My words will not last

My words will not last,

No matter how wise they may seem

For time will dust them away,

In its endless task of cleaning

But if by grace I am able to inspire

One other soul to love

To take the risk of love, for the sake of love

Then I will have written something that will forever endure

For it will be written on the heart of another human being…

Words will one day pass away

But the love we release into creation will never be lost

          Steven Charleston

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I wake this morning

Knowing that some morning

I will not wake

My tired rising

My aching body

The haunted face in the mirror

Give testimony to my mortality

Statisticians say I am maxed out

(life expectancy for males having dropped in 2021 to 73)

A sobering thought

That one is living on borrowed time

So I wander, back along my stumbling steps

Wondering

About the sum of my life

I have done some good

I have done things that are a cause for shame

I am kind and cruel

I am disciplined and impulsive

I am giving and needy

I have helped people and hurt people

I have been someone to admire

And a profound disappointment

And I have written a lot of words

Words

Words

Words

Three books

A blog

Sermons

Posts

Words

Some of them are powerful

Some of them insipid

Words on paper

Words on a screen

Words spoken into the air

To ears listening and not listening

Ah

But have I written on any hearts?

Have I been able to stop being assertive

Stop being “right”

Stop being the one who “knows it all”

Stop being opinionated

Have I been able to put my impulsive need

For praise, for admiration

For comfort

For acceptance

Enough

To think of others?

Have I had moments when I have listened

Been kind

Been giving

Have I loved?

Have I been one who has

Released love into creation

As much as I have released need into creation?

And fear

I know that I am loved

By Love

I know that when the averages find me

I will return to love

But it would be nice to think

That I have left more than empty words behind

That I have left some love behind

Planted somewhere

In someone’s heart

Is it not time

The psalms show us what justice looks like.

Justice maintains the right of the weak, and it rescues the needy (Ps. 82). It rejects the desire to take advantage of the vulnerable (Ps. 94). The just refuse to speak out of two sides of their mouth (Ps. 28). They aren’t bloodthirsty (Ps. 139), greedy (Ps. 10), or conniving (Ps. 94), and they don’t love violence (Ps. 11). Those who love justice actively reject all systems that oppress people (Ps. 58).

Who are the recipients of justice? All people alike require justice. But those who need it most, according to the Psalms, are what philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff calls the “quartet of the vulnerable”: widows, orphans, poor, and resident aliens”

In other words, the very people being abandoned by the American right (those who paradoxically claim Jesus)

A Psalm for our times

God is

We know God

We know God

God is immanent and transcendent

God is in us

A spark

A roaring fire

A rushing wind

A spring of living wate

And God is just

And God demands justice

How long O Lord will this continue

How long with the liars, the frauds

The greedy

The abusive

Flourish

How long will they sit in the seats of power

And in the courts of justice

A promote inequity, and inequality

How long will they make the rich richer

And the poor poorer

O God love

Change us!

Transform us

Give us new minds, new hearts

New eyes

Make us a people

Make us a nation

That defends the weak rather than shames them

That lifts the poor up rather than shames them

That defends the weak rather than ridicules them

That refuses to accept and sustain systems that oppress

Rather than worshiping the wicked

May we see them for who they are

Destroyers

Dividers

Plunderers

They talk about God

They sell Bibles

They claim God’s favor

They claim God’s call

But they know nothing, they understand nothing.

They walk about in darkness;

all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

O God, is it not time?

Is it not time, before there is no time

For love to win?

Edge of Darkness

You know / so very well / the edge / of darkness / you have / always / carried with you,” ….

But your edge/ of darkness / has always /made / its own definition / secretly / as an edge of light

and the door / you closed /might, / by its very nature / be / one just waiting / to be leant against / and opened….

          David Whyte

_____________________________

The moon moved slowly

Inexorably

Slowly eradicating the light

Making all dark

The light was never gone

It was there, just on the other side of the darkness

Ready to return in its own time

And all we had to do was wait

For the light to return

There are of course

Many kinds of darkness

The darkness that comes from without

The darkness that we carry within

We are perhaps always on the edge of darkness

Threatening to fall in

To that black abyss

Of fear

Or hate

Or hopelessness

Terrorized by life

And impending loss, and death

we step into the darkness

and close the door

cowering in the dark

as the disciples cowered

in the upper room

in fear

in fear of what?

Them?  Those people?  Out there?

Or in fear of their frailty and failure

Their own limitations

How often do we too linger in the dark

On the edge of darkness

Which perhaps

Is also the edge of light

striking out blindly

violently

at the monsters in the dark

that we cannot see

that may not be there

that may not be monsters?

What if that door we dread to open

Is the door that leads us into the light

Where life and love await

Where hope dwells

Where God’s new thing can happen?

collateral renewal

You have heard of collateral damage. Now hear of collateral renewal. Every time we act in kindness, in mercy, in love: the impact of our actions radiates out to touch many more lives than the ones in our immediate vicinity. Others we do not know will be affected. The reverberations of our compassion will circle the world. Collateral renewal – healing rippling out, never ending.

                     Steven Charleston

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On Friday Jesus was put on a cross

He went by choice

A choice not to meet violence with violence

Hate with hate

He could, perhaps have cursed his tormentors

He could have rained invectives on those gathered around him

Those who had beaten him

Nailed him to a tree

In order to steal his breath

The breath of God within him

Instead from that cross rained down

Forgiveness

Compassion

Healing

Restoration

Drop by drop by drop

Love hit that immense sea of enmity

Creating ripples of renewal

That spread

Moving every outward

Transforming

His disciples who could have

In anger

Turned to violence

Didn’t

Those who could have luxuriated in resentment

Didn’t

Christ’s love

Creating collateral renewal

We all see those who

Drop hate and resentment into the world

Those create collateral damage

They create ripples of anger

And we

Alas

Become smaller

Harder

Colder

Crueler

They bring out the worst in use

And make this world hell

But still, love comes

Drop by drop

Filling us

So that we

“act in kindness, in mercy, in love”

We too have a choice

Even when the worst happens

Even then

To radiate compassion

To create collateral renewal

I don’t know what went on in the souls

The hearts and minds of the disciples

On that Saturday

During the great wait

But I hope what they heard were not the cries

Crucify him

But the gentle words

Forgive them

Today you will be with me in Paradise

Here is your mother

Here is your son

I hope I believe

That in that dead silence

Renewal happened

I pray that today

We, those who follow

Can choose love

That we can choose, even as we are assailed

By lies, and hate

By the abuse of power

To look with compassion

Even on our tormentors

Even those who wish us dead

That

We can act with kindness, mercy, and love

For what comes from the cross must be

Must always be

renewal

easter

“Let Him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness of us, be a crimson-cresseted east.”

                                                                                      Gerard Manley Hopkins

________________________________________________________________________

may God “easter” in us all

no matter who we are

may Sacred rise

casting light

into the darkness

waking us up to our

essential beauty

and our original blessing

stirring our souls

into earnest acceptance

of Sacred Love

opening us up

filling, until

as the sun spills across the earth

caressing it and revealing its beauty

as the spring comes with its greening and blooming

bringing rebirth

the Sacred Presence spills forth from our

once parched souls

and kisses the earth

with love

The Table is the Point

If you are writing a play about [Holy Week}, the scenes would be table, trial (with its various locations), cross, tomb (burial), tomb (resurrection), and table. The table is the first setting, and it is the final setting of the story. Indeed, when the disciples want to meet Jesus again the next week, they return again to the upper room to meet him at the table.

They never return to the cross. Jesus never takes them back to the site of the execution. He never gathers his followers at Calvary, never points to the blood-stained hill, and never instructs them to meet him there. He never valorizes the events of Friday. He never mentions them. Yes, wounds remain, but how he got them isn’t mentioned. Instead, almost all the post-resurrection appearances — which are joyful and celebratory and conversational — take place at the upper room table or at other tables and meals.

Table – trial – cross – tomb – tomb – table.

What if the table is the point?

                     Diana Butler Bass

________________________________________

What if the table is the point?

What if community is the point?

What if Easter is, when all is said and done, about

People gathering

Laughing

Eating

People listening to each other

Supporting one other

Being together when it is easy, and when it is not

Being together in the rejoicing and in the lamenting

What if Easter is about Jesus stepping in

And saving us

Not from God’s wrath

But from the enmity of the Rulers of the World

From hate and violence

From those forces that would divide and destroy

On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples,

a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats, and the finest of wines.

On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples,

the sheet that covers all nations;

   he will swallow up death forever.

In the great story of love

We move from a table, where feet were washed

Bread was broken

And wine was drunk

Out into a dark and painful world

To a garden of anguish

To betrayal

And abuse

To injustice and death

To a tomb filled and a tomb emptied

And ends up back in an upper room, that same room, perhaps

And at a  table

Where once again bread is broken

And by the Sea of Galilee

Where once again bread is broken

And fish are served

Food for the stomach

Food for the heart

Food for the soul

Perhaps the point is that because of Jesus

We can be together

We can be stuffed with all good things

We can be love

The table reminds us we are family

That we are stuck with each other

And we might as well love each other

It reminds us that faith is about being fed

And feeding one another

Perhaps the table is the point.  As Rachel Held Evans once wrote:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.”

Into this temple come

Come to your Temple here with liberation

And overturn these tables of exchange

Restore in me my lost imagination

Begin in me for good, the pure change.

Come as you came, an infant with your mother,

That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground

Come as you came, a boy who sought his father

With questions asked and certain answers found,

Come as you came this day, a man in anger

Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through

Face down for me the fear the shame the danger

Teach me again to whom my love is due.

Break down in me the barricades of death

And tear the veil in two with your last breath.

          Malcolm Guite

___________________________________________

Into this fleshy temple come

O Lord

Prepare to toss a few tables

Into the air

Scatter those things that stolidly

Clutter my soul

Hunkering in dark corners

Taking up space

Fouling the air

It is easy to see

The clutter in other people’s souls

To point the finger and shout

“Hey, look over there!”

It is hard to peer into the dark recesses

Of myself

And see the things that lurk

In the darkness

Fouling the air

Cleanse me Lord

And I shall be clean

scatter greed, and hate, resentment and fear

with your mighty love

drive out all that impedes my path

to the Holy Place

the Holy of Holies

where your reside

there

deep behind the veil

Clear the path, rend the curtain

Shine in all your glory

Restore in me, the joy of my salvation

Make me a temple in which you reside

And rule

Make me love

God are you There?

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!” —Genesis 28:16

The Bible I set out to learn and love rewarded me with another way of approaching God, a way that trusts the union of spirit and flesh as much as it trusts the world to be a place of encounter with God…. People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay….

According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, “Grow, grow.”  How does one learn to see and hear such angels?

          Barbara Brown Taylor (quoted by the Center for Action and Contemplation)

________________________________

God!

Are you there?

I wonder sometimes

When my body hurts

And my eyes fail

I wonder sometimes

When I hear the disabled ridiculed

And people laugh

When I hear hate spewed

And people cheer

When I watch as masses, driven by resentment

Are fueled by a desire dominance

I wonder sometimes as I watch us

Destroy the planet for profit

And see dying and starving children

The flotsam of war

O God!

My heart fails within me

My feet stumble

As I see the prosperity of the wicked.

I know there is nothing new under the sun

We have seen this before

The words of an ancient Psalmist echo in my soul

As he laments human arrogance

“Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.

  From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.

  They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance, they threaten oppression.

  Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.”

          (Psalm 73)

Where are you, God?

Why do you not set things right!?

Why do you not bring down the mighty and lift up the poor?

Are you in this place?

Surely, you are in this place.

Help me to know it.

Help me to see you, God of love

In the brilliant reds of the sunrise

In the majesty of the mountains

In the laughing voices of the streams

Help me to see you, Lord,

In the eagle that flies

And the deer that wanders

In creatures large and small

Help me to see you in the little things

In that act of kindness

That kind word

That smile, that laugh

That comes

I need glimmers of your presence Lord,

Help me to see you

Even where it is hardest to see you

In those human creatures who strive and toil

Love and hate

Destroy and heal

We are so confusing, O Sacred

So confused

Help me to see you, lord, in myself

And in all those others

In whom your image is badly blurred

May I see and hear the angels

Softly whispering

You are loved

You are loved

Grow

Grow

The danger of certainty

I walked through an earthquake once

as the ground shifted beneath my feet

and the world swayed

and all seemed undone

I breathed deeply

when the ground was once again

solid

and I stood on solid ground

certain

Certainty

I long for certainty

It would be nice to know

That God is there

That Love will win

I would love to be certain

About what is right and wrong

I envy, sometimes

Those who say with certitude

The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it

However

It has been said that the opposite of certainty is not doubt

It is openness

It is faith

And I have become certain that certainty

Can be a curse rather than a blessing

And that it is better to question

And struggle

To seek

And explore

Bertrand Russell once said

“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

There is a strength to certainty

But weakness too

The strength of conviction, perhaps

The passion that comes from believing one is right

But with certainty closedness

Stuckness

A refusal to think, to challenge

To change

we indeed need a degree of certainty to get by

but it is also true that too much of the stuff can be lethal

For with the sureness of certainty comes

What can only be called

Arrogance, conceit, haughtiness

I know the truth, you don’t

I am right, you are wrong

I am saved, you are cursed

The earth is 6000 years old

LGBTQI+ people are sin

God hates all who do not believe the way I do

It is unintentional

Perhaps unseen

But it is there

A stolid, cold, cruelness

Blind faith is truly blind

Blind to people

To pain

To the radicality and irrationality

Of that power we often call God

Certainty stops us in our tracks

It keeps us from learning

Growing

Changing

From seeing God’s new thing

Give us uncertainty, God

Do not allow us to ever, ever

Believe we understand you (beyond that you are love)

Or to believe we speak for you

Or are the repositories of truth

Or the gatekeepers of the kingdom

Keep us questioning

Searching

Doubting

Struggling

Hoping

Loving

Changing

Growing

Let us join the man

Who on his knees in the dust

Cried to Jesus

Lord, I believe!

Help my unbelief

Help us believe

Help us question our beliefs

And lead us forward

always

Into uncertainty

And a fresh and beautiful

newness

Love and love always

My strength is in my faith:

I will not bend my knee to despair

But love and love always,

Even if the stars should desert the sky

And the earth hide her beauty from the sun.

Still I will love and love always

Until my love is much a part of my life

That I can no longer tell where one ends

And the other begins.

          Steven Charleston (Spirit Wheel. P. 56, 57)

___________________________________

There is a grayness that comes

Rolling in like early morning clouds

Insistent and Pervasive

Slowly covering the earth with dark vagueness

Sheathing the mountains

And the sky

Blocking the sun

Until all is permeated with grayness

There is a grayness that comes

Rolling into my soul

And insidious darkness

That comes

Heavy it lies, shrouding my soul

It is laden with images of starving children

Boasting tyrants

Crowds laughing at cruelty

Bombs falling

Leaders lying

It smothers me

Squeezing the life out of me

Weighing me down until I am on my knees

With nothing left to do but to turn my face to the heavens

And cry

How long? How long?

Despair is real

And it wants the final word

It cannot have it

I believe

Lord help my unbelief

“I believe in the sun-even when it does not shine;

 I believe in love even when it is not shown;

 I believe in God even when He does not speak.” (anonymous)

I must believe in Love

And believing in love I must love

It is all that I can do

It is all that is left

To love God

To love those around me

To love those I cannot love

At times it feels as if that is not enough

As if it is rank foolishness

But while, for some, hate and untruth is all they have

Love is all I have

I must love and love always

And leave the rest up to Love