Out of Darkness
Ephesians 2
I spent some time in Africa. I was young. The kind of young that is still impressed in the open mouthed, eyes wide, stand still and stare way. I lived in a monastery out beyond the end of the bus lines in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We got to know a lot of people where they lived, by name, who they were. It was there I first ran into paganism. It stopped me as cold as seeing my first pack of hyenas roaming around outside the walls of the compound. The thing that blew my mind about the worship of small gods was the terror of the worshipper. These folks lived defensively. The gods were their enemies, very, very powerful enemies, bullies that rolled over them like a motorcycle gang over children in a playground. If these powerful beings noticed you it was not a good thing. The only reason you worshipped was to get on their good side. It was no guarantee they’d be nice to you. Gods have bad hair days. But when and if you came to their attention, maybe, if you shed some blood and offered some sacrifice, maybe, just maybe they wouldn’t swat you like the bug you were to them.
These folk saw these young Americans as allies of another god. The guys in the black dresses, the Christian Monks were magicians. They had given their lives to be servants of this Christian god. He wasn’t very nice. No god was. But he seemed to be very powerful. And we young Americans were allies of these men in black. We were living proof of the power of this not very nice god. Look how big we were, six feet tall, though we were considered barbarians, uncouth at best.
I wondered about this one day to a woman we knew who knew enough English and some Italian words to communicate when assisted by the high art of charades. I wondered why she didn’t consider worshiping the Christian god if He was so powerful. Her eyes got big and she shook her head very slowly, hunching and looking over her shoulder. She leaned forward and whispered to me, “They listen. They will take my children.” She cried and then told me she would live. “Each day without death is life.”
I still have dreams about her, hunched and whispering, “…alienated…, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
We have a gift. Too often we forget. We forget about the covenants of promise, sealed in God’s blood, not curses sealed in ours. Thanks be to God. Amen
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Bonsai
Thoughts
There are few things I do that can be said to be classical disciplines. I sing. But I don’t have the time to pursue the discipline of classical voice, or the time to hook up with a choir to do music that constantly raises my game. My writing is a lot like my reading, not very classical or consistently disciplined.
But Bonsai is classical in its very nature. “Trees in saucers” have been around for a couple thousand years, and the maintenance of them demands discipline if I’m going to keep them alive. I’ve lost a few because of lapses. Years of work down the tubes because I wasn’t disciplined. Not to mention the loss of a life.
Anyway, loses aside, this is a rather unique presence in my existence. It is a sanctuary from the frenetic norm of my day to day and it demands a focus and an awareness of the needs of another. In short it gets me out of myself and forces me to slow down.
Every once in a while I bump into another bonsai’er. They consistently light up to know that there is another weirdo in the world that sinks into this small world of trees and moss and rocks and crockery. We talk about what a pain cedars are and have we had any luck with flowering trees and what kind of fertilizer we use and stones. Stones are very important. It’s one of those moments that you tend to remember, relationships built on common interest.
But the relationship that matters, the real center of the whole thing is the tree. You get to know something when you spend time with it and watch it and partner with it. But this can’t be compared with a human relationship. I really think when we do the first sit down with alien species, the ones from out there some were, there should be a bonsai’er in our delegation. They’ve spent a lot of time in communion with another species, like years.
It’s a lot different than having a dog or a cat. But that’s a different story. Just ask Sam.
Thoughts
There are few things I do that can be said to be classical disciplines. I sing. But I don’t have the time to pursue the discipline of classical voice, or the time to hook up with a choir to do music that constantly raises my game. My writing is a lot like my reading, not very classical or consistently disciplined.
But Bonsai is classical in its very nature. “Trees in saucers” have been around for a couple thousand years, and the maintenance of them demands discipline if I’m going to keep them alive. I’ve lost a few because of lapses. Years of work down the tubes because I wasn’t disciplined. Not to mention the loss of a life.
Anyway, loses aside, this is a rather unique presence in my existence. It is a sanctuary from the frenetic norm of my day to day and it demands a focus and an awareness of the needs of another. In short it gets me out of myself and forces me to slow down.
Every once in a while I bump into another bonsai’er. They consistently light up to know that there is another weirdo in the world that sinks into this small world of trees and moss and rocks and crockery. We talk about what a pain cedars are and have we had any luck with flowering trees and what kind of fertilizer we use and stones. Stones are very important. It’s one of those moments that you tend to remember, relationships built on common interest.
But the relationship that matters, the real center of the whole thing is the tree. You get to know something when you spend time with it and watch it and partner with it. But this can’t be compared with a human relationship. I really think when we do the first sit down with alien species, the ones from out there some were, there should be a bonsai’er in our delegation. They’ve spent a lot of time in communion with another species, like years.
It’s a lot different than having a dog or a cat. But that’s a different story. Just ask Sam.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Demons
Putting together the sermon for Sunday, I stumbled on a presupposition that sticks between my teeth. This whole thing of Evil is dismissed in one way or another by the mythology of our culture. So I was forced to give a preamble to my sermon that was probably the most Philosophically Metaphysical that I've gotten in the pulpit for a while.
I'm writing a book right now, a novel that deals with Evil. It's a bear, or should I say a beast to finish it. I'm somewhere near the fourty-fifth chapter and as I come closer to wrapping it up, the laws of relaltivity have begun to take effect. I get shorter and shorter and infinitely heavy, or something like that. When I get the thing done and move into the editing phase, it will be a grand relief. Then I might get into this evil thing from a more philosophic perspective. Nobody else seems to be doing it. They're too busy twittering.
In some ways I think we don't have much of a perspective on evil because we don't have much of a perspective on anything that we can't touch, measure, or quanitfy. So, in some ways the labor to get a grip on this beasty would be an effort to lift our sights out of the technological and into a grander vista.
I know, I know, if you don't talk about it, it becomes less real. Tell that to the predator that follows you in the night. Said in less creepy terms, most things we ignore end up having power over us. We've all had a few of those.
Don't worry, I won't attempt any of this in this light hearted arena. But I might offer bits for reaction. Such a down to earth dialogue might be fun. Or in philosophically metaphysical language, "A diologic approach has often proved fruitful when the participants' presumptive limits can be put aside for the sake of approaching a new synthesis."
Okey dokey?
I'm writing a book right now, a novel that deals with Evil. It's a bear, or should I say a beast to finish it. I'm somewhere near the fourty-fifth chapter and as I come closer to wrapping it up, the laws of relaltivity have begun to take effect. I get shorter and shorter and infinitely heavy, or something like that. When I get the thing done and move into the editing phase, it will be a grand relief. Then I might get into this evil thing from a more philosophic perspective. Nobody else seems to be doing it. They're too busy twittering.
In some ways I think we don't have much of a perspective on evil because we don't have much of a perspective on anything that we can't touch, measure, or quanitfy. So, in some ways the labor to get a grip on this beasty would be an effort to lift our sights out of the technological and into a grander vista.
I know, I know, if you don't talk about it, it becomes less real. Tell that to the predator that follows you in the night. Said in less creepy terms, most things we ignore end up having power over us. We've all had a few of those.
Don't worry, I won't attempt any of this in this light hearted arena. But I might offer bits for reaction. Such a down to earth dialogue might be fun. Or in philosophically metaphysical language, "A diologic approach has often proved fruitful when the participants' presumptive limits can be put aside for the sake of approaching a new synthesis."
Okey dokey?
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