Distractions

Snowcapped mountains preface the
sun-filled city
and steal my attention
Wind rustles the pages of my unfocused work

Beauty beckons thoughts elsewhere

processing

I'm up and blogging again...mostly because I need to process stuff and my journal is almost full. So I may (or may not, we'll see how it goes) find myself blogging after classes, since I process while I write. So, while it occasionally may appear it, I'm not trying to write fallacies....I'm just trying to sort stuff out.

Reader-Response-a dangerous way of interpreting the bible? Does an author have only one intent in her writing? There are 8 billion people in the world. There's no way we're all going to read things the same way. As a writer, if I'm going to write with one specific intent, I'll write clearly. When I write with metaphor, I have to be aware that people are going to interpret that in different ways. I may have one specific incidence in mind, but people can't climb into my head and know that. They can have conversation with me, I can share my meaning, but any images I use are going to be seen differently in their minds.
True, I believe scripture to be God-breathed, or divinely inspired or whatever you want to call it. But as each of us makes up a portion of the body of Christ, should we not take into account how another views Scripture? Does the Spirit interact with us in different ways or the same? Do we put aside our worldview to interpret scripture or let scripture shape our world view. Both, I think.
What does it mean that the Bible is living?
I don't know...more to wrestle with, I guess......though I suppose that is the reason I'm in seminary(among others I'm sure will be revealed to me later)

...and particularly an evangelical seminary....

I'm sure I'll edit this later, as more processing continues.

a letter

Dear Sirs and Madam,

As your stand there on the podium, beckoning us to believe, we lift our voices and shout our praise. We wave our “hail hosanna” cardboard signs crying victory in your name. We bow and uphold you for the promised change you jingle in your pocket. Change that will feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, provide for the needy, and lower taxes.
Your face glows as you draw us near to you and summon us to hope.
Your messianic voice cries salvation from the sin in which we’ve been forced to wallow. Your face shimmers in divine light with reflections of halos round your head.
You are the answer. You bring redemption.
We dance in the aisles, while tongues of praise pour on you as rain.
Delegates sing hymns of your glory and chant triumphant battle cries.
Your promises ring prophecies in our ears. In you we place our trust. Our hope is in you. Show us your way. Guide us in what you know of truth.
For we know that in you, all will be made right.

We will be restored.

In your name we’ll become The United States of a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. Save us, O redeemer.
Our children nestle against your neck, raised up rightly in adoration of you. Your redemption will spread through the ages.
Tears of hope for tomorrow fall down our cheeks as you kiss our babies, grasp our hand, and lead us to the Promised Land full of milk and honey and all that we believe us to deserve.
In you, we can. With our hope in you, country first shall be last.
Those who choose you are free indeed. Let freedom ring.
Save us from our enemies. Deliver us from evil.
For yours is our kingdom, our power and glory for years,

Amen.

This Literal Chasm

This Literal Chasm

Black and white

Things are not

Messy

Things are

What is grace?

What if I don’t repent of a single sin?

Or does your grace cover all?

How do I follow the one I call Savior?

How does one worship in spirit and in truth?

Where are you?

Who are you?

Where are you not?

Even in the depths of Sheol, you are there.

As I wail in my pit

You are there

If I climb out

You are there

If I remain?

If I see your light beckoing

To climb out of my abyss

But instead, cling clumsily to the side

Because it hurts to much to climb out

Will you pull me out?

You will.

But on which side of the Jordan?

Yes, it is written.

Yes the Lord of hosts demands justice

Yes he loves us too much

To let us wallow in our pit

But it’s a long, slow rope that pulls us out

We get banged up and bloodied against the wall as we rise

And our breath may escape us before we reach the top

But we follow as he beckons

Until we breathe our last

Banish my pride, Lord

Mend this broken heart

Broken mind

Broken spirit

Broken home

Broken society

Broken church, oh Lord, we’ve broken your body

Cast us not away for our ignorance, Lord

We try to earnestly seek you

But we’re so easily distracted

So easily distracted

So easily distra

Don’t study theology, kids

But, oh how I love it

How big is your box Lord?

That too is cliché

Are we damned?

I don’t even try not to badmouth coworkers

Though you say it is murder

How many have I killed?

Hundreds

Whose faces stare gauntly at me

From the other side of the chasm?

In my mind?

Lord, save us all.

I beg you.

In your mercy, Lord, save us all.

There is too much here.

The enemy, too powerful.

Bind him.

Save us.

As we remain in our pits

Clinging clumsily to the sides

Because it hurts too fucking much to climb out

Rescue us, before breath escapes

Or Lord,

Revive us after

In your arms of mercy.

On the banks of the Jordan

When all shall have their fill

And you will be our light.

Some may be damned in the kingdom come

Lord save us all in the kingdom not yet.

This I beg.

Jesus, only you are truth.

You are the culmination

Lord your spirit is upon me

In my shortcomings and wrong beliefs

I feel you in the breeze on my face

You love me

Savior on Capitol Hill

Anytime I make a mixed CD, it ends up being a near "best of Derek Webb," cd. With all the craziness the United States election brings, this song is pretty much all I can think of.

I’m so tired of these mortal men
with their hands on their wallets and their hearts full of sin
scared of their enemies, scared of their friends
and always running for re-election
so come to DC if it be thy will
because we’ve never had a savior on Capitol Hill

you can always trust the devil or a politician
to be the devil or a politician
but beyond that friends you’d best beware
’cause at the Pentagon bar they’re an inseparable pair
and as long as the lobbyists are paying their bills
we’ll never have a savior on Capitol Hill

[Bridge]
all of our problems gonna disappear
when we can whisper right in that President’s ear
he could walk right across the reflection pool
in his combat boots and ten thousand dollar suit

you can render unto Caesar everything that’s his
you can trust in his power to come to your defense
it’s the way of the world, the way of the gun
it’s the trading of an evil for a lesser one
so don’t hold your breath or your vote until
you think you’ve finally found a savior up on Capitol Hill

2 years behind and just as lost

Coldplay's song "Lost" seems to be fitting.
I'm in the exact same place I was two years ago.
I've felt for sometime that coming back from Seattle was like backing my car into a mud puddle.Going backwards and getting stuck. Now the wheels are spinning in place, tossing mud on my surroundings, as I sit stationary.


I'll finish up at USF in December....again.
I felt my time in Sioux Falls was up in 2006. Then I forgot that. Now I remember.
I'm learning to embrace that part of myself that isn't content to sit idle. Not everyone is blessed with a desire to go. So I'll go.
I just have to figure out...Where?

Waves (or the day I saw God)

I'm excited to be taking a writing class again. It's so good to bring writing forward from the back burner.
I'm probably going to post some of the stuff I write for class. Here's the first essay I wrote this semester.

Waves (or The Day I Saw God)

In 1923, poet William Carlos Williams wrote, “so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow.” Well, pardon the thievery, Mr. Williams, I must insist, that in fact, so much depends upon the ocean. Until last year, I’d forgotten how big the ocean is. It sounds a silly thing to say, I know. Obviously the ocean is gigantic, who forgets that? Though large it is, it is the vastness that makes me stand in awe. It is here, gazing upon the ocean, mouth agape at its awesomeness, that one stares into the face of an entity infinitely bigger than the self. Together, here, on the shore of the sea, Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, and others find a commonality in the immensity of such a sight. Though perhaps others experience different, I saw God at the Ocean.

I awoke in the apartment that was still quite foreign to me, in a city I couldn’t yet tell would be home. Shifting on the futon my hosts had so graciously allowed me for the week, I stared at the grey hovering masses of mist and cloud passing the window, wondering what I might do with my time that bleak Sunday morning. The previous Sunday morning found me snug in the bed of the wicker room, while my grandmother busily placed the Christmas decorations back in what would be their cardboard homes for the next 12 months. Just weeks prior to that, my college diploma was plopped in my hands, my roommates had moved on, and the end of an era came crashing down around me.

Not more than a month earlier, I was to be found sitting at a desk three times a week studying the book of Genesis. Being in so much contact with Abraham at the end of an era is a precarious thing when you’re the owner of a restless heart, or you’ve just quit your job, and have nearly everything you own in your car. Or all of the above.

So six days after deciding to move to Seattle and three days after arriving there, I listened to the hum of the city below me. Seeing as how I couldn’t look for a job or a place to live as it was Sunday, I came up with the only logical solution. I was going to the Ocean. Geography will tell you that Seattle is not situated directly next to the Pacific Ocean. Growing up in a Midwestern landlocked state will tell you that is not important when you’ve just driven 1500 miles. What’s 100 more?

After a lunch at Barbara’s by the Sea, a quaint little café’ overlooking the docks, I pulled my car into a parking lot next to the breaking wall. As I opened my door my ears were greeted by the sound of thunderous waves demanding to know why I hadn’t been to visit in so long. I ran to them as after a long lost love. They were a long lost love, and we had found each other at last. And we embraced.

I stood at the edge of the water, staring into the infinite sea. I waited. At any given moment I would be engulfed, the vastness would overtake me and I would be swept out to sea, forever to be with my beloved. But, alas, the waves landed consistently at my feet, making fall in the same place they had collapsed daily for millennia upon millennia. This would not be the day I would be taken. Today, only my toes would taste its frigid kiss, my nostrils seduced with its cool salty air.

I drew back from the line where water met earth. I pulled my scarf nearer, as the January wind blew in harshly against my face. I found myself entranced by broken sea shells that littered the shore. I felt an affinity for their beautiful brokenness and saw myself in them. I took my place on a piece of driftwood, piled up with thousands of other pieces the ocean had enticed in some far off land and spit out miles away from home. The dull grey sky loomed overhead.

And then, they arrived. Silhouette’s down the shore, making their way toward my ocean. I burned with anger that others would infringe on my interlude with the sea. I’d have cast stones, had my good Midwestern upbringing not thought it impolite. Yet as I sneered, the two silhouettes took their places silently on the sandy shore, assuming the same position I found myself in, gazing at the boundless sea, waiting to be engulfed, swept up by their beloved. Then suddenly, as if granted permission after a silent prayer, a single silhouette strode toward water. His shadowy surfboard hit the waves and he sailed away from the shore. He paddled farther out and my heart chased him, envious of his ability to be joined with the water. As he made his home among the waves, my eyes found their way to his companion, sitting silently on the shore, still, as I was, contemplating the sea. The sky began to send us a mist. Neither of us moved. The sight was too grand. From behind the mist came the setting sun. No bright orb present, but an orange glowing curtain draping itself over us. The radiant mist hung heavily as even the infinite waters were absorbed by the light. What were Moses’ thoughts when God placed him in a cleft and passed by in all his glory? Here sat mortals contemplating the infinite, the infinite then dwarfed by the divine. Surely, this is how Moses saw, nestled in the cleft, eyes upon the ocean of God.