fons vivus, ignis caritas

wordcraft for the feast of shavuot/pentecost:

in the cascade of
a living fountain, a fiery love
incident of pure saveur
a vulnerable moment
formed with fire and water
a baptism sealing the signs
and wonders of Love who
with the diligence of a master craftsman
lovingly submits Her Masterpiece
to the blazing travails
of an inferno unbound
separating the impurities
while new strength is found
forged in a life of fierce devotion
flowing from a living Source
both within and without

walks-with-many-names

wordcraft for the feast of shavuot/pentecost:

she walks with many names
through wind and flame
breathing passion
in water and light
graceful in the frolic of glory

she comforts our diverse hearts
stirs and dwells upon
from deep within
rests and soars along
since life began


she speaks with many tongues
to divine and portend
a whisper of hope
with renown and proclaim
the conviction of love again and again

o her mystifying ways
o her succulent allure

the barest scent
you can discover
as the gentle breeze
caresses your face
as the gale force
batters your body
breathing new life
with the quickening
of living transformation

the texture of eternity

wordcraft for the feast of shavuot/pentecost:

with the oil of gladness
burning on my brow

alight with anointing
i get caught up

in the embrace
of such instance

i could never be content
…with indistinct distance
…with inadequate detachment

rather than the demonstration
... Your Holy Touch
...Your Love Divine

that sprinkles mercy
upon my face

while liquid joy
runs up and down my spine

embracing me
with the texture of eternity

coals of my soul

wordcraft for the feast of shavuot/pentecost:

a whispering hope smoulders
in these glowing inward embers
…waiting for the eternal breath
to blow on them
bringing new life
and flame within

fire and wind
propel one another
…the ancient mystery
stoking the coals
of renewed flesh and spirit
now fueled with wildfire within

do you know your enemy?

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Green Day - Know Your Enemy
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the Spirit is coming

well, technically-speaking, the Spirit has come...but beginning this thursday, we will enter another short series of wordcraft and poetry focused on the coming of Holy Spirit.

the feast of shavuot is celebrated by the jews beginning sundown may 28th; it was during this major feast that the Spirit fell upon those early students of Jesus and empowered them to follow Jesus into His Mission.

christians, having moved their celebrations to sundays, celebrate "pentecost" on sunday, may 31st.

all that to say, from thursday through sunday, i'll be posting more wordcraft in honor and remembrance of the momentous coming of the Spirit...

even so, Come Holy Spirit...

peace/shalom

guest blogging again - religious dimensions to the torture debate

just a quick FYI for those who are interested:

i am guest blogging yet again today over at dave schmelzer's (pastor at the greater boston vineyard) blog not the religious type;

my entry is called: Religious Dimensions to the Torture Debate

peace

beyond disturbance...deep trust

...have you read john 13/14 lately?

i read through the gospel of john in february, march and april during lent, time and time again, i found new things that just amazed me.

so, you can click on this link and read john 13:21 - 14:1

...it utterly amazes me that in the midst of Jesus telling His disciples that they will betray and abandon Him, that simon peter will disown Him, and the next words from Jesus in sacred scripture are:

“Don’t let yourselves be disturbed. Trust in God and trust in me.”

• that’s so counter to my default
• that’s so counter to how i have been trained in the church for much of my life
• that’s so counter to how we have been trained by the world

in the midst of what is a disturbing prophetic outlining of the next few hours of those who would and should be closest to Him, that they would betray Him, abandon Him, disown Him…and yet in the knowledge of that abandonment Jesus speaks words of comfort...in that disowning of Him, He says: trust in God and trust in Jesus.

...it's almost too much...the grace there is a little frightening;

i am truly, utterly thankful for it when i have found myself in the same situation, a situation too daunting for me as my courage to follow Him fails...even then His work covers my missing the mark.

truly He alone is Faithful, and His faithfulness endures forever.

Blessed be the Name of the LORD…

she shimmers

in a flash of illumination
the blood rushes with
the pulse of inspiration
her eyes alight
glistening suddenly
like her whole body at once
clothed with radiance
she shimmers brilliant
as the morning glow
warmly bearing this light
that dances beneath her skin
flowing from deep within

my daughter eve has this way of being when she experiences sheer joy...my parents actually say i did the same thing, and i wonder at that. anyway, i wrote this piece of wordcraft after watching beautiful eve have one of her crazy moments of sheer joy...

on calling: st. francis

dale hall, a pastor at the chattanooga vineyard, had posted this quote from st. francis the other day...i like it a lot:

"We have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way."
- St. Francis of Assisi

feasting on the forbidden fruit

...was re-arranging my little cubbie of notes and teaching CDs/DVDs (spring cleaning!)

i came across my notes from my classes at baltimore hebrew university concerning genesis and started digging around...


...we covered some perplexing issues in examining the sacred text of genesis, and to-this-day, the questions linger:

for instance, we had a whole extended discussion in class and then among the students about the trees of the garden of eden; specifically the tree of life and the mysterious tree of the knowledge of good and evil

[quick recap of the story: in the book of genesis, the tree of knowledge of good and evil (and occasionally translated as the tree of conscience, hebrew: etz ha'daat tov v'ra) was a tree in the middle of the garden of eden (genesis 2:9) from which God directly forbade adam (in the context, eve having not yet been fashioned by God) to eat (genesis 2:17). a serpent later tempts eve, who was aware of the prohibition, to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge (genesis 3:1-6). adam partakes as well, and they became aware of their nakedness (genesis 3:6-7). after this, in order to deny them access to the very special tree of life (and, hence, be infused with immortality), they were banished from the garden and forced to survive "by the sweat of [their] brow"]

...now then, let's begin with the forbidden fruit tree - the one God places strictly off-limits.

the scriptures call this tree by an official name: the tree of knowledge of good and evil

[aside: let me broad brush some of the previous writing/theories on this and get back to my thoughts:

1. numero uno: according to some highly respected biblical scholars, the phrase טוֹב וָרָע translated good and evil, is a merism. this is a figure of speech whereby a pair of opposites are used together to create the meaning all or everything, as in our english phrase, "they came, great and small", meaning just that they all came. in this case, we might find a more helpful english translation: ...with knowledge, both good and evil.
2. deux: traditional ancient jewish rabbi's have another perspective: God commanded adam and eve not to eat from the tree that was to give free choice and allow them to earn, as opposed to receive, absolute perfection and intimate communion with God at a higher level than the one on which they were created. after failing at this task, they were condemned to a period of toil to rectify the fallen universe.
3. gimel: rabbi david fohrman of the hoffberger foundation for torah studies, citing maimonides' guide for the perplexed, states that "the tree did not give us moral awareness when we had none before. Rather, it transformed this awareness from one kind into another." After eating from the Tree, humanity's innate sense of moral awareness was transformed from concepts of true and false to concepts of good and evil. Genesis describes the tree as desirable (3:6), and our concepts of good and evil, unlike our concepts of true and false, also have an implicit measure of desire.
4. thalaathah: the term "forbidden fruit" is merely a metaphor that describes any object of desire whose appeal is a direct result of the knowledge that it cannot or should not be obtained or something that someone may want but cannot have.]

ok, back to digging in the dirt of the garden (or at least my sketchy notes from class)...

what was the fruit of the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil? what did we get from feasting on the forbidden fruit?

• wisdom?
• conscience?
• toxic corporate assets?
• chronic halitosis?
• a tummy-ache?

the underlying assumption by readers of the biblical account seems to primarily be that it somehow suffused us with a knowledge of good and evil...or we might say: an ability to distinguish right from wrong.

but...as rabbi fohrman has pointed out, there is a big problem with this: why would God want to deny this knowledge to people? and greater still: did adam and eve not all ready possess some knowledge of good and evil or a conscience (how else would they know that eating the fruit of this mysterious tree was evil/bad?)

think about it: are human beings better or worse off for a knowledge of good and evil? (don't be too quick to answer, grasshopper, pause and reflect on that a little first)

yet perhaps a better question may be: is categorizing issues as good and evil what matters? does that sort of categorization mean something...and is that meaning meaningful?


rabbi david fohrman would say: what we have here my friends is a world class catch-22 in the garden

"What happens immediately after Adam and Eve eat from the tree whose mysterious fruits confer knowledge of good and evil ? The Almighty becomes angry with them and punishes them. But if Adam and Eve were punished for what they did, this presupposes that they knew they did something wrong. You don t punish people who are unaware that they did something bad. So Adam and Eve evidently had some knowledge of good and evil before eating from the tree. At the very least, they knew it was right to obey God when He told them not to eat, and it was wrong to disobey Him. But now we're really stuck. For if Adam and Eve already understood good and evil before reaching for the fruit, well then, they already possessed what the tree was supposed to give them."

...but that might mean that the tree had no mojo to give us...perhaps it was nothing but a cipher, something of no value...like diet chocolate or decaffeinated coffee...

yet what if some faculty we have/had is distorted, or our frame-of-reference is now off-kilter and the issues we love to categorize as "good" and "evil" are not best categorized from that perspective? in fact, it just may be limiting and unloving to arrange our knowledge this way...hmmmm.

or perhaps it's all simpler than that and the issue at-hand is: disobedience...non-reliance on God.

so let's state what scripture clearly states: God told them something specific...and what was that?

...it was: don't eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

[another aside: i love that scene in the johnny cash movie walk the line, where johnny, jerry lee lewis, june carter, carl perkins and elvis are riding to the next town for a performance and jerry surprises them with a judgment on their chosen profession: "...everbody in this car's going to hell...we're all going to hell for the songs that we sing. people who listen to them, they're going to hell too. God gave us a great big apple, see...and He said: don't touch it! He didn't say touch it once in a while; He didn't say take a nibble when you're hungry; He said: don't touch it! don't think about touching it, don't sing about touching it, don't think about singing about touching it!" ]

...does jerry lee lewis have it right? is it that simple?

is obedience the issue here...?

or is there more going on that we can discover about ourselves and God?

...more thoughts on this later...

do not keep silent

wordcraft for the feast of st. athanasius:

Righteous Judge of Creation
do not keep silent
save me for Your Mercy’s sake

i hear it in the distance…

thunder and lightning trumpet the advance of the Most High
wind and rain dance together in celebration of the Coming Deliverer
clouds cover the land announcing our King, the Holy One

Our God will come and will not keep silent;
before Him there is a consuming flame,
and round about Him a raging storm.

Psalm 50:3