Practice resurrection

Paul sent this to me yesterday. It's worth sharing with the world.

Welcome to the Great Fifty Days!
***

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.



--Wendell Berry, "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"

Friday Poetry Blogging: Feast of the Holy Innocents

Coventry Carol

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor Youngling for Whom we sing
By, by, lully, lullay?

Herod the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever morn and day
For Thy parting neither say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.

I don't have it in me to do any better, today. MadPriest and Mimi did.

Friday Poetry Blogging: Light in, around, and for us

I am, absolutely, Christian. And I have some fairly strong pagan leanings. I believe in the Christ-child born in each of us. And I know that after the darkest day, the light returns. It has never fully left us, and it never will.

We are living in a dark time. But each of our lives is a reason for hope, whether or not you believe in the Incarnation. I have far too many friends who are up to their elbows in working for good, to ever doubt that. Some call it the kindom of God; some call it healing our Mother. Either way, the work gets done.

Neither of these offerings is exactly poetry. One is Scripture; the other is a chant that I used to sing every winter at Solstice gatherings and in my interfaith community. Let the truth in each, settle into your hearts. Take strength and energy from that which feeds you. And sing along with what you know.

Happy Solstice, everyone!
***

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. --John 1:1-5, NRSV


Light is returning,
Even though this is the darkest hour
No one can hold
Back the dawn

Let's keep it burning,
Let's keep the light of hope alive
Make safe our journey
Through the storm

One planet is turning,
Circle on her path around the sun
Earth mother is calling
Her children home.
--Charlie Murphy

Friday Poetry Blogging: Participatory Edition

Why? Because it’s the last day of finals week, and I need all of it to get anywhere close to done. And I don’t want to lose track of this. And because collective anarchy can be really creative and fun.

This week, you get to come up with the poetry. Silly or serious; written by you, or found. Haiku, higgledy-piggledy, acrostic, whatever. Throw confetti, or give whatever gift that’s in you. All of us will receive it.

Post in the comments, and enjoy.

I know it isn't Friday

...but here is a poem, and an Advent offering.

I’m involved in a discussion over at Buddhapalian’s, stemming from today’s Daily Office readings. Specifically, this passage from Amos:

Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream. (Amos 5:23-24)

The call for justice and righteousness stirs me, deeply. The implication (fleshed out more, over there) that unless we walk our talk well, our worship is not acceptable, is troubling to me.

I’m sorting that out. Meanwhile, when I woke this morning, I remembered the last lines of this poem/prayer. All of it is worth sharing, in this Advent season. The lessons are all about the coming of the Kindom. We are preparing ourselves to receive anew the Christ, this tiny, helpless, squalling child who grew into full stature as human and as God. Born to Mary and as one of us, this infant was committed from before time, to the redemption of the world. The child came, to reconcile us to the One who created us. He came to teach us, to heal us, to laugh and play and work and grieve with us. To show us how to live, and to show us how to love. He stood up for those who couldn’t stand for themselves. He healed the most despised of the outcasts. He was able to be moved, when the Canaanite woman caught him in the wrong.

The Incarnation of God’s love and justice is, always and again, waiting to be born: to us, and with us, and in us.

You and I cannot become God. But we are called—commanded—to become fully human. It’s dawning on me, what an incredible grace, and responsibility, we are given.
***

God signs to us
we cannot read
She shouts
we take cover
She shrugs
and trains leave
the tracks

Our schedules! we moan
Our loved ones

God is fed up
All the oceans she gave us
All the fields
All the acres of steep seedful forests
And we did what
Invented the Great Chain
of Being and
the chain saw
Invented sin

God sees us now
gorging ourselves &
starving our neighbors
starving ourselves &
storing our grain
& She says

I’ve had it
you cast your trash
upon the waters—
it’s rolling in

You stuck your fine fine finger
into the mystery of life
to find death

& you did
you learned how to end
the world
in nothing flat

Now you come crying
to your mommy
Send us a miracle
Prove that you exist

Look at your hand, I say
Listen to your sacred heart
Do you have to haul the tide in
sweeten the berries on the vine

I set you down
a miracle among miracles
You want more
It’s your turn
You show me

--George Ella Lyon, included in Life Prayers. HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

Friday Poetry Blogging: Thich Nhat Hanh

I have arrived.
I am at home
in the here, in the now.
I am solid.
I am free.
In the ultimate I dwell.

***
I started Friday poetry blogging because I wanted a regular feature; I'm touched by lj's occasional pieces, and I have access to lots of share-worthy poetry. In doing this, even for the past three weeks, I've been surprised by grace. Truths are finding me at a depth I'm ready for, and at the right time. And the treasures that find me, find their way to others.

I didn't have to search for this week's offering; it showed up in my e-mail, in the context of a discussion about becoming solid, strong, and real. Thank you, to the friend who sent it to me; both for this and for being willing to have that conversation.

If you're unsteady on your feet, breathe this, pray it, drink it in, and let it wash through you. If you're already radiating trust, love, and joy, may you share your blessing.

May we all come home to the ultimate, to full awareness of how deeply we are loved. And may we all be warmth and light, for all who are searching.

(Photo: Labyrinth, El Rancho del Obispo, September 1, 2007. Taken by me.)

Friday Poetry Blogging: Macrina Wiederkehr

O God
help me to believe
the truth about myself
no matter
how beautiful it is!

***
I first encountered this at an orphan-Thanksgiving potluck, in the woods in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, circa 1995. The host had a book of graces, which she passed around the table. I seized on this. (The book is A Grateful Heart: Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles. I own a copy, now.)

I needed that reminder; then, and many times since. Now, it needs to be shared. If this feeds your soul, where you are, it is my gift to you.

We are all children of the Holy One.

Friday Poetry Blogging: Rumi

Come, come, whoever you are
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
Ours is not a caravan of despair.

Come, come, whoever you are,
Even though you've broken your vows
a thousand times
Come, yet again,
Come.

I learned this poem at least a decade ago, in the interfaith community I belonged to. We used to chant it, dancing in circles; I always heard it as a generous, gracious welcome to a ragtag religious gathering. It's much more than that. It says to me now, "You are not an alien. You are not unworthy. We all bear our wounds, our scars, our imperfections, our shame. Nothing can scare us. Come, we are with you."

I gave thanks, below, for "people of refuge," those friends who calm me and help me reconnect with my own essential wholeness and goodness, and with God. The only redemptive value that I have found in my own recent rough patch, is the will to become a safe resting place for others. I believe we are all called to that work; there is so much brokenness, and the only way to heal it is with openness, gentleness, acceptance, and love.

Let me caution you, though, please. Welcoming others starts with welcoming yourself. You cannot give, what you haven't learned to receive. If you offer love, in good faith, and can't give it, you risk re-traumatizing the people you've conditioned to be close to you. (I know this, painfully well.) Ground yourself, in God and the earth and your loving circles. Work from that generosity, not your own. Let trust build, with time.

All blessings.

Wild Geese

Why? Because I need to hear it.


You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--Mary Oliver

Poem for today

I’m taking a feather from lj’s cap; she does this frequently, and I love the idea. I think I might make it an occasional feature; God knows I have plenty of prayer/poetry books.

(This is printed in Women’s Uncommon Prayers, p. 24. Poetry and Turabian citations aren’t going together for me.)

Today

Let me live today.
Let me be open to the miracle of this day.
Let me breathe the best of today.
Let me not miss the heart of today.
Let me find the gift of today,
hidden like a jewel in rubble of care, duty, and detail.

Let me pause to hear
the steady beat of the heart of God—
hoping, aching, sorrowing, expectant, patient,
despairing heart of God.

Listen, listen.
Do you hear it?
Ever so faint but steady, steady,
rhythmic organ, strong muscle,
thumping, beating, pumping, sustaining, encompassing,
wildly dancing heart of God.

Let me live this day, aware, open, listening, breathing, alive.

--The Rev. Virginia Going