new documentary on human trafficking

beyond the blinders

our Spirit hovers within reach
lingering in exile
waiting for the permission
to hope for a return
to find home
amongst us once again
yet the hospitality of hope beckons
where two or three
are gathered
and the gentle foolishness
of the few
breaks the closed loop
of our resident desperation
touching the depth
of our distress
summoning us
to turn and survey
the wonders
beyond the blinders
of the powers-that-be
to a homecoming celebration
of the One
He who dwells
from the future
come to inhabit
the anguished cries
and appealing surprise
of our subtle and elusive
present

lectio: psalm 127

Unless the LORD builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the LORD guards the city,
The watchman keeps awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.
Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one's youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127

verse 1 - it's interesting to me that this psalm begins and ends with a wider communal aspect. here in verse 1 it is a house and a city - both to be filled with people; in verse 5 it is people together in a public place - the city gate. i think we bought the lie of the "nuclear family" nowadays. it's not that the nuclear family isn't important, but only since the industrial revolution has the family been reduced to mom and dad and children. for many millenia before, the family was a wider unit, several generations interacting and living together. our current society puts too much on a mom and dad. i have to be dada and grandfather and uncle all in one to my children, because we are isolated from our family. this isn't the "natural order of things". in fact, when Jesus says: there are many rooms in my Father's house,:" He is referring to insula. when a man would propose marriage to a woman, he would then begin building a new wing onto his Father's house, in which he would start his new piece of the this family, but utterly connected to his Father's house. the father builds the house, and his father helped him, and he helps his son build the next set of rooms. this is the ancient understanding of family. and unless YHWH builds the family and the insula, we labour in vain...

verse 2 - this verse hits me right in the chest, like a bodyblow. too often i put my hope and security in my work - and work is a gift from God - or the sense of security, accomplishment and worth i get from trusting in work, but if i trust in it, i will be striving always, seeking more security in it, because there is never enough with that sort of finite resource; and i'll go deeper into more self--worth from it, rising early and going to bed late to get more of it, reaping anxiety that underlies a false sense of security, that can haunt even my sleep. yet God gives this sense of security to His beloved - who trust in Him - in their peaceful sleep...while those who trust in their riches are striving, striving and never quite get the sense of security and the fruit of trusting in Him.

verse 3 - indeed, my three precious girls are a gift from the Lord. they challenge me, they frustrate me, they bless me with love that i feel unworthy of many times, and they renew my hope in all of us by simply being who they are: beloved children.

verse 5 - i love the inclusionary language here: "they will not be ashamed, when they speak with their enemies..."; the "us and them" become a we...and we will not be ashamed against our enemies...

++O LORD, unless you build and guard, we labour and watch in vain. Please be with us O Lord. O LORD, unless we trust you, we strive in vain. Please be with us O Lord. O LORD, unless we stand together as your family, we will be ashamed. Please be with us O Lord. Amen.++

recitare: at morning's rise

Glorious God,
grace sprays forth
at morning’s rise
first glimpse
an encounter
fresh mercy collides
with one
whose tears
stain his eyes

thank you for another shot at living
even just today
let me give what You are giving
let me reach down inside to the depths
where You have planted
the seeds of hope
let me toss them to everyone i meet
and bless them to be found
on good growing ground
O Lord bless them to be found
on good growing ground

a beautiful transparency

There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are.

- Brennan Manning

chosen

wordcarft for the feast of all saint's:

a chosen people for God
woven together
lives in the fabric of time

wake the dead

wordcraft for the feast of all hallow's eve:


wake the dead
with the Word of Hope
honor their ache from times past

stir the shadow’s lingering in the Deep
grace to be theirs at last

join the living
for on a cross did die
Christ Jesus His Heart laid bare

He shouts with an echoing voice that rends
as He gathers us in graceful care

together creation
does hear of His Grace
the weight of which shakes the foundations

before the God of both the Living and the Dead
we all gather in great jubilation

the eclipse of a dark reign

...to be sung as a hope-filled dirge among the exiles moving from death to life:

stolen lives plucked
from the cultivated land
the enemy has struck
clutched in his hand

yet bind the strong man
through the deeper subtlety
of One who lives amongst us
behold: Fidelity

dare we yet hope
for a ransom not scorned
the Son to offer His head
cruel crown of thorns

does His word still stand
as provoked we kneel
Life to truly overtake
in His encompassing appeal

still can redemption be found
for the lost and the least
can redemption be found
for the Powers that ceased
to follow the Most High
a dark kingdom unleashed
lo, a dark kingdom unleashed


perilously dim
is life so distant
how cold the fire seems
enflamed desire persistent

any way is the only way
in the journey’s suffering task
for such evil to lurk
in a dreadful and beautiful mask

yet in the decay of defiled light
my own passions ablaze
when first lured down
wide and crowded pathways

and so we yet pray
as we are gathered en masse
a Redeemer to appear
thus shall it come to pass

a raging lion devours the Lamb
the serpent strikes at His heel
the kiss of death and tree of pain
our Saviour will he reveal
passing from death unto life
crucible braved with great zeal
yes, crucible braved with great zeal


when death swallows whole
with its gruesome appetite
Eternity overcomes
the dictator of the night

the dark reign to interrupt
its eclipse has now begun
in the resurrection of Life
the dark reign is undone

for faint whisper of a Voice
as we lay awake
such souls treading the Way
the dark dominion to break

this joy now persistent
within our songs of lament
forgiveness we behold
to a much greater extent

this music inherent
in the rushing waters so clear
the song of many waters
it echoes so sincere
as i wake to this ode
embraced by He-Who-Draws-Near
thus, embraced by He-Who-Draws-Near

beyond annoyance...deep provocation

most un- or non-churched people nowadays think of christians as annoying and entitled and bigoted...and there is plenty of evidence out there to prove them right (i talked about this in the last of the beyond series: beyond insurgence...deep revolution)

the Church needs to move beyond annoyance to a deeper provocation...to be the prophetic provocateurs, advocating for helping the least and the lost, like the victims and survivors of human trafficking; i believe one of the primary challenges before the followers and disciples of Jesus today is to not be overwhelmed to indifference by the problem of extreme poverty or frozen in fear in the face of extreme wickedness in the world, nor despise the plight of the working poor...nor despise the 'little evils' that populate all of us 'jars of clay'...we need to foster patience for our imperfections, but not lose the urgency of God's call to do the good works He prepared for us to do...

yet too often we are content to send money to some organization to actually do this work He prepared for us to do. rather than following that pattern, i think i need to work sacrificially and missionally among the poor in our own community.to show them the love of Christ in a tangible way, tangible and embodied for them and for me

...but this also comes back to being truly prophetic: announce good news to the poor, to the least and the lost, and advocate on their behalf before the power-that-be...

as i mentioned to a friend recently, this is the missional aspect of 'signs and wonders': we join Jesus on His Mission (and incarnationally gathering locally, whatever that looks like where you are planted), it's not about power so we can get God to bless our stuff, but if we spend ourselves on behalf of the lost and least, if we break the yoke of oppression, if we provide for the poor and clothe the naked...then our light will break forth like the dawn, and our healing will come quickly...then we will be like a well-watered garden...my heart yearns for these things...

this is the pattern i see in all of the prophetic books in the old testament: they give voice to judgment and redemption...justice and mercy...their poetry is great lamentation at one point and powerful hope at another, as one of my favourite biblical theologians suggested.

these two tasks are melodies and harmonies coming to us through the musical symphony of prophetic texts in our scriptures. as i ponder my own walk in faith with God, i can remember clearly times of lament and despair and times of hope and redemption.

[aside: i have taken up the habit of journaling my walk with God in the past few years, and it has made a tremendous difference in my own perspective. when i am treading toward despair and vision fades, i can turn to my journal and it helps me remember the specific acts that God has done in my life. i can remember that He has indeed been faithful and true.]

but there are times when we lose hope and cannot bring ourselves to anticipate 'newness' ...mostly because we continually look back and let the past dominate our present, this should not be for those who have made Jesus Christ Lord and Savior in their life. the very ground of following Jesus is hope...dominating the present with the future - as another of my favourite biblical theologians has proclaimed - because we know what He has accomplished/is accomplishing this futture and this is the basis of our hope...hope for a new day, hope that He is coming back, hope that goes beyond to provoke us to remember and to provoke others...

but too many times, we lose sight of this...we think that no matter how we re-arrange the dimensions of our lives that we have known, we are still working with broken pieces that give us no hope...therefore we have modest expectations for our present and little hope for the future. We despair of any newness because it does not make sense to our reason...and life becomes a dissatisfied coping, a grudging trust, and a managing and muddling that dares never ask too much.

but in Christ there is the promise of newness! the prophetic community of the Kingdom of God is called to penetrate this despair of the world with the hope of newness in Christ Jesus. the Power and Presence of the Spirit helps us as we cut through the despair and penetrate the dissatisfied coping that leads to hopelessness.

old testament theologian walter brueggemann points out that there are several ways we can do this:

• offer meaningful symbols that contradict the hopelessness that makes newness unthinkable;
• bring to public expression the hopes and yearnings of people;
  

this is the 'minority report' that goes against the world's majority opinion...and unfortunately the church as well. yet we must bring to bear the language of hope and the ethos of amazement that we know happens when the Kingdom breaks through. we need to announce, demonstrate and embody God's Reign!

as children of the Kingdom, as disciples of Jesus, we can speak of our own experience of Jesus' touch in our own lives. this is our testimony, our collective 'minority report'!

Jesus lives and heals and brings newness and life to the hopeless and despairing people of this earth. This is revolutionary and deeply provocative...as brueggemann points out, those who would be prophetic will need to embrace the same sort of absurd and truly subversive activity that Jesus engaged in before He went to the cross. it's just like what the character 'red' proclaimed in the movie 'the shawshank redemption': "Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing."

the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient seeks to keep the world in his despairing grip (Ephesians 2). but we cannot stand for this! let the newsness of the Kingdom of God break the oppression as we walk into the ministry of the Kingdom: heal the sick...preach good news to the poor...proclaim freedom for prisoners...release the oppressed.

soothing dark slumber

ah, soft fragrance of jasmine
spice throughout the night
ready to soothe dark slumber

Maryland Rally against Modern-day Slavery

well, we got two interpretive dance performances and two opening remarks and ambassador lagon's speech before having to dive in-doors because of the downpour of rain.

it was a good turn-out for the rally - thanks to all who turned out in the rain!

we were packed inside, which is a good sign that more-and-more people are understanding the problem and wickedness of modern-day slavery...

here's to a little hope on a rainy day, where the hearts of those gathered shone brightly in the cloud-cover!

peace