
There was nothing gentle about a family’s flight to Egypt to flee that fate for their only Son.
There was nothing gentle about the life Jesus eventually led during his ministry:  itinerant and homeless, tempted and fasting in the wilderness for forty days,  owning nothing, rejected by his own people, betrayed by his disciples,  sentenced to death by acclamation before Pilate.

Yet he understood the power that originally brought him to earth and would return him to heaven.  No signal flares needed there.

When I hear skeptics scoff at Christianity as a “crutch for the weak”, they underestimate the courage it takes to walk into church each week as a desperate person who can never ever save oneself.   We cling to the life preserver found in the Word, lashed to our seats and hanging on.  It is only because of grace that we survive the tempests of temptation, guilt and self-doubt to let go of our own anger in order to confront the reality of the wrath of God.

It is not for the faint of heart.

There are times it is reasonable and necessary to be “sore afraid” and “bend our anger” into His peace.

And not forget our crash helmets.

candle3

O day of peace that dimly shines
through all our hopes and prayers and dreams,
guide us to justice, truth, and love,
delivered from our selfish schemes.
May the swords of hate fall from our hands,
our hearts from envy find release,
till by God’s grace our warring world
shall see Christ’s promised reign of peace.

Then shall the wolf dwell with the lamb,
nor shall the fierce devour the small;
as beasts and cattle calmly graze,
a little child shall lead them all.
Then enemies shall learn to love,
all creatures find their true accord;
the hope of peace shall be fulfilled,
for all the earth shall know the Lord.
Words: Carl P. Daw, Jr.

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baker_sunrise
Mt. Baker at Sunrise

The Storm Within

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marketballoonman

fountainkids

Beneath our clothes, our reputations, our pretensions,
beneath our religion or lack of it,
we are all vulnerable both to the storm without
and to the storm within.
~Frederick Buechner – from Telling the Truth

We are so complicit and compliant
in pleasant and peaceful appearance,
sitting in silence allowing
our inner storm to stay well hidden;
if called and compelled to face wrongs boldly,
the tempest can no longer be contained.
Silence in the face of evil
must itself be shattered,
even the rocks will cry out,
as our storm spills forth
speaking the truth.

 Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us guiltless.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Advent Sings: Hidden Power

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

His glory covered the heavens
and his praise filled the earth.

His splendor was like the sunrise;
rays flashed from his hand,
where his power was hidden.
Habakkuk 3 from Habakkuk’s Prayer

His hand
as a tiny newborn gripping his mother’s finger, clasping her mortality
His hand
as a toddler holding his father’s hand, following his every dusty footstep
His hand
as a child throwing and catching, dirty with work and play
His hand
as a teenager learning his craft, sanding and measuring
His hand
as a young man holding God’s Word and learning to keep it deep in his heart
His hand
as a itinerant teacher gesturing and flowing words with movement
His hand
as a healer touching feverish heads, driving out spirits, making the blind to see, raising the lame to walk
His hand
as a servant washing dusty feet, breaking bread, pouring wine, making breakfast
His hand
as a Son gripping tight His Father’s in fervent prayer for relief and release
His hand
as a sacrifice pierced by the nail aimed at us
His hand
as a risen Savior rolling away the stone at sunrise
His hand
as ascended King of Kings, His power no longer hidden.
His hand
holding heavens where flashes His glory upon our faces
Forever and Ever.

Grace and Gratitude

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photo by Josh Scholten

Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth.
Grace evokes gratitude like the voice an echo.
Gratitude follows grace as thunder follows lightening.
~Karl Barth

Nothing separates our thankfulness
from the gifts we’ve been granted.
We have been given life, certainly.
But that is not all,
though more than plenty.

Beyond imagining,
we are given forgiveness.
Offered a new life,
undeserved.
An opportunity to
make things right again
by forgiving
the unforgivable.

It is possible to be grateful every day
without knowing grace.
Many voices raised today
speak of thankfulness.

But to know the gift of grace–
experience its resounding clarifying brightness,
its gentle, compassionate merciful touch
every day, every hour, every moment
every breath,

we must respond, thundering
our gratitude at the spark of God,
echoing unending thanks
in our every breath.

photo by Josh Scholten

If There Were No God

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photo by Josh Scholten

“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.”
—G.K. Chesterton

I heard the same message
from several patients:
they would
commit suicide,
but not believing
in God
would mean
jumping from
the pain of living
into

…nothing at all…

 

I thought
feeling nothing
was the
point
of ceasing
to be

 

Perhaps they can’t imagine
a God
who created
doubters
sore afraid
of His caring

enough to die
so no one
becomes
nothing.

Hole in the Heart

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photo by Josh Scholten

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.
~ Blaise Pascal 

Everyone is created with a hole in their heart that has no murmur, doesn’t show up on scans or xrays nor is it visible in surgery.  Yet we feel it, absolutely know it is there, and are constantly reminded of being incomplete.  Billions of dollars and millions of hours are spent trying to fill that empty spot in every imaginable and unimaginable way.  Nothing we try fills it wholly.  Nothing we find fits it perfectly.  Nothing on earth can ever be sufficient.

We are born wanting, yearning and searching; we exist hungry, thirsty and needy.

Created with a hankering heart for God, we discover only He fits, fills and is sufficient.  Only a beating heart like ours can know our hollow heart’s emptiness.  His bleeding stops us from hemorrhaging all we have in futile pursuits.

The mystery if the vacuum is this:
how our desperation resolves
and misery comforted
by being made complete and whole
through His woundedness.

How is it possible that
through His pierced limbs and broken heart,
we are made holy,
our emptiness filled forever.

photo by Josh Scholten

Light and Shadow

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In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.
~Blaise Pascal

During intense election seasons like this one, I find myself seeking safety hiding under a rock where lukewarm moderates tend to congregate.   There is no political convention for us with rousing impassioned speeches or balloons falling on our heads.

Extremist views predominate simply for the sake of differentiating one’s political turf from the opposition.  There is no discussion of compromise, negotiation or collaboration as that would be perceived as a sign of weakness.  Instead it is “my way or the wrong way.”

I’m ready to say “no way,” as both sides are intolerably intolerant of the other.

The chasm is most gaping in any discussion of faith issues.  Religion and politics have become angry neighbors constantly arguing over how high to build the fence between them, what it should be made out of, what color it should be, should there be peek holes, should it be electrified with barbed wire to prevent moving back and forth, should there be a gate with or without a lock and who pays for the labor.   In a country founded on the principle of freedom of religion, there are more and more who believe our forefathers’ blood was shed for freedom from religion.

Give us the right to believe in nothing whatsoever or give us death. Perhaps both actually go together.

And so it goes.  Each election cycle brings out the worst in our leadership as facts are distorted, the truth is stretched or completely abandoned, unseemly pandering abounds and curried favors are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Enough already.

In the midst of this morass, we who want to believe still choose to believe.

There is just enough light for those who seek it.  No need to remain blinded in the shadowlands of unbelief.

I’ll come out from under my rock if you do.

In fact…I think I just did.