Monday, December 23, 2013
"Silent Night"
I tried to leave the biggest carols for the end with varying success. This, like "One More Sleep Till Christmas" seems like the song that you should really only sing on Christmas Eve - or perhaps Christmas evening, despite the fact that it can often feel like Christmas if cruelly over already or at least winding down. For some reason, we seem to have unofficially but collectively decided that Jesus was born some time in the wee hours after midnight.
I was trying to pin down this morning why the peaceful description in the first verse of this song -- Jesus and Mary sleeping together after the ordeal of birth in a stable -- didn't rankle me the way that "Away in a Manger"'s second verse did.
I think it might come down to the peaceful, quiet repose of BOTH mother and child -- presumably interrupted by the shepherds and their escort of heavenly hosts in the second verse. The third verse is about God on High in the form of a tiny child.
But the first verse lets Jesus be human -- just a human child. Or if not "just" a human child then "truly" a human child. And not necessarily a superhumanly aware and kindly child, as my friend pointed out this weekend we like to imagine, but a human child, tired from the trauma of birth, sleeping peacefully in a trough for feeding animals.
It's humble and sweet and human as can be. It's God Himself throwing himself right into the melee of human experience. No easing Himself in, or not in a way that I can see.
I understand the desire to make Jesus into the Ideal Baby, at the very least from a weary parent's perspective. And, of course, it seems somewhat blasphemous to suggest that God was a "bad baby". But I feel that it fights against just what is so extraordinary and splendid about what we celebrate at Christmas:
God Almighty became an ordinary human baby.
I'm glad to imagine a silent but bright, holy night for His birth. I just want to imagine a true human baby sleeping there. True God as well, but no less human. 100% man and 100% God, as we learned in Catholic school, not 50/50.
Sleep in heavenly peace. But sleep, tired and weary and learning first hand what is our much bemoaned lot in life.
Monday, 23 December 2013
Sunday, 22 December 2013
Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming
Sunday, December 22, 2013
"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"
This is officially becoming a bad habit. It's one thing to forget the nightly blogs, considering I only have two more days of Advent anyway, but what is with forgetting to pray before going to sleep last night? Tonight and Thursday night it felt like I only remembered any of it by the skin of my teeth. I guess that's what habit is for -- the process of getting ready for bed (usually) reminds me.
But I'd like to remember on my own.
"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" was sung this morning at St. Jerome's Catholic Church -- this big, airy but welcoming church near Haley and Cameron's where I've been before (despite my problems with the namesake's doctrines and writings). The tune is just as difficult and annoying to sing as it looked at a glance in the book, which is why I have resisted all the impulses that suggested it as the song for the day in the morning.
The first verse is all tied up in elaborately establishing the simple metaphor of the title (not a hard one to riddle out, but written prettily enough). The second verse gets a little more depth to it:
Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
This Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love a right,
She bore us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
It's kind of choppy in its desire to cover all the main bases of the story, but it hits the important points.
My favorite, however, is the last:
O Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispel in glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death now save us
And share our every load.
It's actually in the opposite order of a lot of other songs that bring up the message -- Advent first this time: what will happen in the Second Coming or through the Holy Spirit in our individual lives as soon as we ask.
This weekend, a friend and I discussed our very different versions of a religious experience, and I couldn't read her look when I leapt on her attempt to find words for a glorious feeling of believing in something wonderful out there to explain I feel that every time about the Eucharist. I admitted that it's only (almost only) when I'm paying attention, and I can hardly claim I have never been distracted even for an entire Mass, but yes. I experience heaven for fifteen minutes every Sunday. Which is why I don't find a denomination that would let me be a pastor. Which is why I am dedicated to going to Mass even when I'm traveling.
Because sweetness fills the air and the darkness is dispelled by glorious splendor -- not just resetting back to neutral, going in the other direction to glorious.
The second part goes into the miracle of Christmas (which despite the other songs does seem the proper order): True man, yet very God. I've tried a lot before and bemoaned earlier in this Advent season that words don't seem to want to go to what a big, amazing deal that is. Bigger to me, somehow, than "From sin and death now save us / And share our every load" even though I know that the first was in order to do the second. Somehow the inexplicable act of love is just...
But plainly stated in that way might be the right road. I make do now with the big statement, fumbling words, and a pause where I make a lot of expressions with my face to encourage my audience to think about it.
And tortured allusions to "House of Asterion" if we're talking about my literature class.
In three days, we celebrate when God became man. Think about it. Really.
And enjoy the magic in the air and splendor replacing the darkness.
"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"
This is officially becoming a bad habit. It's one thing to forget the nightly blogs, considering I only have two more days of Advent anyway, but what is with forgetting to pray before going to sleep last night? Tonight and Thursday night it felt like I only remembered any of it by the skin of my teeth. I guess that's what habit is for -- the process of getting ready for bed (usually) reminds me.
But I'd like to remember on my own.
"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" was sung this morning at St. Jerome's Catholic Church -- this big, airy but welcoming church near Haley and Cameron's where I've been before (despite my problems with the namesake's doctrines and writings). The tune is just as difficult and annoying to sing as it looked at a glance in the book, which is why I have resisted all the impulses that suggested it as the song for the day in the morning.
The first verse is all tied up in elaborately establishing the simple metaphor of the title (not a hard one to riddle out, but written prettily enough). The second verse gets a little more depth to it:
Isaiah 'twas foretold it,
This Rose I have in mind,
With Mary we behold it,
The Virgin Mother kind.
To show God's love a right,
She bore us a Savior,
When half spent was the night.
It's kind of choppy in its desire to cover all the main bases of the story, but it hits the important points.
My favorite, however, is the last:
O Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispel in glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death now save us
And share our every load.
It's actually in the opposite order of a lot of other songs that bring up the message -- Advent first this time: what will happen in the Second Coming or through the Holy Spirit in our individual lives as soon as we ask.
This weekend, a friend and I discussed our very different versions of a religious experience, and I couldn't read her look when I leapt on her attempt to find words for a glorious feeling of believing in something wonderful out there to explain I feel that every time about the Eucharist. I admitted that it's only (almost only) when I'm paying attention, and I can hardly claim I have never been distracted even for an entire Mass, but yes. I experience heaven for fifteen minutes every Sunday. Which is why I don't find a denomination that would let me be a pastor. Which is why I am dedicated to going to Mass even when I'm traveling.
Because sweetness fills the air and the darkness is dispelled by glorious splendor -- not just resetting back to neutral, going in the other direction to glorious.
The second part goes into the miracle of Christmas (which despite the other songs does seem the proper order): True man, yet very God. I've tried a lot before and bemoaned earlier in this Advent season that words don't seem to want to go to what a big, amazing deal that is. Bigger to me, somehow, than "From sin and death now save us / And share our every load" even though I know that the first was in order to do the second. Somehow the inexplicable act of love is just...
But plainly stated in that way might be the right road. I make do now with the big statement, fumbling words, and a pause where I make a lot of expressions with my face to encourage my audience to think about it.
And tortured allusions to "House of Asterion" if we're talking about my literature class.
In three days, we celebrate when God became man. Think about it. Really.
And enjoy the magic in the air and splendor replacing the darkness.
One More Sleep Till Christmas
Saturday, December 21, 2013
“One More Sleep ‘Til Christmas”
Because I am out of town and staying with friends, my Lenten
observance was slighted in a couple of ways today. To avoid waking them, I didn’t sing. Because I left my hymnal at home, I
forgot to even try.
So tonight, as I prepared to type up this message on Word
instead of the blog post because my new computer is not configured for their
wireless network, I remembered last night when a friend asked everyone their
favorite Christmas song. Some had
categories for traditional carols and secular songs.
“One More Sleep ‘Til Christmas” was my straight-up
favorite. I remember one year
complaining that my voice was completely gone on the one day in the entire year
it is appropriate to sing that song.
But it feels appropriate even now. Across the day, I’ve had with multiple people discussions of
how Christmas is, in one way or another, already starting. Given the weekend, people who can are
already off to see family. Gifts
between those who split up for Christmas have already been exchanged. Heck, I exchanged gifts this morning.
There’s already magic in the air, even this early.
I wonder if Christmas always infects the tail end of Advent,
and I wonder if this is, in a way, appropriate. The last of the waiting for the Second Coming, if we watch
the signs and understand them as such, will be easier and sweeter and more
joyful for knowing that soon all will be made right. Presumably.
With those who welcome His coming already, surely it will begin to feel
like the promise is already being fulfilled.
That’s my current theory anyway. It’s hard not to enjoy a time when most everybody is trying
to be nicer and more loving and set some of the old cynicism and irony
aside. We are all aloud to be a
bit more earnest. We are all
allowed to sing.
About a month ago, I was at a party with the same group of
people (nearly) as last night. I
had the sudden urge left over from grad school days to start a singalong to go
with the roaring fire. Last night,
three of us burst into song a couple of times and I did a few solos because I
could. No one batted an eye, and
it was even considered just – cool.
This time of year.
This whole time of year.
One more sleep till Christmas?
Kermit, I think you might be wrong. You even describe it in your song – Christmas is already
here.
There’s magic in the air this evening, magic in the air
The world is at her best, you know, when people laugh and
care
The promise of excitement is one the night will keep
After all there’s only one more sleep till Christmas.
There’s something in the wind today that’s good for everyone.
Yes, faith is in our hearts today, we’re shinin’ like the
sun
And everyone can see it, the feeling’s running deep
After all, there’s only one more sleep till Christmas.
Friday, 20 December 2013
Just Have To Wrap The Gifts
Friday, December 20, 2013
I realized about the time I went to All-School Mass today that I have already done the song I picked this morning, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen". I remembered (and how English teacher-y is this?) because I remembered thinking the comma looked odd, even though it made the title finally make better sense.
So instead today, I am going to talk about a part of the bishop's homily.
When priests speak to a mass of primarily students, especially small students, you get some kind of little story. Which makes you wonder a bit what Jesus thought of us. Just saying.
There was a clear moral to this story about a little girl asking Santa for 50 gifts so that she could give them away, and it might even have been a true story. That would account for the interlude that neither I nor the teacher next to me could find the moral significance of.
The little girl really wants to wrap the presents before she brings them to the charity. None of the popular charities want this, of course, because they need to check the gifts and wrapped gifts are less useful to them. The bishop kept stressing that the little girl wanted to wrap them herself, so she kept looking for some place that would take her wrapped presents.
And while the little girl is way ahead of the curve for most kids, I can't help seeing untapped potential in the bishop's interlude about wrapping - namely, a chance to point out one of the main things that is wrong with charity in this country.
The other main thing wrong with charity in this country is exemplified beautifully by the "A Donation Has Been Made in Your Name" gifts I received from several students. Each and every one donated money not to CASA, my favorite charity, or Some Other Place, with which our school has a special relationship, or even the school itself. They donated to "The St. Anne's Teacher Stocking Fund". And the number who did so makes me think the school encouraged it or at least provided a convenient way to do so.
So people give to charity, but the most money tends to go to "rich people" charities -- arts foundations and fancy private schools rather than feeding the hungry and homeless shelters. And don't get me wrong - I work in the arts and at a fancy private school. I appreciate people giving to those places, but I can't help thinking that giving the money even to the Giving Fields, a charity that runs through our school to provide food for soup kitchens, would have been a better use of that charitable impulse. Objectively, I didn't need the glitter-tastic gift the Home and School Association bought with that money as much as the people who hang around my neighborhood because it's near Some Other Place.
Back to the girl who wanted to wrap gifts so much she almost didn't give gifts to sick and needy kids. Do I need to say more than that? Again, that girl seems way ahead of the curve, but still. We think about charity in terms of what it will do for us. We think about what we want to do and give, not what's needed.
We don't ask what's needed, we decide what we are willing/want to do.
That girl (and, more seriously, her parents) didn't think about calling to ask what toys they needed at each of the places she called -- whether they tended to have more boys or girls toys that they needed, whether there were wish lists that the kids had made out, or if there were any toys or kinds of toys they should avoid (like ones that drained batteries quickly for poor families or ones that plug into walls that homeless kids don't have). She and her parents thought about what would make them feel good - picking out some fun toys that she would like and wrapping them up.
There are rewards to charity, and I certainly don't want to demonize people feeling those warm and fuzzies...but don't prioritize how great it'll make you feel over what people in need actually well...need. And, there's no way to sugarcoat this: ask them. Don't assume.
I realized about the time I went to All-School Mass today that I have already done the song I picked this morning, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen". I remembered (and how English teacher-y is this?) because I remembered thinking the comma looked odd, even though it made the title finally make better sense.
So instead today, I am going to talk about a part of the bishop's homily.
When priests speak to a mass of primarily students, especially small students, you get some kind of little story. Which makes you wonder a bit what Jesus thought of us. Just saying.
There was a clear moral to this story about a little girl asking Santa for 50 gifts so that she could give them away, and it might even have been a true story. That would account for the interlude that neither I nor the teacher next to me could find the moral significance of.
The little girl really wants to wrap the presents before she brings them to the charity. None of the popular charities want this, of course, because they need to check the gifts and wrapped gifts are less useful to them. The bishop kept stressing that the little girl wanted to wrap them herself, so she kept looking for some place that would take her wrapped presents.
And while the little girl is way ahead of the curve for most kids, I can't help seeing untapped potential in the bishop's interlude about wrapping - namely, a chance to point out one of the main things that is wrong with charity in this country.
The other main thing wrong with charity in this country is exemplified beautifully by the "A Donation Has Been Made in Your Name" gifts I received from several students. Each and every one donated money not to CASA, my favorite charity, or Some Other Place, with which our school has a special relationship, or even the school itself. They donated to "The St. Anne's Teacher Stocking Fund". And the number who did so makes me think the school encouraged it or at least provided a convenient way to do so.
So people give to charity, but the most money tends to go to "rich people" charities -- arts foundations and fancy private schools rather than feeding the hungry and homeless shelters. And don't get me wrong - I work in the arts and at a fancy private school. I appreciate people giving to those places, but I can't help thinking that giving the money even to the Giving Fields, a charity that runs through our school to provide food for soup kitchens, would have been a better use of that charitable impulse. Objectively, I didn't need the glitter-tastic gift the Home and School Association bought with that money as much as the people who hang around my neighborhood because it's near Some Other Place.
Back to the girl who wanted to wrap gifts so much she almost didn't give gifts to sick and needy kids. Do I need to say more than that? Again, that girl seems way ahead of the curve, but still. We think about charity in terms of what it will do for us. We think about what we want to do and give, not what's needed.
We don't ask what's needed, we decide what we are willing/want to do.
That girl (and, more seriously, her parents) didn't think about calling to ask what toys they needed at each of the places she called -- whether they tended to have more boys or girls toys that they needed, whether there were wish lists that the kids had made out, or if there were any toys or kinds of toys they should avoid (like ones that drained batteries quickly for poor families or ones that plug into walls that homeless kids don't have). She and her parents thought about what would make them feel good - picking out some fun toys that she would like and wrapping them up.
There are rewards to charity, and I certainly don't want to demonize people feeling those warm and fuzzies...but don't prioritize how great it'll make you feel over what people in need actually well...need. And, there's no way to sugarcoat this: ask them. Don't assume.
Thursday, 19 December 2013
Joy to the World
Thursday, December 18, 2013
"Joy to the World"
And no, I did not choose this song because it expresses my feelings at the last full day of school before Christmas break. At least not consciously. Besides, tomorrow is the day to get excited about. Or perhaps the day after I finish planning the first couple weeks of the very cheery Holocaust unit my class begins in January.
I love the "Let every heart prepare him room" line. Make way in our hearts, in our lives, for Him to take up residence. I'm reading back through Little Women, and that's what it constantly preaches -- make time and room in your life and your heart to listen for the grace of God. To notice Beth, the angel among you; to find a light in Aunt March's house; to realize that you are better off than the poor German family with all their many babies spilling out everywhere.
I admit, however, that I have no idea what the third verse means:
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glorious of His righteousness
And wonders of His love.
He makes the nations prove His righteousness and love. He...makes them be worthy of it? Makes them give witness to it? He...shows His glory through them?
I'm lost.
Sometimes writing these posts, it becomes clearer the more I write about my confusion -- or, at least, I end up with a thematic comment about my confusion, but I'm not feeling much inspiration about it on the way. My mind is occupied with plans and excitement about the coming break and Christmas.
I suppose I need to make room in my heart for God's answer.
"Joy to the World"
And no, I did not choose this song because it expresses my feelings at the last full day of school before Christmas break. At least not consciously. Besides, tomorrow is the day to get excited about. Or perhaps the day after I finish planning the first couple weeks of the very cheery Holocaust unit my class begins in January.
I love the "Let every heart prepare him room" line. Make way in our hearts, in our lives, for Him to take up residence. I'm reading back through Little Women, and that's what it constantly preaches -- make time and room in your life and your heart to listen for the grace of God. To notice Beth, the angel among you; to find a light in Aunt March's house; to realize that you are better off than the poor German family with all their many babies spilling out everywhere.
I admit, however, that I have no idea what the third verse means:
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glorious of His righteousness
And wonders of His love.
He makes the nations prove His righteousness and love. He...makes them be worthy of it? Makes them give witness to it? He...shows His glory through them?
I'm lost.
Sometimes writing these posts, it becomes clearer the more I write about my confusion -- or, at least, I end up with a thematic comment about my confusion, but I'm not feeling much inspiration about it on the way. My mind is occupied with plans and excitement about the coming break and Christmas.
I suppose I need to make room in my heart for God's answer.
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
What Child Is This?
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
"What Child Is This?"
The more I look at Advent and Christmas carols, the more I am convinced that Christmas has more in common with Lent then Advent in intended message -- not so much in what we do to prepare, but well, Advent (as I've written before this season) seems to be about the promise of coming salvation, even assurance that anything we could do would not matter much anyway. The battle is already won.
Christmas carols, in secondary and tertiary verses, remind us why God had to become incarnate and eventually suffer. Yes, that's a huge part of the message of God's Love, but, well, I can't remember feeling ashamed of myself too much at Christmas -- barring my mother's looks if I'm fighting with my sister over something stupid (it's always something stupid).
For sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
That is why He came, to plead for us and to bleed for us. To become like us enough that He could save us.
The King of kings salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone Him.
That's really the least we could do, there in the third verse.
Because what's so unfathomable about what child is lying there in a used feeding trough is not that He came to poor parents, that He was born in a stable, but that GOD ALMIGHTY IS LYING THERE DEPENDENT ON IDIOT HUMANS. And I mean absolutely NO disrespect to the Virgin Mother or her sainted husband, simply that compared to the Omniscient Omnipotent, we are all idiot weaklings.
What child is this? Is this child really the King of kings? The Lord of all? The Creator? Did the Creator become the Redeemer?
And is He really here to save us?
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the son of Mary.
The God who is willing to be known as such. Haste, haste.
"What Child Is This?"
The more I look at Advent and Christmas carols, the more I am convinced that Christmas has more in common with Lent then Advent in intended message -- not so much in what we do to prepare, but well, Advent (as I've written before this season) seems to be about the promise of coming salvation, even assurance that anything we could do would not matter much anyway. The battle is already won.
Christmas carols, in secondary and tertiary verses, remind us why God had to become incarnate and eventually suffer. Yes, that's a huge part of the message of God's Love, but, well, I can't remember feeling ashamed of myself too much at Christmas -- barring my mother's looks if I'm fighting with my sister over something stupid (it's always something stupid).
For sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
That is why He came, to plead for us and to bleed for us. To become like us enough that He could save us.
The King of kings salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone Him.
That's really the least we could do, there in the third verse.
Because what's so unfathomable about what child is lying there in a used feeding trough is not that He came to poor parents, that He was born in a stable, but that GOD ALMIGHTY IS LYING THERE DEPENDENT ON IDIOT HUMANS. And I mean absolutely NO disrespect to the Virgin Mother or her sainted husband, simply that compared to the Omniscient Omnipotent, we are all idiot weaklings.
What child is this? Is this child really the King of kings? The Lord of all? The Creator? Did the Creator become the Redeemer?
And is He really here to save us?
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the son of Mary.
The God who is willing to be known as such. Haste, haste.
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Hark, The Herald Angels Sing
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
Now this is the best of Christmas Carols - a lovely, snappy tune with an obvious basic message whose lyrics unwind into beautiful shapes when you bother to take a look. Seriously, it's a popular standard song with strong doctrinal mentions of incarnation and some of the best description of just how shocking it is that I've ever seen.
I guess a few posts back I wished for what I want for Christmas: a way of expressing the awe with which I view the Incarnation. Words don't go there, but these come closer than I have yet:
Veiled in flesh the God-head see!
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with us to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
I always thought it was "Pleased with man, with us to dwell" which, on further examination, doesn't make a ton of sense. After all, He had to come down in the first place because He was most drastically NOT pleased with us. Which reminds me of that Noah movie that I am worried is going to wreck the entire Bible study (I mean, really? We're going to have people storm the ark and we're supposed to root for them all to die horrible deaths?).
Moving right along.
God's plan with Jesus is extraordinarily generous even before you consider the alternatives.
Mild He lays His glory by;
Born that we no more may die;
Born to raise us from the earth,
Born to give us second birth.
Seriously, this is gorgeous, powerful stuff. He lays His glory by. He sets aside heaven. That place where we are all striving to go. That state we are all trying to be. He set aside His power, His state, His position above the muck we make here. He waded into the mud -- literally! That stable didn't exactly have plush carpets or even hardwood floors.
So that we don't have to take our deserved punishment for sin. He did all this to let us ascend higher than we ourselves dare. To show us how to fly. To show us how to be more than we think we are.
I really have nothing as beautiful as the lyrics today.
Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!"
"Hark! The Herald Angels Sing"
Now this is the best of Christmas Carols - a lovely, snappy tune with an obvious basic message whose lyrics unwind into beautiful shapes when you bother to take a look. Seriously, it's a popular standard song with strong doctrinal mentions of incarnation and some of the best description of just how shocking it is that I've ever seen.
I guess a few posts back I wished for what I want for Christmas: a way of expressing the awe with which I view the Incarnation. Words don't go there, but these come closer than I have yet:
Veiled in flesh the God-head see!
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with us to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel!
I always thought it was "Pleased with man, with us to dwell" which, on further examination, doesn't make a ton of sense. After all, He had to come down in the first place because He was most drastically NOT pleased with us. Which reminds me of that Noah movie that I am worried is going to wreck the entire Bible study (I mean, really? We're going to have people storm the ark and we're supposed to root for them all to die horrible deaths?).
Moving right along.
God's plan with Jesus is extraordinarily generous even before you consider the alternatives.
Mild He lays His glory by;
Born that we no more may die;
Born to raise us from the earth,
Born to give us second birth.
Seriously, this is gorgeous, powerful stuff. He lays His glory by. He sets aside heaven. That place where we are all striving to go. That state we are all trying to be. He set aside His power, His state, His position above the muck we make here. He waded into the mud -- literally! That stable didn't exactly have plush carpets or even hardwood floors.
So that we don't have to take our deserved punishment for sin. He did all this to let us ascend higher than we ourselves dare. To show us how to fly. To show us how to be more than we think we are.
I really have nothing as beautiful as the lyrics today.
Glory to the newborn King;
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!"
Monday, 16 December 2013
Away in a Manger
Monday, December 16, 2013
"Away in a Manger"
This is my mother's favorite Christmas carol, and it is beautiful played, but today it really strikes me as oddly precious.
I sit here half-reading, half-singing the second verse, and, well, I get snarky:
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,
But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.
All I could think was "for the first and last time in His life, no doubt." I'm being sarcastic, obviously, but Jesus was not a calm, sweet, trying-not-to-disturb-anyone presence on planet Earth. No, he was more the "holler all night until these people finally wake up and take care of the problems" type of adult. It seems odd to think of His baby self as trying not to cause his mother and stepfather any problems with his tears.
Jesus's message is not a comfortable one. There are many tenets of the Catholic faith that make me not only uncomfortable but sometimes angry. In some of these, I am not yet ready to admit myself wrong, but I see my own fear of loss of privilege and comfort in others.
Every so often, a rousing homily makes me realize that I don't do enough for my fellow man. What I'm saying is that a crying baby can be a great wake-up call, and Jesus always used whatever methods He could to wake us up from our indifferent stupor.
And perhaps it's more about being fussy and crying, forcing the issue and refusing to compromise or back down or listen to reason (as only babies and the Almighty can do with perfect stubbornness), that Jesus will:
Fit us for heaven to live with Thee there.
"Away in a Manger"
This is my mother's favorite Christmas carol, and it is beautiful played, but today it really strikes me as oddly precious.
I sit here half-reading, half-singing the second verse, and, well, I get snarky:
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,
But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.
All I could think was "for the first and last time in His life, no doubt." I'm being sarcastic, obviously, but Jesus was not a calm, sweet, trying-not-to-disturb-anyone presence on planet Earth. No, he was more the "holler all night until these people finally wake up and take care of the problems" type of adult. It seems odd to think of His baby self as trying not to cause his mother and stepfather any problems with his tears.
Jesus's message is not a comfortable one. There are many tenets of the Catholic faith that make me not only uncomfortable but sometimes angry. In some of these, I am not yet ready to admit myself wrong, but I see my own fear of loss of privilege and comfort in others.
Every so often, a rousing homily makes me realize that I don't do enough for my fellow man. What I'm saying is that a crying baby can be a great wake-up call, and Jesus always used whatever methods He could to wake us up from our indifferent stupor.
And perhaps it's more about being fussy and crying, forcing the issue and refusing to compromise or back down or listen to reason (as only babies and the Almighty can do with perfect stubbornness), that Jesus will:
Fit us for heaven to live with Thee there.
Sunday, 15 December 2013
Children, Run Joyfully
Sunday, December 15, 2013
"Children, Run Joyfully!"
It seemed an appropriate choice for rose (not pink) candle Sunday. I'm not sure why the Church is suddenly fighting that battle (at least in this diocese) but so it is. Pope Francis doesn't seem like he would care.
Singing this song this morning (a pretty basic one in terms of concept, little poetry to it) is the first time in a long time that the "manger" really hit me. This is one of the cons of growing up Catholic (or any Christian denomination really) -- the manger sounds normal.
Today is the first time in awhile it hit me that "he'll be in a manger" is actually a great way to figure out that you've got the right baby. Seriously, who puts a newborn in a used feeding trough for animals?
Jesus certainly did not choose an easy early life for himself. He knows poverty.
I don't want to descend into this too much, but the "Santa is white" controversy actually obscures that news anchor's odder comment that "Jesus is white -- that's a verifiable fact". Um, no. No he was not. He was also not middle class or top 1%. He was poor. He is on the side of the poor. Not the hardworking American middle class family. The so-poor-you-put-your-newborn-in-a-doggie-dish socioeconomic bracket.
That's how He stood out from all the other babies in Bethlehem (crowded to bursting because of the census, remember) when He came down. So poor He lay in a manger.
I think we forget that all too often.
"Children, Run Joyfully!"
It seemed an appropriate choice for rose (not pink) candle Sunday. I'm not sure why the Church is suddenly fighting that battle (at least in this diocese) but so it is. Pope Francis doesn't seem like he would care.
Singing this song this morning (a pretty basic one in terms of concept, little poetry to it) is the first time in a long time that the "manger" really hit me. This is one of the cons of growing up Catholic (or any Christian denomination really) -- the manger sounds normal.
Today is the first time in awhile it hit me that "he'll be in a manger" is actually a great way to figure out that you've got the right baby. Seriously, who puts a newborn in a used feeding trough for animals?
Jesus certainly did not choose an easy early life for himself. He knows poverty.
I don't want to descend into this too much, but the "Santa is white" controversy actually obscures that news anchor's odder comment that "Jesus is white -- that's a verifiable fact". Um, no. No he was not. He was also not middle class or top 1%. He was poor. He is on the side of the poor. Not the hardworking American middle class family. The so-poor-you-put-your-newborn-in-a-doggie-dish socioeconomic bracket.
That's how He stood out from all the other babies in Bethlehem (crowded to bursting because of the census, remember) when He came down. So poor He lay in a manger.
I think we forget that all too often.
Saturday, 14 December 2013
Go, Tell It On The Mountain
Saturday, December 14, 2013
"Go, Tell It On The Mountain"
Today started with a lot of energy which really fit this song and has ended with some disheartening grading and a semi-unplanned nap that through me for a loop this afternoon, and a sinking feeling of exhaustion with a hint of oncoming fever. So I'm feeling a bit less ready to sally forth unto the nearest mountain (much further away than two years ago). I'm doubting a lot of things currently happening in my life -- like the fact that my sick and well Saturday nights look alarmingly similar.
Forget telling it on the mountain, the furthest I spread the word is less than a mile away at my place of work. It's strange to feel my world contracting so literally. Sure, I was barely employed and not self-sufficient last year, but I drove to Orange several times a week and talked to students via the Internet, I drove to Port Arthur for rehearsal, and I did the shopping and errands (which I didn't love, but hey, free rent) for the house. I traveled more often to see friends out of town, and I just picked up and went off on a writer's residency to the Texas hill country.
Now most days I drive a distance that if I got up earlier I could probably walk, go to work, stay until 4:30 or 5 and then come home. I do what I can at school to set an example for my students, but only some days do I feel like I am the frontline. Don't get me wrong, some days I feel like I did this morning singing this rousing song -- like the front line building up the future of the Catholic Church. I feel proud of being in a Catholic school that takes pride in emphasizing grammar, however painful a task it can be.
Other days I wonder if we can compete with the rest of the messages bombarding the students, especially with how careful we are at the school to avoid anything too controversial. There are hard truths out there. Mountains are dangerous places, and it's irresponsible to send people up to the mountains without telling them how to handle the rocks and snow. But that's not our job but their parents', so how can we send them out to the mountains in good conscience? It's not so much that I want to have those conversations with the students but that I feel beside the point when I know I shouldn't be the one to talk to them about all that the world will confront them with.
That metaphor got very mixed, and now even I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about. Since this is not a diary and my students routinely google me, I will try to re-focus on the song.
I suppose there is some reassurance in the second verse. Even in this call to arms, there is some confirmation that I am not the lone civilian feeling drafted by the holy light and mission:
The shepherds feared and trembled
When high above the earth
Rang out the angel chorus
That hailed our Savior's birth.
But then again, by the third verse, they've gotten over that and answered the call:
And lo, when they had heard it,
They all bowed down and prayed;
They traveled out together
To where the Babe was laid.
So there's the answer -- prayer and faith-filled community. My faith community is in Arizona and expecting a baby, which will keep them fairly busy, so it must be high time I found one here in Beaumont. I've been uncomfortable praying in a group for some time now. I can't nail down just when it started, but, well, there is it. I know it's a problem. Where two or three are gathered in my name and all of that.
I can probably trace it to college when I didn't click with the Catholic Student Center set and prayed alone at meals. I thought I remembered in grad school how important it can be, but the two experiences have left me overly picky about who I share my faith with.
But we're meant to share our faith and our joy widely.
Go, tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere;
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born.
"Go, Tell It On The Mountain"
Today started with a lot of energy which really fit this song and has ended with some disheartening grading and a semi-unplanned nap that through me for a loop this afternoon, and a sinking feeling of exhaustion with a hint of oncoming fever. So I'm feeling a bit less ready to sally forth unto the nearest mountain (much further away than two years ago). I'm doubting a lot of things currently happening in my life -- like the fact that my sick and well Saturday nights look alarmingly similar.
Forget telling it on the mountain, the furthest I spread the word is less than a mile away at my place of work. It's strange to feel my world contracting so literally. Sure, I was barely employed and not self-sufficient last year, but I drove to Orange several times a week and talked to students via the Internet, I drove to Port Arthur for rehearsal, and I did the shopping and errands (which I didn't love, but hey, free rent) for the house. I traveled more often to see friends out of town, and I just picked up and went off on a writer's residency to the Texas hill country.
Now most days I drive a distance that if I got up earlier I could probably walk, go to work, stay until 4:30 or 5 and then come home. I do what I can at school to set an example for my students, but only some days do I feel like I am the frontline. Don't get me wrong, some days I feel like I did this morning singing this rousing song -- like the front line building up the future of the Catholic Church. I feel proud of being in a Catholic school that takes pride in emphasizing grammar, however painful a task it can be.
Other days I wonder if we can compete with the rest of the messages bombarding the students, especially with how careful we are at the school to avoid anything too controversial. There are hard truths out there. Mountains are dangerous places, and it's irresponsible to send people up to the mountains without telling them how to handle the rocks and snow. But that's not our job but their parents', so how can we send them out to the mountains in good conscience? It's not so much that I want to have those conversations with the students but that I feel beside the point when I know I shouldn't be the one to talk to them about all that the world will confront them with.
That metaphor got very mixed, and now even I'm not entirely sure what I'm talking about. Since this is not a diary and my students routinely google me, I will try to re-focus on the song.
I suppose there is some reassurance in the second verse. Even in this call to arms, there is some confirmation that I am not the lone civilian feeling drafted by the holy light and mission:
The shepherds feared and trembled
When high above the earth
Rang out the angel chorus
That hailed our Savior's birth.
But then again, by the third verse, they've gotten over that and answered the call:
And lo, when they had heard it,
They all bowed down and prayed;
They traveled out together
To where the Babe was laid.
So there's the answer -- prayer and faith-filled community. My faith community is in Arizona and expecting a baby, which will keep them fairly busy, so it must be high time I found one here in Beaumont. I've been uncomfortable praying in a group for some time now. I can't nail down just when it started, but, well, there is it. I know it's a problem. Where two or three are gathered in my name and all of that.
I can probably trace it to college when I didn't click with the Catholic Student Center set and prayed alone at meals. I thought I remembered in grad school how important it can be, but the two experiences have left me overly picky about who I share my faith with.
But we're meant to share our faith and our joy widely.
Go, tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere;
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born.
Friday, 13 December 2013
Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!
Friday, December 13, 2013
"Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!"
With the mountain of grading I have in store for me this weekend, I am enjoying Friday night much less than usual, so it was nice to get yet another hymn reinforcing my belief in the salvation of all mankind. I am so blessed to have chosen, with a kind of desperation for inspiration, to work with Advent and Christmas hymns this Lent. It has been a wonderful blessing in my life.
Also because these hymns really do the work of this interpretation for themselves, to the point where I wonder how people can sing these songs every year and not come to the obvious conclusion. Look at the second and third verse:
Now ye hear of endless bliss;
Jesus Christ was born for this!
He has opened heaven's door,
And we are blest forever more.
Christ was born for this!
Christ was born for this!
Now ye need not fear the grave;
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all,
To gain his everlasting hall.
Christ was born to save!
Christ was born to save!
Not to condemn. Not to divide the world into his followers and his enemies. No, he did not come to bring peace. He came to bring salvation. He came to set us free from what kept us from becoming more than we were then and, to be honest, in a lot of ways are now. Free from sin and from its painful consequences.
Now we have the hard work of creating endless bliss -- or at least moments of bliss. Jesus came down to try to free us from an eternal hell and from the hells we insist on setting up here on earth to compensate. We are meant to bring moments of heaven to others, to be the Body of Christ and the Face of God.
Yesterday, I did a story with my kids where a deeply wounded and confused character wonders if it's possible that he, being alone and isolated and unique in all the world (the minotaur), could have created the world and then just forgotten about it. We had a sympathetic (mostly) laugh at this character's expense, but it makes me wonder -- how lonely it must be to be God.
How lonely He must be to want us, weak, craven, useless things that we are. But He does. Enough to become like us, to take on our flesh. To die for us. To permanently change His own nature.
Just so we will stop creating so much pain. To give us the chance to shed our burdens, especially our sins, and make something better of our world.
We owe it to Him to strive (in vain) to be worthy not just of that sacrifice but of that trust. Of that love. We owe it to God to make Him feel a little less lonely and unique in the universe as a being of Love.
"Good Christian Friends, Rejoice!"
With the mountain of grading I have in store for me this weekend, I am enjoying Friday night much less than usual, so it was nice to get yet another hymn reinforcing my belief in the salvation of all mankind. I am so blessed to have chosen, with a kind of desperation for inspiration, to work with Advent and Christmas hymns this Lent. It has been a wonderful blessing in my life.
Also because these hymns really do the work of this interpretation for themselves, to the point where I wonder how people can sing these songs every year and not come to the obvious conclusion. Look at the second and third verse:
Now ye hear of endless bliss;
Jesus Christ was born for this!
He has opened heaven's door,
And we are blest forever more.
Christ was born for this!
Christ was born for this!
Now ye need not fear the grave;
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one and calls you all,
To gain his everlasting hall.
Christ was born to save!
Christ was born to save!
Not to condemn. Not to divide the world into his followers and his enemies. No, he did not come to bring peace. He came to bring salvation. He came to set us free from what kept us from becoming more than we were then and, to be honest, in a lot of ways are now. Free from sin and from its painful consequences.
Now we have the hard work of creating endless bliss -- or at least moments of bliss. Jesus came down to try to free us from an eternal hell and from the hells we insist on setting up here on earth to compensate. We are meant to bring moments of heaven to others, to be the Body of Christ and the Face of God.
Yesterday, I did a story with my kids where a deeply wounded and confused character wonders if it's possible that he, being alone and isolated and unique in all the world (the minotaur), could have created the world and then just forgotten about it. We had a sympathetic (mostly) laugh at this character's expense, but it makes me wonder -- how lonely it must be to be God.
How lonely He must be to want us, weak, craven, useless things that we are. But He does. Enough to become like us, to take on our flesh. To die for us. To permanently change His own nature.
Just so we will stop creating so much pain. To give us the chance to shed our burdens, especially our sins, and make something better of our world.
We owe it to Him to strive (in vain) to be worthy not just of that sacrifice but of that trust. Of that love. We owe it to God to make Him feel a little less lonely and unique in the universe as a being of Love.
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Angels We Have Heard On High
December 12, 2013
"Angels We Have Heard On High"
My prevailing memory of this song is a debate with the director of a charming Christmas show that features the appearance of the angel to the shepherds. He was complaining that the first verse actually sounded a little funny coming from the angel herself. I recommended he look at the later verses, thinking of the third verse:
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing
Come adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Instead, he went with:
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be,
Which inspire your heavenly song?
This was delivered to three sleeping shepherds, by the way.
Looking at it today (looking for the first time because this morning I had to rush to school and pick a song I already know well), I love the semi-conversational nature of it. If the fourth verse were in response to the shepherds, it would be a proper conversation. Instead, there is just the lone second verse asking the shepherds what gives and the rest is their words:
Angels we have heard on high!
Sweetly singing o'er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains!
Actually, now I look at it, "Shepherds, why this jubilee?" seems a bit daft after all of that amazement. Of course, the verse goes on to ask what the celebration is for -- which is great. The person or persons responding does not doubt their rather fantastical story of angels singing and mountains replying in the middle of nowhere Bethlehem of all places, just asks what the wonderful news is.
I bet it was something in the shepherds' eyes. I bet their look was new. I bet they were changed men.
I would have liked to see the responder's reaction to first the tale of the birth of the Messiah and then the follow up explanation that he was being laid in a feeding trough for animals. In excelsis Deo.
But as blessed as the shepherds are, I think I am more impressed by whoever answers them. That is what I want to strive to be -- someone who doesn't question other people's joys and glories but asks to share them instantly. I want to be someone who does not doubt the awe and wonder of the world as other people see it.
I want to shed the skepticism and cynicism I have acquired in my life (admittedly less than many). I want to believe instinctively.
But more than that, I want my instinct to be to share others' joy rather than covet it or dismiss it as something I have no part in. The responder to the shepherds could have gone about their own business, but they didn't. They saw joy, and they wanted to take part. So they asked to share it, and they learned of the great Good News of their or any time.
Communities of love and faith however small or brief, I so often forget their importance.
"Angels We Have Heard On High"
My prevailing memory of this song is a debate with the director of a charming Christmas show that features the appearance of the angel to the shepherds. He was complaining that the first verse actually sounded a little funny coming from the angel herself. I recommended he look at the later verses, thinking of the third verse:
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing
Come adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Instead, he went with:
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be,
Which inspire your heavenly song?
This was delivered to three sleeping shepherds, by the way.
Looking at it today (looking for the first time because this morning I had to rush to school and pick a song I already know well), I love the semi-conversational nature of it. If the fourth verse were in response to the shepherds, it would be a proper conversation. Instead, there is just the lone second verse asking the shepherds what gives and the rest is their words:
Angels we have heard on high!
Sweetly singing o'er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains!
Actually, now I look at it, "Shepherds, why this jubilee?" seems a bit daft after all of that amazement. Of course, the verse goes on to ask what the celebration is for -- which is great. The person or persons responding does not doubt their rather fantastical story of angels singing and mountains replying in the middle of nowhere Bethlehem of all places, just asks what the wonderful news is.
I bet it was something in the shepherds' eyes. I bet their look was new. I bet they were changed men.
I would have liked to see the responder's reaction to first the tale of the birth of the Messiah and then the follow up explanation that he was being laid in a feeding trough for animals. In excelsis Deo.
But as blessed as the shepherds are, I think I am more impressed by whoever answers them. That is what I want to strive to be -- someone who doesn't question other people's joys and glories but asks to share them instantly. I want to be someone who does not doubt the awe and wonder of the world as other people see it.
I want to shed the skepticism and cynicism I have acquired in my life (admittedly less than many). I want to believe instinctively.
But more than that, I want my instinct to be to share others' joy rather than covet it or dismiss it as something I have no part in. The responder to the shepherds could have gone about their own business, but they didn't. They saw joy, and they wanted to take part. So they asked to share it, and they learned of the great Good News of their or any time.
Communities of love and faith however small or brief, I so often forget their importance.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen"
The comma actually makes the phrase make so much more sense. I suppose that's what commas are for, which is what I teach every afternoon, after all.
It's the chorus that really gets to me today.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
Simple as it is, it makes me think of the Bible verse about those who fear the light are those who sin. Those who are truthful and good have nothing to fear from a light shining on their actions.
But perhaps those people ARE the light --
"Fear not then," said the angle,
"Let nothing you afright;
This day is born a Savior
Of Virgin pure and bright
To free all those who trust in him
From Satan's power and might"
My father told me once, as courtroom advice when we all thought I would end up a lawyer, that a good lawyer has nothing to fear from the truth if she knows it in time. There is no fact that can hurt you if you know how to spin it.
I think about this a lot when I find myself afraid to know the answer to a pivotal question about my life or the world around me. I think about the things I hide from myself in fear and shame. And I wonder if it's too late for those things to be spun or if I just haven't been willing to engage with them.
And now, I will try to remember that the light coming is tidings of comfort and joy. Not just joy, not just all the things you think of with a bright light, but comfort -- which is the opposite of what you think about alongside a call from God.
There is no Truth that can hurt us.
Lent is a time for repentance and rejuvenation, but the Church year begins with hope and comfort -- all this shall pass. The light will shine down on us, and it will not be a fearful thing. We bring tidings of comfort as well as joy.
"God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen"
The comma actually makes the phrase make so much more sense. I suppose that's what commas are for, which is what I teach every afternoon, after all.
It's the chorus that really gets to me today.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy.
Simple as it is, it makes me think of the Bible verse about those who fear the light are those who sin. Those who are truthful and good have nothing to fear from a light shining on their actions.
But perhaps those people ARE the light --
"Fear not then," said the angle,
"Let nothing you afright;
This day is born a Savior
Of Virgin pure and bright
To free all those who trust in him
From Satan's power and might"
My father told me once, as courtroom advice when we all thought I would end up a lawyer, that a good lawyer has nothing to fear from the truth if she knows it in time. There is no fact that can hurt you if you know how to spin it.
I think about this a lot when I find myself afraid to know the answer to a pivotal question about my life or the world around me. I think about the things I hide from myself in fear and shame. And I wonder if it's too late for those things to be spun or if I just haven't been willing to engage with them.
And now, I will try to remember that the light coming is tidings of comfort and joy. Not just joy, not just all the things you think of with a bright light, but comfort -- which is the opposite of what you think about alongside a call from God.
There is no Truth that can hurt us.
Lent is a time for repentance and rejuvenation, but the Church year begins with hope and comfort -- all this shall pass. The light will shine down on us, and it will not be a fearful thing. We bring tidings of comfort as well as joy.
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns
Monday, December 9, 2013
"The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns"
I know, I probably should do something for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, but I didn't think of that this morning.
The first verse of this song goes along with what I've been writing about all Advent -- there's nothing WE do to bring about the great promised peace and light, any more than we bring the morning to pass by "staying strong" in the night. The morning is always a free gift. It comes to the strong and the cowering alike.
The King shall come when morning dawns
And light triumphant breaks,
When beauty gilds the eastern hills
And life to joy awakes.
I also love the idea of "life to joy awak[ing]". We could use a little more of that in this world -- remembering the joy we forget not so much in the bustle (I believe) but in the grime we put up everywhere. I think that's what most charity work really is -- removing the grime from our collective soul. Most people who dedicate their lives to charity know that they are unlikely to solve the systemic failures that leaves the majority of the human race in poverty.
We can't bring the dawn, so we light a candle. We wipe away the grime a little and try to make this place more livable.
I say "we" despite the notable lack of charity work in my life -- unless you count my teaching job, which is legitimate but not as obvious a boon to humanity as if I were teaching at a needy school rather than a posh private school. I believe in influencing the future of the Catholic Church there, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't feel as "I go where I am needed and help to solve the problems of our world" as teaching at an inner city school -- for all it would break me in half -- would.
Just a guilty little aside because the students went to the sacrament of confession during school today.
Not, as of old, a little child,
To bear, and fight, and die,
But crowned with glory like the sun
That lights the morning sky.
That is Jesus on His Return -- glorious. He shared our burden once, tried to clear away the source of the grime, but He also fixed the problem. All that bearing and fighting and dying has been done. All we have to do is endure.
What an incredible gift. Over and above everything else -- why do we forget so quickly that the battle is won? The grand battle in which you can and must at some point feel so powerless, that distracts us from the gritty business of actually helping people, and that seems to be entirely composed of shifting, twisting rhetoric...
It's over. We won. We are the mop up crew. All that matters is doing good to those around us, healing the Body of Christ. We're not fighting for the grand cause as soldiers in the army marching to battle. We are tending the wounded of the struggle on both sides.
Or we should be. No one wants to be that jerk still firing his machine gun at the medics.
"The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns"
I know, I probably should do something for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, but I didn't think of that this morning.
The first verse of this song goes along with what I've been writing about all Advent -- there's nothing WE do to bring about the great promised peace and light, any more than we bring the morning to pass by "staying strong" in the night. The morning is always a free gift. It comes to the strong and the cowering alike.
The King shall come when morning dawns
And light triumphant breaks,
When beauty gilds the eastern hills
And life to joy awakes.
I also love the idea of "life to joy awak[ing]". We could use a little more of that in this world -- remembering the joy we forget not so much in the bustle (I believe) but in the grime we put up everywhere. I think that's what most charity work really is -- removing the grime from our collective soul. Most people who dedicate their lives to charity know that they are unlikely to solve the systemic failures that leaves the majority of the human race in poverty.
We can't bring the dawn, so we light a candle. We wipe away the grime a little and try to make this place more livable.
I say "we" despite the notable lack of charity work in my life -- unless you count my teaching job, which is legitimate but not as obvious a boon to humanity as if I were teaching at a needy school rather than a posh private school. I believe in influencing the future of the Catholic Church there, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't feel as "I go where I am needed and help to solve the problems of our world" as teaching at an inner city school -- for all it would break me in half -- would.
Just a guilty little aside because the students went to the sacrament of confession during school today.
Not, as of old, a little child,
To bear, and fight, and die,
But crowned with glory like the sun
That lights the morning sky.
That is Jesus on His Return -- glorious. He shared our burden once, tried to clear away the source of the grime, but He also fixed the problem. All that bearing and fighting and dying has been done. All we have to do is endure.
What an incredible gift. Over and above everything else -- why do we forget so quickly that the battle is won? The grand battle in which you can and must at some point feel so powerless, that distracts us from the gritty business of actually helping people, and that seems to be entirely composed of shifting, twisting rhetoric...
It's over. We won. We are the mop up crew. All that matters is doing good to those around us, healing the Body of Christ. We're not fighting for the grand cause as soldiers in the army marching to battle. We are tending the wounded of the struggle on both sides.
Or we should be. No one wants to be that jerk still firing his machine gun at the medics.
Monday, 9 December 2013
O Come, All Ye Faithful
Monday, December 9, 2013
"O Come, All Ye Faithful"
I think I need to pick the lesser known hymns. They are classics for a reason, but just for that reason, I tend to consider them as a whole. "O Come, All Ye Faithful" is not the meaning of the song in pieces or in entirety, it is learning the Latin and feeling soooooo proud of myself in the children's choir all those years ago. It is wondering if suddenly singing the Latin when it wasn't in the hymnals (it was, I was a stupid kid) would confuse people. I remember wondering what the fourth verse was in English, and then wondering (once it was explained to me/I noticed the concurrence of "Bethlehem", I can't remember which") what the Latin of the other two verses was.
It's one of those songs that's a Christmas song not so much for the subject matter but because, well, it's a Christmas song. Innumerable Christmas singings have made it so. It is not so much a song about Christmas as a song endowed with the spirit of Christmas. It is a piece of the holiday.
It's also another "Rejoice!" and even a bit of "Praise and party down!" which shows what I think a good party is (everybody singing). Of course, that is my idea of a perfect night with people - dinner, conversation, followed by a jam session preferably in Brian Falbo's garden or around a campfire. Man, I miss grad school.
Anyway...
It's hard to separate all of that feeling from the meaning of the hymn itself. It is appropriate, however, that this song is indelibly tied to a time of joy -- after all, that's what it calls us to do.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant
And I wonder if it's not just that this, unlike the Advent songs I've mostly stuck to, is designed to be sung at Christmas that makes the present tense so conspicuous here. Not be ready to come when Jesus returns, but be joyful and triumphant now.
That's what I've always thought the benefit of religious devotion was: experiencing the joy of a relationship with God now rather than having to wait until He helps us find our way after we die (see first post of Advent for my take on the afterlife).
I've written a couple of times about the importance of religion staying firmly rooted in the now -- not staying mired in the past or looking forever forward to a time when it will all be better but now. What grace of God do we have to work with and spread now. What can we do to protect and love and serve others now.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! O come ye right away.
"O Come, All Ye Faithful"
I think I need to pick the lesser known hymns. They are classics for a reason, but just for that reason, I tend to consider them as a whole. "O Come, All Ye Faithful" is not the meaning of the song in pieces or in entirety, it is learning the Latin and feeling soooooo proud of myself in the children's choir all those years ago. It is wondering if suddenly singing the Latin when it wasn't in the hymnals (it was, I was a stupid kid) would confuse people. I remember wondering what the fourth verse was in English, and then wondering (once it was explained to me/I noticed the concurrence of "Bethlehem", I can't remember which") what the Latin of the other two verses was.
It's one of those songs that's a Christmas song not so much for the subject matter but because, well, it's a Christmas song. Innumerable Christmas singings have made it so. It is not so much a song about Christmas as a song endowed with the spirit of Christmas. It is a piece of the holiday.
It's also another "Rejoice!" and even a bit of "Praise and party down!" which shows what I think a good party is (everybody singing). Of course, that is my idea of a perfect night with people - dinner, conversation, followed by a jam session preferably in Brian Falbo's garden or around a campfire. Man, I miss grad school.
Anyway...
It's hard to separate all of that feeling from the meaning of the hymn itself. It is appropriate, however, that this song is indelibly tied to a time of joy -- after all, that's what it calls us to do.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant
And I wonder if it's not just that this, unlike the Advent songs I've mostly stuck to, is designed to be sung at Christmas that makes the present tense so conspicuous here. Not be ready to come when Jesus returns, but be joyful and triumphant now.
That's what I've always thought the benefit of religious devotion was: experiencing the joy of a relationship with God now rather than having to wait until He helps us find our way after we die (see first post of Advent for my take on the afterlife).
I've written a couple of times about the importance of religion staying firmly rooted in the now -- not staying mired in the past or looking forever forward to a time when it will all be better but now. What grace of God do we have to work with and spread now. What can we do to protect and love and serve others now.
O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! O come ye right away.
Sunday, 8 December 2013
Alleluia! Hurry, the Lord is Near
Sunday, December 8, 2013
"Alleluia! Hurry, the Lord is Near"
Just at the moment, Christmas isn't feeling all that near, but that's probably just because I sang at the Catholic Student Center, where everyone is so much closer to Christmas break than we are at St. Anne's. Of course, I'm used to that. Mom always got off Lamar earlier than the rest of us.
What struck me when I sang this song this morning was the fact that there was no action in this song. We are enjoyed to hurry to do...nothing really? To "Sound the trumpet" and "Go out to meet him, shout his name".
I mean, considering what He normally asks of us...sign me up?
Love your enemy, do good to those who hate you, have a fun party when I come down from heaven...
Now that I have been facetious about the point, I can admit that it actually feels quite true though humbling. I remember my sister getting very upset when the new Mass parts were introduced -- not because she disagreed with the translation or underlying theology, but because she felt that the Church was focusing on entirely the wrong things.
Pope Francis seems to be saying the same thing. We've been taking "What you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven...whose sins you forgive will be forgiven them" too much to heart and forgetting that we are the recipients of grace, not the purveyors.
Now, don't get me wrong, we can and should spread it and share it. That's how we make it multiply, but we are not the source of grace. We are the ones shouting Alleluia! at its approach. We are the ones hurrying toward it because we have been granted a taste of how wonderful it is and know that we will want to be there quickly.
It's a joyful time and I admit that I find our cosmic smallness something of a relief, but it can be an extremely humbling time, Advent. All of our actions are after thoughts to the battle of Good and Evil, even in the battle for the redemption of our individual souls. We are the damsels in distress who were saved by our Champion.
We can share and extend that blessing, open our hearts to share that light and love and gift with others, we can sound the trumpet and shout His name to let them know that they are saved, but that is all. All we can do is remind people that they are already saved.
That is our spiritual work.
Besides, there's plenty to do with the other injunction from Jesus and recently reiterated by Pope Francis - love our neighbors as ourselves. Start caring for all the people of this world.
"Alleluia! Hurry, the Lord is Near"
Just at the moment, Christmas isn't feeling all that near, but that's probably just because I sang at the Catholic Student Center, where everyone is so much closer to Christmas break than we are at St. Anne's. Of course, I'm used to that. Mom always got off Lamar earlier than the rest of us.
What struck me when I sang this song this morning was the fact that there was no action in this song. We are enjoyed to hurry to do...nothing really? To "Sound the trumpet" and "Go out to meet him, shout his name".
I mean, considering what He normally asks of us...sign me up?
Love your enemy, do good to those who hate you, have a fun party when I come down from heaven...
Now that I have been facetious about the point, I can admit that it actually feels quite true though humbling. I remember my sister getting very upset when the new Mass parts were introduced -- not because she disagreed with the translation or underlying theology, but because she felt that the Church was focusing on entirely the wrong things.
Pope Francis seems to be saying the same thing. We've been taking "What you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven...whose sins you forgive will be forgiven them" too much to heart and forgetting that we are the recipients of grace, not the purveyors.
Now, don't get me wrong, we can and should spread it and share it. That's how we make it multiply, but we are not the source of grace. We are the ones shouting Alleluia! at its approach. We are the ones hurrying toward it because we have been granted a taste of how wonderful it is and know that we will want to be there quickly.
It's a joyful time and I admit that I find our cosmic smallness something of a relief, but it can be an extremely humbling time, Advent. All of our actions are after thoughts to the battle of Good and Evil, even in the battle for the redemption of our individual souls. We are the damsels in distress who were saved by our Champion.
We can share and extend that blessing, open our hearts to share that light and love and gift with others, we can sound the trumpet and shout His name to let them know that they are saved, but that is all. All we can do is remind people that they are already saved.
That is our spiritual work.
Besides, there's plenty to do with the other injunction from Jesus and recently reiterated by Pope Francis - love our neighbors as ourselves. Start caring for all the people of this world.
Saturday, 7 December 2013
People, Look East
Saturday, December 7, 2013
Pearl Harbor Day
"People, Look East"
Between realizing as I typed the date and writing the name of the song, I realized how "People, Look East" on Pearl Harbor Day could be deeply ironic, although at least it would have been from the west that the attack flew in.
I already knew this was not going to be a particularly inspired entry. I sang several songs this morning, and I can't find any of them now. I looked at this song in the end, and the second verse continues my weekly theme.
Furrows, be glad, though earth is bare.
One more seed is planted there;
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower flourish.
The repetition of Love the X is on the way is also wonderful, especially the last "Love, the Lord is on the way," but all that I really connected with this evening is the second verse as a beautiful metaphor for what it is to be a person of faith.
Jesus told us that we would reap what we did not sow, and I always responded with something of a quirked eyebrow. I wish a few more of his parables came with simple explanations like the seed in the different kinds of soil. A lot of them seem self-explanatory, but a lot of them have been twisted and others are just sort of...opaque. The dishonest steward is a perennial head-scratcher for me.
But every so often (and sometimes multiple times on the same parable which just shows how patient God really is), I get a window into understanding His meaning.
Sometimes we are asked to be the furrows where the seed is planted. We didn't plant it, we don't have proof it's there. We are asked to act as if we did and do a lot of sweaty, dirty work. And others might reap the rewards of it. Of course, it can be even more disconcerting when we go and harvest the work that others have painstakingly done.
This is what it means to be a person of faith. We toil at communal work, that we may or may not see come to fruition. We toil for a shared responsibility, when we may not have been there when the seed of hope was planned.
To be a person of faith is to believe that "Love, the Rose, is on the way." To believe that something will grow in the soil we till.
It is hard, but we harvest other fields, that we did not sow or plow. We are the Body of Christ. We share the burden of all the different crops.
Pearl Harbor Day
"People, Look East"
Between realizing as I typed the date and writing the name of the song, I realized how "People, Look East" on Pearl Harbor Day could be deeply ironic, although at least it would have been from the west that the attack flew in.
I already knew this was not going to be a particularly inspired entry. I sang several songs this morning, and I can't find any of them now. I looked at this song in the end, and the second verse continues my weekly theme.
Furrows, be glad, though earth is bare.
One more seed is planted there;
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That in course the flower flourish.
The repetition of Love the X is on the way is also wonderful, especially the last "Love, the Lord is on the way," but all that I really connected with this evening is the second verse as a beautiful metaphor for what it is to be a person of faith.
Jesus told us that we would reap what we did not sow, and I always responded with something of a quirked eyebrow. I wish a few more of his parables came with simple explanations like the seed in the different kinds of soil. A lot of them seem self-explanatory, but a lot of them have been twisted and others are just sort of...opaque. The dishonest steward is a perennial head-scratcher for me.
But every so often (and sometimes multiple times on the same parable which just shows how patient God really is), I get a window into understanding His meaning.
Sometimes we are asked to be the furrows where the seed is planted. We didn't plant it, we don't have proof it's there. We are asked to act as if we did and do a lot of sweaty, dirty work. And others might reap the rewards of it. Of course, it can be even more disconcerting when we go and harvest the work that others have painstakingly done.
This is what it means to be a person of faith. We toil at communal work, that we may or may not see come to fruition. We toil for a shared responsibility, when we may not have been there when the seed of hope was planned.
To be a person of faith is to believe that "Love, the Rose, is on the way." To believe that something will grow in the soil we till.
It is hard, but we harvest other fields, that we did not sow or plow. We are the Body of Christ. We share the burden of all the different crops.
Friday, 6 December 2013
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Friday, December 6, 2013
"O Little Town of Bethlehem"
The first and third verse of this hymn have my heart today.
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
I like the idea of a town - perhaps as a stand-in for our whole world - as a whole doing anything, but sleeping without a dream seems heartbreakingly appropriate for our world. We drift along, the stars and all the wonders of the universe passing silently by us as we drudge along in something of a stupor.
But it is to us that God Himself came.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Sometimes, when preachers rattle their sabers and whip us up into a fervor, we can forget that the battle has already been won. That's probably half of what goes wrong in Christianity today -- acting like we're on the frontlines when we're the mop-up crew. We're the victors, sweeping up the spoils. It probably doesn't feel like victory to a mop-up crew either. They see the devastation, the price of war. So do we. But it is victory, if we believe.
Jesus won the battle one dreamy night in Bethlehem, a middle-of-nowhere hamlet lost in the vast reaches of the Roman Empire over 2,000 years ago. That is where the Eternal Light, the Hope and Joy and Victory of God touched down.
Everything else is just fallout. God Himself became man. Matter. Atoms and substance and all the weird gooey stuff that makes up our bodies. The infinite made finite. I've tried before to say it in a way that captures it but...words don't go there.
The third verse is a lovely, if wildly inadequate, attempt to articulate that gift:
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in.
He is still all around us. He won the victory.
What looks like a battle is just the aftermath of one.
"O Little Town of Bethlehem"
The first and third verse of this hymn have my heart today.
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
I like the idea of a town - perhaps as a stand-in for our whole world - as a whole doing anything, but sleeping without a dream seems heartbreakingly appropriate for our world. We drift along, the stars and all the wonders of the universe passing silently by us as we drudge along in something of a stupor.
But it is to us that God Himself came.
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
Sometimes, when preachers rattle their sabers and whip us up into a fervor, we can forget that the battle has already been won. That's probably half of what goes wrong in Christianity today -- acting like we're on the frontlines when we're the mop-up crew. We're the victors, sweeping up the spoils. It probably doesn't feel like victory to a mop-up crew either. They see the devastation, the price of war. So do we. But it is victory, if we believe.
Jesus won the battle one dreamy night in Bethlehem, a middle-of-nowhere hamlet lost in the vast reaches of the Roman Empire over 2,000 years ago. That is where the Eternal Light, the Hope and Joy and Victory of God touched down.
Everything else is just fallout. God Himself became man. Matter. Atoms and substance and all the weird gooey stuff that makes up our bodies. The infinite made finite. I've tried before to say it in a way that captures it but...words don't go there.
The third verse is a lovely, if wildly inadequate, attempt to articulate that gift:
How silently, how silently,
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in.
He is still all around us. He won the victory.
What looks like a battle is just the aftermath of one.
Thursday, 5 December 2013
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Thursday, December 5, 2013
"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"
This is one I have loved for a long time for the melody rather than the lyrics, and I expected to come here with a little snark of "so this is one that makes stuff up" because how do we know it was a "midnight clear" anyway?
And then, half a line into singing it this morning, I just went "Oh, right, follow the star, of course there are no clouds..."
Of course, the song is mostly about the shepherds, but the thing is: this song is really an Advent song, not a Christmas song. I know it's treated as a Christmas song, and there are elements that seem like they could only work in proper Christmastime but no. It is an Advent song.
The first verse is Christmastime -- that quiet that descends in the magic and wonder of Christmas (Eve especially), but the other verses:
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world
Above its sad and lonely plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
The only thing keeping this from being sung at every Advent Mass is the suggestion that it's already happening rather than we're waiting for the world to be like that -- but it's gorgeous. That is the promise of being a person of faith: there are moments when the weary world goes still and we can hear the heavenly music playing over all our Babel sounds.
We make so much noise. I just had music playing while I was trying to write this until a moment ago. We makes ourselves weary drowning out the glory and the peace and the love and the music playing. Someday the trumpet will blare and the world will hear it blast forth, we are asked to remember in Advent.
Somedays the world goes quiet and you can hear how it's already here. That is the promise of every day living your faith.
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad the golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.
That is what Advent should be. We who wind along the weary way of life and faith in this wicked, weird, and wonderful world need Advent to remind us -- to tell us to take a breath, put down our burdens in celebration of Christmas, and listen for the music. Lent is about self-correction and penance and deeply uncomfortable self-knowledge in a way that Advent, for all its similar solemness and purple labeling, is not.
Advent is, really, the opposite: lay down your burdens and remember that the price has already been paid, that someday Jesus will come back and the world will be at peace, take a moment to rest and remember that you are already saved. You are already blessed. You are forever beloved. Take a moment and listen for the glory of God already surrounding you.
And, of course, not only is there beauty now, but someday it will not be so hard to find:
For, lo, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And all the world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Gorgeous. An Advent hymn.
"It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"
This is one I have loved for a long time for the melody rather than the lyrics, and I expected to come here with a little snark of "so this is one that makes stuff up" because how do we know it was a "midnight clear" anyway?
And then, half a line into singing it this morning, I just went "Oh, right, follow the star, of course there are no clouds..."
Of course, the song is mostly about the shepherds, but the thing is: this song is really an Advent song, not a Christmas song. I know it's treated as a Christmas song, and there are elements that seem like they could only work in proper Christmastime but no. It is an Advent song.
The first verse is Christmastime -- that quiet that descends in the magic and wonder of Christmas (Eve especially), but the other verses:
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world
Above its sad and lonely plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever over its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
The only thing keeping this from being sung at every Advent Mass is the suggestion that it's already happening rather than we're waiting for the world to be like that -- but it's gorgeous. That is the promise of being a person of faith: there are moments when the weary world goes still and we can hear the heavenly music playing over all our Babel sounds.
We make so much noise. I just had music playing while I was trying to write this until a moment ago. We makes ourselves weary drowning out the glory and the peace and the love and the music playing. Someday the trumpet will blare and the world will hear it blast forth, we are asked to remember in Advent.
Somedays the world goes quiet and you can hear how it's already here. That is the promise of every day living your faith.
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! For glad the golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing.
That is what Advent should be. We who wind along the weary way of life and faith in this wicked, weird, and wonderful world need Advent to remind us -- to tell us to take a breath, put down our burdens in celebration of Christmas, and listen for the music. Lent is about self-correction and penance and deeply uncomfortable self-knowledge in a way that Advent, for all its similar solemness and purple labeling, is not.
Advent is, really, the opposite: lay down your burdens and remember that the price has already been paid, that someday Jesus will come back and the world will be at peace, take a moment to rest and remember that you are already saved. You are already blessed. You are forever beloved. Take a moment and listen for the glory of God already surrounding you.
And, of course, not only is there beauty now, but someday it will not be so hard to find:
For, lo, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And all the world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.
Gorgeous. An Advent hymn.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Somebody's Knockin' at Your Door
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
"Somebody's Knockin' at Your Door"
I feel as if this post is more deeply inspired by the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who than the chosen hymn for today...but it's a good message.
For an Whovian fans reading this, well, spoilers!
I'll just say that Moffat pulls off Everybody Lives in epic fashion -- and the Doctor pull off the ultimate Life Hack. They use their suffering and guilt to pull themselves back from the brink in their previous timeline. They choose to endure the pain of crushing guilt because it helps them figure out how to save everyone.
And there's this great moment, when a terrible thing is about to happen -- when you think that all of this buildup really has been to convince an old man that he must kill billions to save the universe for fairly and annoyingly light justification -- there's that old sound of the TARDIS coming in for a landing.
Of somebody knockin' at the door.
When I sang this song this morning, I used the traditional interpretation -- Jesus is always calling to us, wanting to save us, wanting to show us how to help people, wanting to help us become better people. And we sit in our little world thinking it's so important when heaven and God are banging to get in through the flimsy little barrier we've created.
I posed a lot of questions today about "The Lady or the Tiger", and I spent a lot of that time trying to get the kids to stop trying to "hack" the story -- figure out cheats around the devilish choice the character must make.
I was wrong.
There's always another way. Doctor Who already taught me that lesson once. Whenever you think you're alone, whenever you think a terrible thing must be done, listen for the knock.
I can guarantee you, Somebody's knockin' at the door with a better plan.
And the repetition of "Can't you hear him?" and "Can't you trust him?" just makes it feel all the more true. We let people tell us that we have only two choices. That is a lie told by lying liars, even if they're not doing it intentionally. You have ten thousand choices every second. Everything you do is a choice, and no one gets to tell you what those are -- or that you have no choice but to do a lesser evil.
It's okay if you can't see the way out. It's okay if you can't see the better way on your own. Even the Doctor couldn't, with all of his wisdom. All I ask is that you listen.
O sinner, why don't you answer? Somebody's knockin' at your door.
"Somebody's Knockin' at Your Door"
I feel as if this post is more deeply inspired by the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who than the chosen hymn for today...but it's a good message.
For an Whovian fans reading this, well, spoilers!
I'll just say that Moffat pulls off Everybody Lives in epic fashion -- and the Doctor pull off the ultimate Life Hack. They use their suffering and guilt to pull themselves back from the brink in their previous timeline. They choose to endure the pain of crushing guilt because it helps them figure out how to save everyone.
And there's this great moment, when a terrible thing is about to happen -- when you think that all of this buildup really has been to convince an old man that he must kill billions to save the universe for fairly and annoyingly light justification -- there's that old sound of the TARDIS coming in for a landing.
Of somebody knockin' at the door.
When I sang this song this morning, I used the traditional interpretation -- Jesus is always calling to us, wanting to save us, wanting to show us how to help people, wanting to help us become better people. And we sit in our little world thinking it's so important when heaven and God are banging to get in through the flimsy little barrier we've created.
I posed a lot of questions today about "The Lady or the Tiger", and I spent a lot of that time trying to get the kids to stop trying to "hack" the story -- figure out cheats around the devilish choice the character must make.
I was wrong.
There's always another way. Doctor Who already taught me that lesson once. Whenever you think you're alone, whenever you think a terrible thing must be done, listen for the knock.
I can guarantee you, Somebody's knockin' at the door with a better plan.
And the repetition of "Can't you hear him?" and "Can't you trust him?" just makes it feel all the more true. We let people tell us that we have only two choices. That is a lie told by lying liars, even if they're not doing it intentionally. You have ten thousand choices every second. Everything you do is a choice, and no one gets to tell you what those are -- or that you have no choice but to do a lesser evil.
It's okay if you can't see the way out. It's okay if you can't see the better way on your own. Even the Doctor couldn't, with all of his wisdom. All I ask is that you listen.
O sinner, why don't you answer? Somebody's knockin' at your door.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
We Three Kings
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
"We Three Kings"
The fourth verse of this songs seems sadly appropriate for today.
Myrrh is mine; it's bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in a stone cold tomb.
The father of a girl at my school died yesterday. We talked to the students about it today. We're all attending his funeral on Thursday (although I had to assert my right to do so to the administration who forgot that I spend most of my day teaching 8th grade rather than 6th and see the grieving student roughly twice as often as any other teacher).
It was poor timing with the short story we are currently studying: "The Lady or the Tiger?" by Frank L. Stockton. It's not the worst thing we could be reading, but it is a deeply and deliciously ironic piece that makes rather light of death and murder. The class after a brief discussion and announcement became all about discussing grief and death, followed by awkward attempts to bridge the gap between that conversation and the story -- in the end, not too shabby, actually. I talked about why we try to make light of death, try to make it little and even funny.
The other two classes sailed through the planned lesson with a class to buffer between the announcement/5 minute chat and "Do you think the princess totally killed her lover?" discussion. Kids are resilient.
But I wonder if it's something we all do. We all breathe a life of gathering gloom. We all know death is what waits for us at the end. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, and finally dying, sealed in a stone cold tomb.
But not our souls. Not thanks to Jesus. And not even our bodies, on the last day.
I'll never forget seeing my sick father surrounded by his ACTS brothers as they sang that chorus to him, "And we will raise you up, and we will raise you up, and we will raise you up on the last day."
It's a corruption of the "I will raise you up" chorus where the song is speaking for God, obviously, but I love that message. Some variants to "to the Lord" rather than on the "last day" which most of the time I like even more. On the last day, Jesus will raise us all up. In the meantime, just like we create hell on earth, we are responsible for raising each other up. We are responsible for creating little patches of the sublime, slices of heaven to give each other as gifts.
You can't make a heaven for yourself, but you can give a moment of it to others. It's why a faith community is so important -- a lesson I forgot once.
I said several times today, talking about the situation to the kids, that this is when it's good to go to a Catholic school. We know each other, we can take care of each other, and we have God to help us. A faith community -- people to catch you, people who know things that will help, people who can remind you that death isn't the end.
People to raise you up, as we breathe a life of gathering gloom. We can still raise incense and myrrh up to the Lord, even sorrowing and sighing. Even when we're bleeding and dying. And when we are sealed in a stone cold tomb, others will do it for us.
"We Three Kings"
The fourth verse of this songs seems sadly appropriate for today.
Myrrh is mine; it's bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in a stone cold tomb.
The father of a girl at my school died yesterday. We talked to the students about it today. We're all attending his funeral on Thursday (although I had to assert my right to do so to the administration who forgot that I spend most of my day teaching 8th grade rather than 6th and see the grieving student roughly twice as often as any other teacher).
It was poor timing with the short story we are currently studying: "The Lady or the Tiger?" by Frank L. Stockton. It's not the worst thing we could be reading, but it is a deeply and deliciously ironic piece that makes rather light of death and murder. The class after a brief discussion and announcement became all about discussing grief and death, followed by awkward attempts to bridge the gap between that conversation and the story -- in the end, not too shabby, actually. I talked about why we try to make light of death, try to make it little and even funny.
The other two classes sailed through the planned lesson with a class to buffer between the announcement/5 minute chat and "Do you think the princess totally killed her lover?" discussion. Kids are resilient.
But I wonder if it's something we all do. We all breathe a life of gathering gloom. We all know death is what waits for us at the end. Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, and finally dying, sealed in a stone cold tomb.
But not our souls. Not thanks to Jesus. And not even our bodies, on the last day.
I'll never forget seeing my sick father surrounded by his ACTS brothers as they sang that chorus to him, "And we will raise you up, and we will raise you up, and we will raise you up on the last day."
It's a corruption of the "I will raise you up" chorus where the song is speaking for God, obviously, but I love that message. Some variants to "to the Lord" rather than on the "last day" which most of the time I like even more. On the last day, Jesus will raise us all up. In the meantime, just like we create hell on earth, we are responsible for raising each other up. We are responsible for creating little patches of the sublime, slices of heaven to give each other as gifts.
You can't make a heaven for yourself, but you can give a moment of it to others. It's why a faith community is so important -- a lesson I forgot once.
I said several times today, talking about the situation to the kids, that this is when it's good to go to a Catholic school. We know each other, we can take care of each other, and we have God to help us. A faith community -- people to catch you, people who know things that will help, people who can remind you that death isn't the end.
People to raise you up, as we breathe a life of gathering gloom. We can still raise incense and myrrh up to the Lord, even sorrowing and sighing. Even when we're bleeding and dying. And when we are sealed in a stone cold tomb, others will do it for us.
Monday, 2 December 2013
O Come, O Come Emmanuel Part 2
Monday, December 2, 2013
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
I love the tune of this hymn. It's plaintive and longing without being too obvious. Nothing hits you over the head in this hymn, like "I Will Raise You Up" or even one of my other favorites "Behold the Lamb."
But you can hear it in the melody. It forces the voice to become rougher or thinner -- weary and longing for something more.
Something better, for all.
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
I talked about this yesterday, and I forgot about my other Lenten observance, so today's not a banner day for my Advent, but I felt it bore repeating. I believe we long so desperately for the Second Coming, for our heavenly home, because it is our heavenly home. All of us. You can't long with such a pure and simple tune for the suffering of others.
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
This is my solemn prayer for this Advent. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. We are creating hell here on Earth. Save us from ourselves. The Hells are getting smarter. They are tricking us into thinking we are defined by them, that we cannot ever truly escape them, that we must become devils ourselves in some way.
Close that path. Shut it down.
Someday, I believe You will. Someday, I believe You will heal us all. Someday, we will look grim, knowing our children will someday ask us about death and sin and all the things human beings did to each other while they were among us. We will have to tell them what it was like before Jesus returned. We will have to tell them what we did to each other.
Someday, it'll have to be explained, because it won't be part of the world any longer. That path will be closed.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
I love the tune of this hymn. It's plaintive and longing without being too obvious. Nothing hits you over the head in this hymn, like "I Will Raise You Up" or even one of my other favorites "Behold the Lamb."
But you can hear it in the melody. It forces the voice to become rougher or thinner -- weary and longing for something more.
Something better, for all.
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
I talked about this yesterday, and I forgot about my other Lenten observance, so today's not a banner day for my Advent, but I felt it bore repeating. I believe we long so desperately for the Second Coming, for our heavenly home, because it is our heavenly home. All of us. You can't long with such a pure and simple tune for the suffering of others.
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
This is my solemn prayer for this Advent. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. We are creating hell here on Earth. Save us from ourselves. The Hells are getting smarter. They are tricking us into thinking we are defined by them, that we cannot ever truly escape them, that we must become devils ourselves in some way.
Close that path. Shut it down.
Someday, I believe You will. Someday, I believe You will heal us all. Someday, we will look grim, knowing our children will someday ask us about death and sin and all the things human beings did to each other while they were among us. We will have to tell them what it was like before Jesus returned. We will have to tell them what we did to each other.
Someday, it'll have to be explained, because it won't be part of the world any longer. That path will be closed.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
The End of Hell
Sunday, December 1, 2013
First Sunday of Advent
I will say one thing for the very challenging music that Will Robbins picks for Mass at the Newman Center - it really makes me pay attention to the lyrics. That is the source of the inspiration for my Advent blog this time around (well, that and Clara Biesel): dissecting hymns.
All of the hymns this week (including my all-time favorite always sung on the first Sunday of Advent, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel") focus on waiting for the new Jerusalem - longing for our true home.
It put me in mind of a heretical belief I hold about hell and the afterlife.
I clarified my thinking on hell after listening to the episode "Heretic" of This American Life (it is fabulous and interesting even if you disagree strongly with his conclusions, follow the link!). In it, Carlton Pearson discusses how he came to stop believing in hell and damnation. I pulled my car over to the side of the road when I heard it and started to cry. I had gone through exactly the same thing, and it felt beyond wonderful to have confirmation that someone else felt the same way.
Basically, he was watching TV with his daughter and saw on the news the war in Sudan and demanded of God why he would let people suffer so and then suck them into Hell. The answer came - "you think that's what we're doing?" You think that's what a loving God would do?
Of course not.
Now, there's a lot in the Bible that contradicts this belief (and a lot of arguments to the effect of "that's letting us all off the hook/rewriting the difficult parts of the Bible") but I always think of this Bible verse that I simply CANNOT find tonight (and it is very late for a school night) where Jesus describes Hell - by naming a place outside Jerusalem. A miserable place -- on Earth.
I believe in Hell. I believe we create all kinds of inventive hells here on Earth.
I don't believe that there is an eternal one. I believe that God is all-powerful and all-loving, and that all the evil in the world is the result of something twisted inside a person's soul. And I believe that God can untwist them. I believe in Purgatory or if we are lucky a more gentle place of healing. I believe we are all saved.
And these songs tonight remind me of this belief. That there will be an end to suffering and hell.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel.
Save us from this place where we make hells for ourselves because we are broken inside. Because we do nothing when evil twists our souls into pretzels.
We speak of the Second Coming as a time of universal joy and peace -- not a time when significant chunks of the world will go to torment. I can not long for such a day. But a day when Hell ends? That I long for with all my heart.
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
We are in exile from heaven. We create hells out of the Earth He gave us. But someday we will be set free. Someday the torment will end. Over that, we should all rejoice.
If we are good and loving Christians, we cannot rejoice for the other version of Judgment Day. We cannot be loving Christians and rejoice at the idea of millions sentenced to eternal torment and exile from God.
No, we rejoice because Jesus is coming to save us all.
First Sunday of Advent
I will say one thing for the very challenging music that Will Robbins picks for Mass at the Newman Center - it really makes me pay attention to the lyrics. That is the source of the inspiration for my Advent blog this time around (well, that and Clara Biesel): dissecting hymns.
All of the hymns this week (including my all-time favorite always sung on the first Sunday of Advent, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel") focus on waiting for the new Jerusalem - longing for our true home.
It put me in mind of a heretical belief I hold about hell and the afterlife.
I clarified my thinking on hell after listening to the episode "Heretic" of This American Life (it is fabulous and interesting even if you disagree strongly with his conclusions, follow the link!). In it, Carlton Pearson discusses how he came to stop believing in hell and damnation. I pulled my car over to the side of the road when I heard it and started to cry. I had gone through exactly the same thing, and it felt beyond wonderful to have confirmation that someone else felt the same way.
Basically, he was watching TV with his daughter and saw on the news the war in Sudan and demanded of God why he would let people suffer so and then suck them into Hell. The answer came - "you think that's what we're doing?" You think that's what a loving God would do?
Of course not.
Now, there's a lot in the Bible that contradicts this belief (and a lot of arguments to the effect of "that's letting us all off the hook/rewriting the difficult parts of the Bible") but I always think of this Bible verse that I simply CANNOT find tonight (and it is very late for a school night) where Jesus describes Hell - by naming a place outside Jerusalem. A miserable place -- on Earth.
I believe in Hell. I believe we create all kinds of inventive hells here on Earth.
I don't believe that there is an eternal one. I believe that God is all-powerful and all-loving, and that all the evil in the world is the result of something twisted inside a person's soul. And I believe that God can untwist them. I believe in Purgatory or if we are lucky a more gentle place of healing. I believe we are all saved.
And these songs tonight remind me of this belief. That there will be an end to suffering and hell.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel.
Save us from this place where we make hells for ourselves because we are broken inside. Because we do nothing when evil twists our souls into pretzels.
We speak of the Second Coming as a time of universal joy and peace -- not a time when significant chunks of the world will go to torment. I can not long for such a day. But a day when Hell ends? That I long for with all my heart.
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
We are in exile from heaven. We create hells out of the Earth He gave us. But someday we will be set free. Someday the torment will end. Over that, we should all rejoice.
If we are good and loving Christians, we cannot rejoice for the other version of Judgment Day. We cannot be loving Christians and rejoice at the idea of millions sentenced to eternal torment and exile from God.
No, we rejoice because Jesus is coming to save us all.
Saturday, 30 March 2013
Isaiah 15
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Holy Saturday
Isaiah 15
My first thought on reading how Moab will be reduced to a wasteland is, "Good gracious, what has Moab ever done to you?" I suspect a cursory examination of Jewish history would inform me of this, of course.
But something about the way that the Bible kept saying that they would cry out made me wonder - to whom? To the God of the Jews making them suffer? To the God of the Jews in true belief that the Egyptians must have come away with? To the God of the Jews for mercy and love?
I'm not sure I think that adversity breeds better people. Good people can be refined and strengthened by it, that I believe. I've seen people turn bitter, however, and go dark. People who I hesitate to think that was their "nature" all the time. So...I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here.
I want this entry to be excellent and insightful and somehow sum up the little journey of this Lent - but it hasn't entirely felt that way. Perhaps because of all the different books of the Bible, perhaps because I changed my observance part way through, perhaps just because I haven't been as devout and thoughtful this Lent.
Perhaps...perhaps I'm writing in the morning because I am headed to a wedding in Houston tonight and not bringing my computer. So I'm trying to force revelation early in the morning on my schedule.
Perhaps that's part of faith too, and it's a definition of hope a priest once told me in confession that made it feel like the most bold and wonderful and rare of the three cardinal virtues: "the faith that some day it will be made clear." Or the faith that someday X will happen. The faith that we are only waiting until the day when everything will be revealed and all suffering will be washed away and we will stand before the Face of God.
So I have hope that someday I will understand why Moab was leveled to the ground.
Holy Saturday
Isaiah 15
My first thought on reading how Moab will be reduced to a wasteland is, "Good gracious, what has Moab ever done to you?" I suspect a cursory examination of Jewish history would inform me of this, of course.
But something about the way that the Bible kept saying that they would cry out made me wonder - to whom? To the God of the Jews making them suffer? To the God of the Jews in true belief that the Egyptians must have come away with? To the God of the Jews for mercy and love?
I'm not sure I think that adversity breeds better people. Good people can be refined and strengthened by it, that I believe. I've seen people turn bitter, however, and go dark. People who I hesitate to think that was their "nature" all the time. So...I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here.
I want this entry to be excellent and insightful and somehow sum up the little journey of this Lent - but it hasn't entirely felt that way. Perhaps because of all the different books of the Bible, perhaps because I changed my observance part way through, perhaps just because I haven't been as devout and thoughtful this Lent.
Perhaps...perhaps I'm writing in the morning because I am headed to a wedding in Houston tonight and not bringing my computer. So I'm trying to force revelation early in the morning on my schedule.
Perhaps that's part of faith too, and it's a definition of hope a priest once told me in confession that made it feel like the most bold and wonderful and rare of the three cardinal virtues: "the faith that some day it will be made clear." Or the faith that someday X will happen. The faith that we are only waiting until the day when everything will be revealed and all suffering will be washed away and we will stand before the Face of God.
So I have hope that someday I will understand why Moab was leveled to the ground.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Isaiah 14
Friday, March 29, 2013
Good Friday
Isaiah 14
...is a thoroughly unfitting chapter to read on Good Friday.
It is God at His most wrathful and, more than that, vengeful. I have wrath of my own, and so I understand it in others more readily. I make excuses for it regularly. But I try to steer clear of revenge.
I have often tried to explain to my mother on a recurring argument over a certain young man's actions that I don't believe in vengeance, but I do believe in righteous anger. I do believe in compassion for the sinner and, what's more, complete forgiveness - the moment that the behavior stops. Forgiveness before then seems ridiculous to me. How can you forgive ongoing behavior? You have to deal with ongoing behavior.
And perhaps that's what's going on here - but this passage so laboriously illustrates how powerless and then miserable Babylon and particularly its braggart king will be. That seems like revenge - doling out punishment after the power to do harm has been removed.
But then, perhaps this is the perfect reading for Good Friday. This is a reminder of how it used to be, before the Price was paid. This is a remind of what His Suffering saved us from. This is a way of keeping fresh in our minds just what we have been saved from.
This is what should have been ours. This is the just vengeance, long after the behavior has stopped.
This idea of forgiveness, even cosmic forgiveness...it's so new, compared to human history. And it was so very dearly bought.
Good Friday
Isaiah 14
...is a thoroughly unfitting chapter to read on Good Friday.
It is God at His most wrathful and, more than that, vengeful. I have wrath of my own, and so I understand it in others more readily. I make excuses for it regularly. But I try to steer clear of revenge.
I have often tried to explain to my mother on a recurring argument over a certain young man's actions that I don't believe in vengeance, but I do believe in righteous anger. I do believe in compassion for the sinner and, what's more, complete forgiveness - the moment that the behavior stops. Forgiveness before then seems ridiculous to me. How can you forgive ongoing behavior? You have to deal with ongoing behavior.
And perhaps that's what's going on here - but this passage so laboriously illustrates how powerless and then miserable Babylon and particularly its braggart king will be. That seems like revenge - doling out punishment after the power to do harm has been removed.
But then, perhaps this is the perfect reading for Good Friday. This is a reminder of how it used to be, before the Price was paid. This is a remind of what His Suffering saved us from. This is a way of keeping fresh in our minds just what we have been saved from.
This is what should have been ours. This is the just vengeance, long after the behavior has stopped.
This idea of forgiveness, even cosmic forgiveness...it's so new, compared to human history. And it was so very dearly bought.
Thursday, 28 March 2013
Isaiah 13
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Holy Thursday
Isaiah 13
So...Babylon is going down.
That was a very dark passage to read after Holy Thursday Mass, about the loving act of God in giving Himself to us not just the once but daily (except Good Fridays) in the Eucharist, about Jesus washing feet. Father Jamail gave a lovely homily about our whole lives being in God that I think just may stick with me. Also, he mentioned my patron saint Martha and her sister Mary - Martha of the world was reminded of Jesus's divinity, Mary who sat at his feet was shown Jesus's humanity.
It's definitely the divine face of God in Isaiah 13, and a frightening one at that. I've always disliked the term "God-fearing", mostly since I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond and a character I didn't like ordered the main character that she was going to go to church like a "God fearing woman".
"That's not why you're supposed to go to church!" I remember screaming in my mind even then.
I've written a lot on this blog about why I think you should go to church, what the reasons for church are, and what I think is wrong with going to church out of tradition, obligation, or fear of hell fire and being left behind in the rapture.
But does that mean there is no place for fear of God? No place for fear of the Being who holds us all in the palm of His hand like a soap bubble?
I listened to WNYC's rebroadcast of "Emergence" this afternoon, which amongst other things discusses how patterns suddenly appear as if there is an intelligent guiding hand despite the complete absence of one in both ants and (as seen in city neighborhoods, etc.) human behavior. And I thought about how I've always been so much more impressed when God answers prayers and seems to set things up so wonderfully for us because I don't believe He comes in an meddles on a micro level. I think His initial plan set it up so that these things would happen. So that order and beauty would emerge from the chaos as if of their own accord. Perhaps even of their own accord.
Do we have nothing to fear from such a Being?
Should we not at least fear the loss of His love?
And now I'm thinking of marriage, and whether a good marriage should be freedom from fear of it ending or if a good marriage is to someone whom you necessarily fear losing their love because it is so precious to you. God's love of us is so precious and so the foundation of our lives that perhaps we should fear. Should fear the wrath that could destroy Babylon (and perhaps the world, it sounds like a full on doomsday prophecy, especially in places) in His anger.
Who could have set us up from the beginning to fail and burn and die as if of our own accord.
But we cannot forget that He does love us. The fear should make us grateful for His love and mercy. And perhaps that is the proper way to fear God.
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Isaiah 12
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Isaiah 12
I want to quote this whole (short) chapter. It will be forever incorporated into my
already elaborate understanding of the Woman at the Well.
I think this is what Jesus was referencing when He made it
sound like she should already know what He was talking about with the waters of
salvation or living waters.
“1 On that day you will say
I give you thanks, O Lord;
Though you have been angry with me,
Your anger has abated, and you have consoled me.”
That’s precisely what she found, to the enormous relief and
blessing in her life. That the Son
of God was treating her as a beloved child of God, that any anger God felt at
her actions was abated, and she was taken under Jesus’s wing. And I think this is how she must have felt
afterward:
“2 God indeed is my savior,
I am confident and unafraid
My strength and my courage is the Lord,
And he has been my savior.”
And then the direct reference:
“3 With joy you will draw water
at the fountain of salvation 4 and say on that day
Give thanks to the Lord, acclaim his name,
Among the nations make known his deeds,
Proclaim how exalted is his name.”
Whici is certainly what she ran off to do.
Just to finish up:
“5 Sing praise to the Lord for his glorious achievement,
let this be known throughout all the earth.
6 Shout with exultation, O city of Zion,
for great in your midst
is the Holy One of Israel.”
Tuesday, 26 March 2013
Isaiah 11
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Isaiah 11
Continuing our reevaluation of Isaiah In Context, Chapter 11
features the well known:
“6 Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
The calf and the young lion shall browse together
With a little child to lead them.”
I’ve heard this appropriated to mean nothing more than the
greeting of the stable animals at Jesus’s birth. More commonly, I’ve heard it as a call to kindness and as a
way of knowing that the world had gone completely surreal and thus Jesus’s
return was nigh.
But this is what comes before it.
First, an introduction of Jesus (I have no objection this
time) by his many titles and lineage, then
“3 and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.
Not by appearances shall he judge,
Nor by hearsay shall he decide.
4 But he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth,
And with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
5 Justice shall be the band around his waist,
And faithfulness a belt upon his hips.”
Notice that the very next verse is 6, the one above.
So this passage is about Jesus striking down oppression of
the poor, of eliminating all the divisions but also all the POWER of the rich
and powerful, so that for all they are lions, the lambs need never fear that
they will be hurt. There will be
an end of the suffering of the poor and the elite lording their power over the
rest.
Yes, I suppose to many that does look like the apocalypse
must be nigh. A surreal world
indeed.
Let’s work toward it, shall we?
Isaiah 10
Monday, March 25, 2013
Isaiah 10
After the last few chapters, the 10th chapter of Isaiah seems like much more standard, expected stuff. God promises that, after He allows the Assyrians to conquer Israel to make His point about the way they've wandered from righteousness, He will in turn destroy Assyria in all their offensive pride.
It starts, however, with an admonition against using political power to oppress and gain wealth at the expense of the poorest, to take advantage of widows and orphans, to deny people their rights. So I think there's a larger message - that all the things that make the Assyrians proud as a nation and all the things that make a person proud of their position of authority, will pass away. And when what will you do?
That's actually in the chapter - where will you run when it's gone? If you use your power to bully and oppress, when that power is proved to be temporary, to whom will you turn?
I often think that about America. We may not be given the dignified retirement England got when it stopped being the world's dominant superpower, not the way we're going. I mean, England had the India fiasco, but I think we're being pretty huge bullies. I'm just saying. This too shall pass, guys. All things pass.
The authority, the power, that you have - all of this is on loan. As Jesus told Pilate in the second gospel yesterday, he would have no power if it did not come from God. He will someday be without that power. It's all temporary, one day you will have to face the world without it.
So use that power while it's yours to help others. People you can turn to when things go belly up. People who will testify before God and you helped them. People who will help you when it's their turn in a position of authority.
I think I finally understand that parable of the dishonest steward - who is found out and then goes to each of the master's debtors and forgives their debt, so that he'll have people he can turn to for help when he's fired. And the master is impressed rather than even more furious that the dishonest steward not only cheated him once but cost him a lot of money.
The message is that we are given these powers only for a time - and we all use them imperfectly and we all disappoint God with how little we make of them. But if we are using that power and authority to help others, we are improving the world. We are making a home for ourselves when our misuse of our gifts gets them taken away in anger. We are making witnesses before God that we didn't screw everything up.
We are serving God.
Isaiah 10
After the last few chapters, the 10th chapter of Isaiah seems like much more standard, expected stuff. God promises that, after He allows the Assyrians to conquer Israel to make His point about the way they've wandered from righteousness, He will in turn destroy Assyria in all their offensive pride.
It starts, however, with an admonition against using political power to oppress and gain wealth at the expense of the poorest, to take advantage of widows and orphans, to deny people their rights. So I think there's a larger message - that all the things that make the Assyrians proud as a nation and all the things that make a person proud of their position of authority, will pass away. And when what will you do?
That's actually in the chapter - where will you run when it's gone? If you use your power to bully and oppress, when that power is proved to be temporary, to whom will you turn?
I often think that about America. We may not be given the dignified retirement England got when it stopped being the world's dominant superpower, not the way we're going. I mean, England had the India fiasco, but I think we're being pretty huge bullies. I'm just saying. This too shall pass, guys. All things pass.
The authority, the power, that you have - all of this is on loan. As Jesus told Pilate in the second gospel yesterday, he would have no power if it did not come from God. He will someday be without that power. It's all temporary, one day you will have to face the world without it.
So use that power while it's yours to help others. People you can turn to when things go belly up. People who will testify before God and you helped them. People who will help you when it's their turn in a position of authority.
I think I finally understand that parable of the dishonest steward - who is found out and then goes to each of the master's debtors and forgives their debt, so that he'll have people he can turn to for help when he's fired. And the master is impressed rather than even more furious that the dishonest steward not only cheated him once but cost him a lot of money.
The message is that we are given these powers only for a time - and we all use them imperfectly and we all disappoint God with how little we make of them. But if we are using that power and authority to help others, we are improving the world. We are making a home for ourselves when our misuse of our gifts gets them taken away in anger. We are making witnesses before God that we didn't screw everything up.
We are serving God.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Isaiah 8-9
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Isaiah 8 and 9
Isaiah is an odd read when you move straight through it, because it can give you whip lash the way it switches tone. It goes from threatening death and destruction and occupation of Israel, which I'm pretty sure is mostly talking about the upcoming invasion of Judea during Isaiah's time, to talking about deliverance and forgiveness and God's love with the coming of the Messiah.
The passage "The people in darkness have seen a great light" which is such a lovely whole (really, more of Isaiah should be read in its full context - stop cherry picking verses!), but it is all the more striking for being surrounded by lamentations of our wickedness and God's just revenge upon the whole nation.
It, like reading Peter, have really made me think in the back half of this Lent, about how Jesus came when Judea was invaded, when it was under the thrall of Rome, when everyone was waiting for the next time God would swoop in and save them - choose some thoroughly unlikely prophet and raise an army and/or perform wonders and/or do an elaborate shadow play with the Emperor of Rome in order to save His people and return their freedom. Like He had before.
And perhaps the fact that God's promise of saving those who have suffered, those who have been in the darkness, is surrounded and seems to (in the mind of this prophet) live comfortably alongside the warnings of invasion and oppression should have been a clue that what we really need deliverance for is a very different kind of problem.
God isn't political. He's spiritual. Jesus came to deliver us from the darkness of sin and the cloud of the threat of damnation and the terrible weight and darkness from being trapped in our own ugly messes.
You can be spiritually free even when you're politically oppressed. It can get you in trouble with the oppressing state (just ask the early Christians), but it's a lesser problem. It's an Earth-problem, not a soul-problem. Not a heaven-problem. Not the kind of problem that stops you from trying to fix the world or be closer to God.
Isaiah 8 and 9
Isaiah is an odd read when you move straight through it, because it can give you whip lash the way it switches tone. It goes from threatening death and destruction and occupation of Israel, which I'm pretty sure is mostly talking about the upcoming invasion of Judea during Isaiah's time, to talking about deliverance and forgiveness and God's love with the coming of the Messiah.
The passage "The people in darkness have seen a great light" which is such a lovely whole (really, more of Isaiah should be read in its full context - stop cherry picking verses!), but it is all the more striking for being surrounded by lamentations of our wickedness and God's just revenge upon the whole nation.
It, like reading Peter, have really made me think in the back half of this Lent, about how Jesus came when Judea was invaded, when it was under the thrall of Rome, when everyone was waiting for the next time God would swoop in and save them - choose some thoroughly unlikely prophet and raise an army and/or perform wonders and/or do an elaborate shadow play with the Emperor of Rome in order to save His people and return their freedom. Like He had before.
And perhaps the fact that God's promise of saving those who have suffered, those who have been in the darkness, is surrounded and seems to (in the mind of this prophet) live comfortably alongside the warnings of invasion and oppression should have been a clue that what we really need deliverance for is a very different kind of problem.
God isn't political. He's spiritual. Jesus came to deliver us from the darkness of sin and the cloud of the threat of damnation and the terrible weight and darkness from being trapped in our own ugly messes.
You can be spiritually free even when you're politically oppressed. It can get you in trouble with the oppressing state (just ask the early Christians), but it's a lesser problem. It's an Earth-problem, not a soul-problem. Not a heaven-problem. Not the kind of problem that stops you from trying to fix the world or be closer to God.
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Isaiah 7 Part 2
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Isaiah 7
Okay, so I've been thinking about this since yesterday. The footnotes mention that the curds and honey is a food you eat only after all the good food has been eaten, so it's what happens when there is famine.
And here is a potential interpretation that I have come up with - an interesting chance to have an example of prophecies speaking to your way of seeing God at the moment, actually.
God is judgmental in the Old Testament, we certainly can't deny that. He gives us rules and He judges us by those rules and by the way we act.
But once Jesus comes, He tells us to love one another and reverses a lot of the Judgment. For one thing, He pays the price for us, but even before that - it becomes about Love rather than Rules.
I think when God became Man, that is when he learned to "reject the bad and choose the good" - which can for your money mean either that God stops using negative reinforcement and instead showers us with love and blessing and forgiveness or that this is when God really decides what makes a good person and a bad - not being of a particular tribe, not being of a certain belief, but Love of fellow man.
And yes, God is omniscient, which makes all this interesting. BUT, does that mean that experiences still can't teach God what makes a good or a bad person? After all, to Him time is all of a piece, so He would have known it from the beginning even if He learned it when He came as Jesus. And that's...circular, so I'm going to jump out of that line of thought before I get trapped.
I find I really like that idea.
Isaiah 7
Okay, so I've been thinking about this since yesterday. The footnotes mention that the curds and honey is a food you eat only after all the good food has been eaten, so it's what happens when there is famine.
And here is a potential interpretation that I have come up with - an interesting chance to have an example of prophecies speaking to your way of seeing God at the moment, actually.
God is judgmental in the Old Testament, we certainly can't deny that. He gives us rules and He judges us by those rules and by the way we act.
But once Jesus comes, He tells us to love one another and reverses a lot of the Judgment. For one thing, He pays the price for us, but even before that - it becomes about Love rather than Rules.
I think when God became Man, that is when he learned to "reject the bad and choose the good" - which can for your money mean either that God stops using negative reinforcement and instead showers us with love and blessing and forgiveness or that this is when God really decides what makes a good person and a bad - not being of a particular tribe, not being of a certain belief, but Love of fellow man.
And yes, God is omniscient, which makes all this interesting. BUT, does that mean that experiences still can't teach God what makes a good or a bad person? After all, to Him time is all of a piece, so He would have known it from the beginning even if He learned it when He came as Jesus. And that's...circular, so I'm going to jump out of that line of thought before I get trapped.
I find I really like that idea.
Friday, 22 March 2013
Isaiah 7
Friday, March 22, 2013
Isaiah 7
I confess myself rattled.
Isaiah 7:14 is a verse we all know: "Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel."
But, well, this is the whole prophecy:
"14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 15 He shall be living on curds and honey by the time he learns to reject the bad and choose the good. 16 For before the child learns to reject the bad and choose the good, the land of the two kings who you dread shall be deserted."What??!!
Just...what???
Footnotes in my Bible mention (off-handedly) that some Catholics interpret a "preliminary and partial fulfillment" of the verse in the birth of future King Hezekiah whose mother was, at the time, a young virgin.
...
...
...
How do the later parts refer to Jesus? Just...how does it...
I need to find some proper commentary on this. Father Dempsey? Are you reading these? What's going on?
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Isaiah 6
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Isaiah 6
Recounting visions is always such an interesting part of a sacred story. There's a signal that goes off and suddenly every little word, every little detail, is presumed full of symbolic meaning, of some kind of secret decoder ring message and moral weight.
It makes me think of Julian of Norwich, whom the Catholic Church never got around to canonizing (I've always assuming because it was poorly timed with the Anglican split). She's not like other visionaries, whom God or Mary or Jesus or other saints or all of the above visit over and over again with instructions and messages for the people of the world. She had one vision relatively early in her life then spent the rest of it locked away as an anchoress, interpreting it diligently.
She spent her whole life on that one visionary dream. Getting it down precisely in written and artistic form. No doubt turning it over and over in her head until she was convinced that every little meaning had been made clear to her. A puzzle worth spending her entire life riddling out.
It could take a lifetime to riddle out all the details of a vision. It could take several, and not doubt this vision of Isaiah's has absorbed several scholars' lifetimes. I should find their work - because I have no idea what to do with the six wings of the Seraphim - two to cover their faces, two to cover their feet, and two to do what wings are actually intended to do and help them hover. There's something lovely about God's robe spreading over the Temple, but I'm not precisely sure what it means - we're all in the shadow of His wings comes to mind. His honor on Earth is the Temple also.
It makes me think of a passage in a fantasy novel that I read today - where characters are telling each other's fortunes by the use of tarot cards. I don't hold with fortune telling nonsense, but an artist friend of mine hoping to make some money by selling a deck she drew herself made the interesting observation that it's more a way to clarify your thoughts. Each card can stand for many things - which on the surface may make it seem less credible. But how you decide to interpret those cards shows how you are thinking and reacting to things in your life. I can certainly imagine it doing that, even if it wouldn't tell you what is to come.
I wonder if visions like the one here or Julian's elaborate one are something like that - heavy with dozens of potential meanings. Meant to therefore show us where we are in our relationship to God by which details catch our eye and hold our attention, what stories we end up writing to explain them, why we hold to one interpretation over another.
In this way, the same vision can tell each reader about their relationship with God, not simply the person receiving the vision. Not all of the recognized visions follow this format, but I admit I find it fascinating.
Although I'm not sure I like what it might say about my current relationship with God that my first thought on hearing that the seraphim are covering their feet is that it was to conceal hoofs.
Isaiah 6
Recounting visions is always such an interesting part of a sacred story. There's a signal that goes off and suddenly every little word, every little detail, is presumed full of symbolic meaning, of some kind of secret decoder ring message and moral weight.
It makes me think of Julian of Norwich, whom the Catholic Church never got around to canonizing (I've always assuming because it was poorly timed with the Anglican split). She's not like other visionaries, whom God or Mary or Jesus or other saints or all of the above visit over and over again with instructions and messages for the people of the world. She had one vision relatively early in her life then spent the rest of it locked away as an anchoress, interpreting it diligently.
She spent her whole life on that one visionary dream. Getting it down precisely in written and artistic form. No doubt turning it over and over in her head until she was convinced that every little meaning had been made clear to her. A puzzle worth spending her entire life riddling out.
It could take a lifetime to riddle out all the details of a vision. It could take several, and not doubt this vision of Isaiah's has absorbed several scholars' lifetimes. I should find their work - because I have no idea what to do with the six wings of the Seraphim - two to cover their faces, two to cover their feet, and two to do what wings are actually intended to do and help them hover. There's something lovely about God's robe spreading over the Temple, but I'm not precisely sure what it means - we're all in the shadow of His wings comes to mind. His honor on Earth is the Temple also.
It makes me think of a passage in a fantasy novel that I read today - where characters are telling each other's fortunes by the use of tarot cards. I don't hold with fortune telling nonsense, but an artist friend of mine hoping to make some money by selling a deck she drew herself made the interesting observation that it's more a way to clarify your thoughts. Each card can stand for many things - which on the surface may make it seem less credible. But how you decide to interpret those cards shows how you are thinking and reacting to things in your life. I can certainly imagine it doing that, even if it wouldn't tell you what is to come.
I wonder if visions like the one here or Julian's elaborate one are something like that - heavy with dozens of potential meanings. Meant to therefore show us where we are in our relationship to God by which details catch our eye and hold our attention, what stories we end up writing to explain them, why we hold to one interpretation over another.
In this way, the same vision can tell each reader about their relationship with God, not simply the person receiving the vision. Not all of the recognized visions follow this format, but I admit I find it fascinating.
Although I'm not sure I like what it might say about my current relationship with God that my first thought on hearing that the seraphim are covering their feet is that it was to conceal hoofs.
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Isaiah 5
Wednesday, March 21, 2013
Isaiah 5
It's a very depressing book of the Bible, full of judgment and anger and threats of invasion and destruction of an entire nation. It's hard, in a word, to see it as talking about just one incident. It seems like the kind of thing that just keeps happening.
Which seems to connect, in my mind, to the start of the chapter, which is a parable about a man who did everything he was supposed to! to make his vineyard produce good grapes, but wild grapes grew instead. So he gets furious that it didn't work - that what should have worked didn't, that everything he had been told to do didn't change the way the world worked - and burns the vineyard to the ground.
And yes, this is a parable about how God gives us everything we need and still we rebel.
But I also think - man has not conquered the natural world, just as God chooses not to conquer our wills. We don't (and the people writing this certainly didn't) understand all the laws of the natural world and why they work. Complaining that you've done everything you were supposed to do and that still everything went wrong - well, it's very familiar but it's not very surprising, right?
There are things about the world and ourselves that we do not understand any more than the vineyard owner in the story understands the way the natural world works. And I think we often end up making lists and rules and procedures for how we will live successful or sinless or both lives. We have paths that we set children on, rigidly enforced with the threat of college admission, and we get upset when following all these rules doesn't lead to happiness.
Perhaps what the vines needed was something totally different. Perhaps what he was always working with were wild grapes and he should have worked with what he had. Perhaps there's no sense to this crazy world we live in - at least not one that would let us make it bend to our will - and we have to just do the best we can in it.
We would choose to break the will of the natural world if we could, I think. So it would stop hurting us and frustrating what we want for ourselves and it. We are trying all the time to do so.
How much God loves us that He does not break our wills to have His vineyard produce good fruit.
Isaiah 5
It's a very depressing book of the Bible, full of judgment and anger and threats of invasion and destruction of an entire nation. It's hard, in a word, to see it as talking about just one incident. It seems like the kind of thing that just keeps happening.
Which seems to connect, in my mind, to the start of the chapter, which is a parable about a man who did everything he was supposed to! to make his vineyard produce good grapes, but wild grapes grew instead. So he gets furious that it didn't work - that what should have worked didn't, that everything he had been told to do didn't change the way the world worked - and burns the vineyard to the ground.
And yes, this is a parable about how God gives us everything we need and still we rebel.
But I also think - man has not conquered the natural world, just as God chooses not to conquer our wills. We don't (and the people writing this certainly didn't) understand all the laws of the natural world and why they work. Complaining that you've done everything you were supposed to do and that still everything went wrong - well, it's very familiar but it's not very surprising, right?
There are things about the world and ourselves that we do not understand any more than the vineyard owner in the story understands the way the natural world works. And I think we often end up making lists and rules and procedures for how we will live successful or sinless or both lives. We have paths that we set children on, rigidly enforced with the threat of college admission, and we get upset when following all these rules doesn't lead to happiness.
Perhaps what the vines needed was something totally different. Perhaps what he was always working with were wild grapes and he should have worked with what he had. Perhaps there's no sense to this crazy world we live in - at least not one that would let us make it bend to our will - and we have to just do the best we can in it.
We would choose to break the will of the natural world if we could, I think. So it would stop hurting us and frustrating what we want for ourselves and it. We are trying all the time to do so.
How much God loves us that He does not break our wills to have His vineyard produce good fruit.
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
Isaiah 4
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Happy St. Joseph's Day!
Isaiah 4
Again, I feel I am probably reading this wrong, but I can't help seeing a little prophecy for an Biblical approval of women's liberation in the first verse of this chapter.
Because it feels like the shadow of something. A small acknowledgement that women don't need men to support them, even way back when. It's saying, as the footnote tells me, that the ratio of men and women will be so dramatic that women will do anything to avoid the shame of being childless.
This actually doesn't sound quite right to me. It sounds like they want marriage, not just children, and the creepy polyamory stuff I will not indulge because they don't say that all seven get what they want or that they want a group rate, just that seven of these women who are quite capable of taking care of themselves will all be clamoring just for the propriety of being married. Just for the cultural approval of a man's protection.
How messed up is that? How apocalyptically sad is that?
To think we've shamed women sufficiently that they neither need nor love the man they beg to be their husband - but they are so disgraced for being single they will all set upon him and beg him to make them whole and wholly accepted into society?
So, there's a lot there. Evidence women don't need men, and a sad reminder that they've been made to feel they do by society's standards.
Happy St. Joseph's Day!
Isaiah 4
Again, I feel I am probably reading this wrong, but I can't help seeing a little prophecy for an Biblical approval of women's liberation in the first verse of this chapter.
1 Seven women will take hold of one man on that day saying "We will eat our own food and wear our own clothing Only let your name be given us, put an end to our disgrace!"I realize I'm perverting it, but I read it several times the first time through just...wondering on that.
Because it feels like the shadow of something. A small acknowledgement that women don't need men to support them, even way back when. It's saying, as the footnote tells me, that the ratio of men and women will be so dramatic that women will do anything to avoid the shame of being childless.
This actually doesn't sound quite right to me. It sounds like they want marriage, not just children, and the creepy polyamory stuff I will not indulge because they don't say that all seven get what they want or that they want a group rate, just that seven of these women who are quite capable of taking care of themselves will all be clamoring just for the propriety of being married. Just for the cultural approval of a man's protection.
How messed up is that? How apocalyptically sad is that?
To think we've shamed women sufficiently that they neither need nor love the man they beg to be their husband - but they are so disgraced for being single they will all set upon him and beg him to make them whole and wholly accepted into society?
So, there's a lot there. Evidence women don't need men, and a sad reminder that they've been made to feel they do by society's standards.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
