axehead

It’s an odd little story.
Random.
Mismatched.
Trivial, even. This tale from the Kings.

Young prophetic apprentices approach the charismatic prophet.

“We love being with you, but the living quarters are way too small! We’re all constantly bumping into each other. We should build ourselves a proper seminary! How about we each go down to the river, each of us get a log, and build a place there?”

“Do it.”

“Only if you will join us.”

“Okay.”

They all go down to the river together.
They begin chopping down trees.
And amidst all of the cutting and chopping, calamity.
Or at least so it appeared to human eyes.

It was just an axe head, but it may as well have been a tractor.

Off the handle it flew
into the river
sinking
like a
proverbial
stone.

With one untoward movement of the hand
one unfortunate slip of the iron
more than iron sank
but also dreams
as debt and loss now loomed over a darkened horizon as a young man imagines the lowering face of what was no doubt a wealthy benefactor.
Payments due with interest from non-existing treasures
pockets turned out with only lint to offer.

Striped pajamas.
Debtor’s prison.
How quickly our minds run to the worst.

Exclamation.
Excrement!
If not in the company of a prophet it would perhaps be more off-colour,
for who of us would ever say, “Alas!”
“Ahhhhhhhh!” better captures the calamitous expression.
“It was borrowed!”

The prophet seems unfazed by panicked, darting eyes and breathless breath.
“Where did you last see it? Where did it hit the water?”
Taking him to the river he points to the place of loss, to oblivion.

Not a new one does he fashion or conjure
No fish caught with exact change in its mouth
No dramatic dive into the water to retrieve.

A stick, perhaps a castoff chip from the cutting is tossed over the place of loss, over oblivion.

And the axehead rises. Iron floats.

Young prophets stand with mouths agape and paralyzed feet, not believing any more than we.
“Well, what are you waiting for, go get it,” says the prophet.

And he reached out and took it.

Merton muses, “A beautiful piece of writing, with deep mystical and psychological implications—so that whether or not it is ‘historical’ is irrelevant. It awakens a kind of inner awareness of psychic possibilities which one so easily forgets and neglects.”

For many of us this is another throwaway story in what is increasingly a throwaway book. Myth. Fable. Child’s play. How foolish to believe we live in a universe where iron floats. Or virgins conceive, for that matter. Or bread multiples, or lepers are cleansed, or the blind receive sight, or stricken saviors rise. How tragic to believe in one where iron stays sunk. Where what is lost stays lost. Where oblivion defines us, and all we can do is stand by the river, staring into our loss, and ultimately, irretrievably, join it.

What a turn of daring to believe otherwise and join the prophet in his whimsy.

To stand by our river of loss
To reach for discarded twig or scrap of wood (no finely shaped cross required).
To toss it over the site of our loss and lament.
Though it takes a lifetime
and our eyes dim with the waiting
and we toss in enough twiggy prayers to dam the river
To wait
To watch
and when the iron of all that we’ve lost

finally

 

 

floats

to reach out
and
take it.

 

untwitterable

I believe that the only thing a writer can do is write. And he has to persevere at this task. If he starts the day thinking about getting published, about landing that six figure deal, or just finding an agent, if he writes with the thought of having to write something brilliant, because anything short of brilliant won’t impress the agents, he’s just putting unnecessary pressure on his shoulders.

Love this from Cristian Mihai’s blog – the final paragraph in a post about “famous rejection letters” (love the one for Kipling – the youngest writer ever to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature: “I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”).

I am struck by how my brain freezes, by the paralysis that seizes my fingers, when I think I must write something fabulous. Imaginative. Eye-catching. Okay, maybe I’m not looking to land a six figure deal, but producing something brilliant and unique would be nice.

And so the keyboard sits idle, waiting for me to hit upon some great idea, rather than just, well, getting on with it and writing something, and finding the joy of expression in that something.

And the same applies to living.

If the only thing a writer can do is write, the only thing a human being can do is live.

How many of us are waiting for that grand contribution, that great defining moment when we finally, truly make a difference, earning heaven’s laurels and earth’s applause because we did something truly magnificent?

No pressure.

Chinese symbols for insignificant, tiny, vague, vast. Insignificant and vast. Interesting…
http://www.words-chinese.com

The wonderful irony is that the most significant thing we will accomplish today is probably the thing we least noticed and most quickly will forget. A casual remark, a passing glance, an impromptu act of service perhaps reluctantly or thoughtlessly given as we scanned the looming horizon for something of greater import. Lennon said it – life is what happens when we’re making other plans.

Takes me back to the man who encountered Joseph in the field in Genesis 37.

Joseph is sent to find his brothers and ends up wandering in the fields looking with no leads (meandering!) when an unnamed man crosses paths with him.

Who was the man? Where was he going? What were his plans? What were his big hairy audacious goals? No clue. Did he wake up with the prophetic intuition that “Today, you will have a conversation that will change the course of history, a conversation through which countless lives will be saved, and the course of civilization as we know it will be altered?” Probably not. I imagine he woke with a yawn.

But he saw Joseph, and Joseph looked lost.

Most people have to ask for directions – how often do we even observe others closely enough to see that they are lost?

“What are you looking for?” he asks Joseph.

“My brothers,” Joseph replies. “Any idea where they might have taken our family flocks?”

“Funny, I overhead them earlier saying they were heading to Dothan.”

“Great. Thanks.”

And that’s it.

Nobody twittered.
Nobody tweeted.
Nobody posted.
No shout outs.
No headlines.
No blurbs.

In the grand scheme of the history of redemption and salvation (at least as far as the written record of the Bible is concerned) this was the unnamed man’s moment, and he probably forgot all about it when he laid his head on the pillow that night.

Lawrence Kushner observes:

This odd scene has not been for nothing. Indeed were it not for the man who “happened” to find Joseph wandering in the fields, he would have returned home. Never been sold into slavery. Never brought his family down to Egypt. The Jewish people would have never become slaves. And there could have been no Jewish people at all. We are all only ‘ish,’ someone. No more and no less than the unnamed stranger of the empty pastures of Shechem, without whose one line, “I heard them say, ‘let us go to Dothan…’” the Holy One’s intention could not be realized.

Yeah, that’s it.

One odd scene, seemingly out of place, seemingly random and insignificant.
Keep moving, people,
nothing to see here.

No trumpets, no fanfare. And in the credits he will only appear as “unnamed man in the field.” That is, if he even makes the credits. I wonder, did the camera even catch his face – or do we only hear his voice?

Regardless.

He was there in that field.
He saw a young man who looked like he was lost.
He walked up to him.
He asked his question.
He delivered his line.

And everything changed even though nothing seemed different.

Yeah. I can do that. I can be an ish, a someone. I can write my throwaway post and say my throwaway line.

Because that throwaway line or post
may be
the
point.

 

nice wins

It’s a popular thing to say in some religious circles:

“Nice” is not a fruit of the Spirit.
“Niceness” is not a Christian virtue.
Anyone can be nice.
Nice people “nice” other people straight to hell.
God is not nice. God is tough. He is harsh. He’s a consuming fire of meanness! (for maximum effect use Monster Truck voice here).
Ranting is next to godliness, not niceness.

This is then followed by copious references to John the Baptist screaming “brood of vipers” (note, at religious people) or Jesus yelling, “Hypocrites!” (once again, at religious folks).

Someone forwarded me a blog post by a pastor with the latest example of slamming “niceness,” shredding in the process a few prominent opponents he regards as too “nice.” He has a point. But he got me thinking (which may or may not have been his point) and realizing, that, well, God is nice (at least he can be). Niceness is even a fruit of the Spirit. We just don’t usually translate the pertinent family of Greek words with our “nice” one, even though that would be, well, a nice translation.

Consider the definition of our word “nice.”

“Showing or requiring great precision or sensitive discernment. Subtle.”

So that’s what we mean when we say “nice sermon” or “nice post.”

“Respectable. Virtuous. Friendly. Attractive.” An “intense, extreme” to the nth degree, even.

Antonyms: “vague, insensitive, blunt, indecent, unfriendly, unattractive, unbecoming, inappropriate.”

Now, I look at those antonyms, and yes, I can see all of those fitting the Bible at one point or another and the portrait of God captured there at one point or another, particularly the further back we go. Actually, we don’t have to go any further back than the Old Testament prophets.

Isaiah walking around naked for three years? So not nice. Point taken.

But now consider the definition of the word translated “kindness” in Paul’s famous “fruit of the Spirit” listing (Galatians 5:22-23). χρηστότης (cray-stow-tace) from the root word χρηστός (cray-stows) – just one letter off from “Christ” in Greek. Definition?

“Fit, fit for use, useful; virtuous, good; manageable; mild, pleasant (as opposed to harsh, hard, sharp, bitter); of things: more pleasant; of people: kind, benevolent.”

Gosh, that sounds nice.

Now for a quick tour of biblical niceness…

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is χρηστός (easy, kind, nice) and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

“Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is χρηστός (easy, kind, nice) unto the unthankful and to the evil.” (Yes, I’m just in a KJV mood today, what can I say! Luke 6:35)

“Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the χρηστός (easy, kind, niceness) of God leadeth thee to repentance?” (Romans 2:4)

All together now: God is nice. And his niceness is the definitive divine draw into the ultimate paradigm shift that is “repentance.”

And another: “And be ye χρηστός (easy, kind, nice) to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

Yes, we are commanded to be nice. χρηστότης (cray-stow-tace) niceness is the fifth of the nine listed fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 – which puts nice right. in. the. middle.

Nice.

Is nice the whole picture? No. I know this may be a bit more Bible than some of you are used to, but bear with me, just one more: “Behold therefore the χρηστότης (niceness) and severity of God; on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, χρηστότης (niceness), if thou continue in [his] χρηστότης (niceness).” (Romans 11:22)

Niceness and abruptness in alternating rhythms – with the charge for us to continue in the rhythm of niceness.  And for the most part we are told to leave abrupt and blunt severity to God, probably because if it were left up to us we’d end up nuking everyone.

Think about that.

So play nice

Why are we so eager to embrace anger and ranting as Jesus values and dismiss “nice” as a work of the devil? We talk about people leading others smilingly to hell – but isn’t it just as absurd to imagine leading others sneeringly and snarkily to heaven? And does anyone really want that heaven? Aren’t we inundated with enough of that here?

Perhaps this is a simple way to determine which rhythm is the best choice: which do we want back? – not just from each other, but when it matters most: as we stand naked before the Source of all Reality (which is, if we could only see it, where we all are right now)?

“Judgment will be without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy; but mercy triumphs over judgment.”

Nice wins.

 

la-bore-a-tory

Merton this morning.

Yesterday I was sitting in the woodshed reading and a little Carolina wren suddenly hopped onto my shoulder and then onto the corner of the book I was reading and paused a second to take a look at me before flying away.

There is something you cannot know about a wren by cutting it up in a laboratory and that you can know only if it remains fully and completely a wren, itself, and hops on your shoulder if it feels like it.

A tame animal is already invested with a certain falsity by its tameness. By becoming what we want it to be, it takes a disguise that we have decided to impose upon it.

Even a wild animal merely “observed” is not seen as it really is, but rather in the light of our investigation (color changed by fluorescent lighting). But people who watch birds and animals are already wise in their way.

I want not only to observe but to know living things, and this implies a dimension of primordial familiarity that is simple and primitive and religious and poor. This is the reality I need, the vestige of God in His creatures.

Is this what we seek through all our religious ways?
Tameness?
Sameness?
Lameness?
Getting each other to behave, to conform, to be nice?
More la-bore-a-tory
than observatory
Do we merely seek to dissect each other in our sacred labs,
to figure each other out,
to square each other away?
A pathological desire to fix
to evaluate
to judge
to prescribe
When observing is the key.
Like a glorious wren, the son of man hops on our shoulder
if he feels like it.
Do we behold
primordial vestige
unleashed
unique
Abba
glory
full of grace and truth
or do we capture and cage
endowing with falsity
as we dissect
vivisect
resect
on unholy tables?

 

meanderings

Yes.

I confess.

I am a meanderer.

We walk by faith and in the Spirit with purpose and direction. We don’t run or fly or soar (except perhaps like dwarves, very dangerous over short distances). And we certainly don’t meander, directionless, pointless, meaningless.

It was a good point in the sermon.

And to be contentious, because I’m wicked, I took issue, building up fearful anticipation of some serious controversy and loving it. Standing up for meanderers everywhere. Meanderers unite! We will be recognized! We will be validated! And yes, meanderers can marry too. It just takes longer to get there. Or anywhere.

But the truth is, all this life for me is so many meanderings.

I see pictures of the Jordan River from the air.

If ever there was a river with a purpose, it’s the Jordan, or so it would seem. One of the steepest descents of any river in the world, if not the steepest. And it meanders all the way.

And so do I.

My experience of God, of Christ, of the Divine has always been meandering
as faith turns
into doubtings merging into
courage which bends
into cowardice, flowing into
pure, unmitigated joy which
winds
into melancholy pools of despair
emptying
into wordy rapids of creative expression
and then into
sluggish doldrums of
uninspired drifting
winding into
cheerful camaraderie
which gives way to sullen isolation
yielding to bubbling optimism
which surrenders in turn
to smothering pessimism
sucked under bilious hate
exploding above the surface
lungs bursting for a quick and
deepening gasp
of love…

Bi-polar spirituality.

Is this the way of it?

I wish for and imagine I see in others a more consistent, constant, steady stream. I imagine Peter’s undeterred, unflummoxed progression, seemingly a river flowing uphill like salmon going home to birth and die.

Faith
Virtue
Knowledge
Self-control
Perseverance
Godliness
Brotherly kindness
Love.

Such a straight line.
Such undeniable advance.
All that’s missing is the marching band with it’s triumphal procession.

But I feel compelled to acknowledge the bends, though I would wish to hide my face – and that of others! – from them. But there they are. Undeniable. Ever present. Ever bending. Challenging me to take from each what it would deposit. To release in each what it would take.

Does Peter conceal the bends? Is Paul just more forthright, the alternating rhythms of Pauline spirituality more a match for my own experienced meanderings as glory yields to dishonor, bad report with good, genuine esteem enshrouded by impostor accusations, known but unknown, dying but living, poor but making many rich, having nothing but possessing everything.

These rhythms I get.

For I see them in me around every bend

of my own endless meanderings

all the way down

to the heights.

 

the sins of God

Thinking of Boston.

Pondering the sudden interruption of the unexpected, the unseen, of violence, fate, destiny, evil, and how in that split second all of life changes. Or ends.

Reading Kushner last week, I came across this story again. One of my favorites when confronted with the evils of this world, the “bad business,” as Ecclesiastes calls it, of this life under the sun.

Does it settle anything? Meh. But somehow it convinces me to get up tomorrow and face the mixed bag of good and evil in another day.

Perhaps that’s enough.

THE STORY IS TOLD OF RABBI LEVI YITZHAK OF BERDITCHEV that once on Kol Nidre, the holiest night of the year when all sins are confessed, the tailor, one of the most devout members of the community, was absent. Concerned, the rabbi left the synagogue and went to the tailor’s home. To his surprise he found the tailor looking at a piece of paper before him on the table.

“What’s the matter?” asked Levi Yitzhak.

“Oh, everything’s fine,” replied the tailor. “As I was getting ready to attend the service I made a list with two columns. At the top of one I wrote my name and at the top of the other I wrote, ‘God of all the Universe.’ Then, one by one, I began to list my sins. ‘Cheated Goldman out of a pair of trousers.’ And in God’s column I noted God’s omission: ‘Little girl died of diphtheria.’ Then the next sin, ‘Lost my temper with my children,’ and in God’s column, ‘I heard there was famine in another country.’” And so it went. The tailor showed the rabbi the completed list. “And for every sin I had committed during the past year, God had done one too. So I said to God, ‘Look, we each have the same number of sins. If you let me off, I’ll let You off!’”

But the story doesn’t end there. When the rabbi looked at the paper his face grew red and he scolded his friend: “You fool! You had Him and you let Him go!”

Here is a kind of relationship with God unique to Jewish tradition. Jews don’t just get angry with God. They call God to account. In Abraham’s words, as he argues the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, “Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty?… Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” (Genesis 18:23-35) The man, in effect, is saying, “Just who the hell do You think You are?”

But there’s another curve ball. If you believe, as I do, that “it’s all God,” then how do we argue with what we’re made of? That destabilizes us, makes us very uncomfortable. It means we have to talk to ourselves. We no longer have the luxury of putting all the nasty decisions and deeds on some distant omniscient, omnipotent God, and freeing ourselves to bask in moral security. God says, in effect, “And whom do you think you’re talking to? Hold up a mirror. When you’re done with that conversation, come back to Me…”

 

the essential vice

In the discussion of sexual morals, homosexuality, gay marriage, et al, I find C.S. Lewis’ comments in Mere Christianity to be highly appropriate and intensely relevant on all sides. It seems quite evident that when we think of the word “vice” the wrong pictures come to mind – pictures, of course, that always highlight the activities of others out there rather than the activities taking place right now in this mind, this heart, this soul. So easy to target the sins of the flesh – especially when it’s others’ flesh. But it’s the sins of the spirit, sins that constitute the center and bulk of what Paul terms the “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5, that are the real killers, taking down the sexually/morally pure and impure alike. We can talk about legalizing or outlawing a vast array of sexual practices. Too bad we can’t outlaw the essential vice of pride.

And, of course, if we did, it would make us so very proud…

Here’s Lewis. One more note. Perhaps I’m not the only one that hears a tinge of sad irony in his observation of Christians being those with a heightened sensitivity to the presence of this essential vice in themselves…

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.