Image by fotogjohnh!!
Some days I can get clear-headed enough to express what I really want. Other days, I get muddled. What hounds me then are the things I think others want of me. Here's a poem, an intention for the day, I set for myself a few months ago. I want it again today . . . regardless of all the things others may want of me.
As If I Were Blind
I want to touch each thing
as if I were blind—
that lovingly,
that aware.
And behold the whole world with
w
o
n
d
e
r
.
Below is a the text of a sermon I preached on the second Sunday of Advent, December 6, 2015 at the Davis Community Church, Davis, California. I'd had enough of the posturing of politicians and the paralysis of analysis by the pundits. FaceBook was little help and only made it clear to me that I had to follow a different path. So, I stuck to the texts handed the church on this Sunday, and they handed me a way to walk out of my numbing despair. I'll not say I can walk, head up in hope. But at least the texts pointed a path before me. Here's a link to the audio download.
“PEACE”
Malachi 3.1-4 | Luke 3.1-6
1. “Crazy” is a word I’ve heard more than any other word this week. It’s a word I may have used more than any other this week. I hear people calling other people crazy. I hear people describing our world as crazy. And on Thursday when I learned of the mass shooting in San Bernardino, I sat at my desk, numb. I shook my head and said, “This is crazy, crazy, crazy.”
The Washington Post agreed. On Thursday, they ran a headline that read, “The San Bernardino shooting is the second mass shooting today and the 355th this year.” Thursday was the 336th day of the year. 355 mass shootings in 336 days in America. That’s crazy . . .
For many of us, the sea works a deep grace into our often weary souls; it washes mercy over our harried lives and moves us into a new rhythm. Here's a poem that came to me after a few days along the Big Sur (California) coastline.
The Heron Who’s Practicing Zen
The sea draws me—
The ceaseless movement of the waves,
rolling without end,
relaxing my taut mind
toward nature’s rhythm and rhyme,
and away from the doggerel
of digital devices,
asphalt,
clocks and calendars,
fluorescent bulbs,
meetings,
to-do lists,
and freeway gridlock.
Even the smaller birds—
who seem,
at dawn,
always in a hurry,
as if breakfast
is quickly coming to an end—
their hurry is not the same
as the worry I carry
in my uptight frame.
And there’s the Heron,
who’s practicing Zen,
balanced atop her cushion of Kelp,
a slender Buddha,
who knows nothing but what is
n
o
w
What is time out here
among these ancient rocks
and rolling sea,
the Heron lost within eternity?
I seem the only one aware
of the tick tock of the clock,
that seems so foreign here.
Perched upon my cushion of sand,
time and eternity blend
into the now that knows no end.
There’s nothing here that cares
about the broken rhythm and rhyme
I’ve left behind
—beyond myself.
I've just finished a three-week sermon series I've called, "Racism in America: What Presbyterians Can Learn from South Africa." I wrote about the series here.
Below is the written sermon. A number of people have asked for it. And there are some things, especially at the end that will need deeper reflection and sustained action.
“To Stand Where the Lord Stands”
Jeremiah 31.7-9/Luke 4.14-19 October 25, 2015
Third in the Series: “Racism in America: What Presbyterians Can Learn from South Africa”
1. A new confession
We Reformed and Presbyterian Christians in America have theological cousins in South Africa. Our Dutch Reformed cousins in South Africa are, just as we are, descended from European settlers. But there in South Africa, whites and blacks who read the same Bible and follow the same Jesus, have until recently worshipped in congregations segregated along racial lines. They did this because many of them believed that’s the way God wants it. And, until recently, our Christian cousins made their theology political. They not only participated in the government’s official policy of racial segregation, discrimination, and oppression, but they helped sponsor it theologically. It was, frankly, a policy, maintained by Christian theology, that kept people in their places. Whites at the top, coloreds and blacks below.
While America, as a whole, has never had an official, federal government-backed policy of racial segregation, we have had our own ugly history of discrimination, oppression, and injustice against non-whites . . .
Here's a blessing I offered for my son when he was embarking on a semester abroad a few years ago. Traveling is not only filled with great excitement and adventure, there is danger, discomfort, and challenge. It's the challenges that open us to the mystery of our own transformation. This blessing invites the journeyer into that mystery, conscious of the challenges, but willing, in faith, to receive the gifts that can only come to us when we set sail from the shoreline of the life we know so well. May it gift others on whatever pilgrimage they face, whether the journey is to other lands or, perhaps, some inner journey of the soul, prompted by loss, crisis, or pain.
When you take that first step forward
from the shoreline of the life you know so well,
something new will open inside you.
With that first step forward into the unknown,
a new energy opens within.
It’s the energy of the cosmos,
ever springing forward and outward
in the universe’s own lust for adventure—
its passion for new lands and planets
new stars and galaxies.
This energy—
the same that burst forth
from that infinitesimally small speck
of dense matter—
continues to expand inexhaustibly.
This is the energy that’s opening in you
as you take your first step forward
toward a new shoreline of discovery.
Your journey,
and the energy it releases,
is a sacred thing,
especially if you journey in an awakened way,
wisely tending the fire within,
gently walking this good earth,
sensing the divine ardor in every blessed thing.
For the fire within you
and the energy beyond you,
are One and the Same.
So may you free your heart
of the baggage it’s borne so long.
May you travel lightly,
trusting the goodness of All
to give you what you need.
May your awareness
of this new opening within you,
become for you the ballast of the Mystery
that holds you in the Center,
that longs to bring into your life
treasures inexpressible,
happiness unexplainable.
And may you travel happily
(your fears notwithstanding)
and arrive home again
refreshed,
older,
wiser,
stronger,
a seasoned citizen of the Earth,
because you dared to take
that first step forward from the shoreline
of the life you’ve known so well
into the Great Unknown.
