Lynne Hasuly
The chair is empty
among the rows of seats filled with people;
that chair is empty...
He was supposed to have sat there;
offering up his sacrifices of praise
in the midst
of the body of Christ...
talons snatched him
while in the grip of fear;
propelling him towards
the portal of eternity;
and now the chair is empty;
depriving the brethren
of gifts and the joy of fellowship with him;
sorrow's shadow now resides
over the space where he might have sat;
reminding the great cloud of witnesses
that death has come...
and also of the glorious promise that death has lost its' sting.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
New
Lynne Hasuly
He will create a heart that's new
among the brambled mass
of past attemtps
at being "strong" apart from
embracing arms.
The stretch of His arms
loosened the grace;
given through the blood;
the river of life...
pouring over flesh to
cover the sins of the world.
This day retains the joy that came
when death turned into life...
a ressurection in our hearts
of His eternal life...
The bride of Christ we'll be that day;
shimmering in the realm of glory;
without spot or human wrinkle;
no foible to shortchange the stores of heaven.
Joy of heaven,
stuff of earth;
divine touching mortal;
glory's flame opened up the path to
heaven's portal...
He will create a heart that's new
among the brambled mass
of past attemtps
at being "strong" apart from
embracing arms.
The stretch of His arms
loosened the grace;
given through the blood;
the river of life...
pouring over flesh to
cover the sins of the world.
This day retains the joy that came
when death turned into life...
a ressurection in our hearts
of His eternal life...
The bride of Christ we'll be that day;
shimmering in the realm of glory;
without spot or human wrinkle;
no foible to shortchange the stores of heaven.
Joy of heaven,
stuff of earth;
divine touching mortal;
glory's flame opened up the path to
heaven's portal...
Friday, October 5, 2007
On Being American, On Being Displaced
Stephen Harper
To start, I’m feeling a bit melancholy as of late. I can’t quite put my hand to it …. Truth of it is I can put my hand right on it but I don’t care to talk about that. Where am I going? I finished the book Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini recently and I had a passage that affected me and I remembered the page so as to expound. Turns out I didn’t remember the page correctly and the passage is lost as is the intent behind said passage. You see I was going to use the passage to remind me of what struck me. “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
It’s o.k. though because there was something else that struck me. The book details the main characters life with his father in pre (Russian) war Afghanistan. First off the book is beautiful. This is the talent that elevates mere words to literature. As I traveled through the book I embraced his center. His knowing where he came from and how distinct that is from other lands, even other villages. Traditions, be they cultural or religious, really give one something to stand on. It gives one a place.
I look at the carnage that is distinctly American. We are the stuff washed up on the far shore. Assembled and stuck together with sweat, even passion. Maybe just survival. It is a land of drive thrus so we don’t have to connect. Connection is messy. When I was a child I remember McDonalds posted the number of burgers sold. Not eaten, just sold. At the point of absurdity they now just trumpet “billions and billions served”. An update of Biblical scriptures would have us numbering our offspring “as the burgers of McDonalds. Verily.
But I realized I don’t have those cultural traditions that are more than quaint. It is a thing that can hold neighbors together and it marks ones territory. Our territory is for sale. My mother’s parents were from Italy. A large Italian family that gathered continually at their home where food was piled high and bocce ball was won not so much from talent but from how susceptible an uncle was from Nonie’s dandelion wine. I was young and there were tons of us always running around the property. Poppi-Joe died. Noni passed within a couple months. I was about 7 or 8. From that point I don’t remember ever getting together as a family again save funerals and weddings. We became Americanized. Separate but equal. My father was neither Italian nor catholic and his family traditions were destitution and alcoholism neither of which he participated in. Thankfully. But what he wasn’t shown, family, was passed on. This wandering distraction of a life. Something just off center. Shallow focus.
Now, we got the money. I live in the wealthiest state in the union which means I live in the wealthiest place on the planet. Anyone that has seen my profile knows I never miss a meal. But there are curses to our blessings. And I’m not so sure we fully understand what a blessing is. Is it small wonder that our children need to bring arms to school to ….. what, even a score? Feel better about themselves? The experts are still swishing that bitter taste in their mouths before they spit out a conclusion. And just like wine it always comes down to individual taste. There is an estimated 30+ serial murderers roaming our country at present. We have the wealth.
All that distilled into this; I am American to the bone. My family gets together on Thanksgiving. Well, one of my two brothers lives in Florida and the other family are all vegetarians. Turkey be damned. Gravy too. I wish I had made up a whole slew of traditions as my kids grew up. I didn’t think to. I didn’t know I was supposed to. They should have just been there. There is nothing that kids do in my neighborhood that I did or my parents did. We are as changing as shopping malls. Even the analogies use current vernacular because nothing old sticks. Or is it metaphor? I used to know the difference.
As I ramble I do realize the spiritual aspect in all of this. Traditions can give one a sense of place. Even in a culture removed from any semblance of God their traditions solidify them. They won’t stalk each other to fulfill a fantasy and they won’t secret their dad's revolver in their knapsack for an ego boost. But then they are left with a gnawing that tradition doesn’t fulfill. There are books of these stories. Truckloads. They even make their traditions God and their burning candles give off a pleasant odor. Even if it covers something that lies decaying just under the sound structure.
The remarkable advantage of being American is that we have no tradition to edify. Our hunger, to, goes to the marrow. Why else do Americans worship all that they do? We are starving. Other cultures abate this hunger with tradition we cover ours with stuff. They set the table exactly the same every generation. But their plates are empty. We pile our paper plates high with salacious abundance all set on TV trays. And when the bite is taken we find it is a semblance of food craftily constructed of Styrofoam
I wasn’t complaining. I really wasn’t. I was just chewing on something and I had to spit it out. Some wines are bitter. Especially wine that comes in a large cardboard box with a pull out plastic spout. Our traditions are every bit as transient as our technology. Every bit as transient as Americans. Yet there are no new uncharted lands to the west. The temperate ideal of southern California is smothered in emissions and an array of highways that don’t drive us together but separate us with vast cement plains. Plains where no buffalo dare roam. America is settling. And unsettling. But in whatever grand political experiment that history has sprinkled over us like some loving compost we find someone gets plowed under. And this always creates fertile conditions for the church to grow. Totalitarianism, fascism, communism, capitalism, harperism ….. yeah, I’ve got a world domination scheme going on. That a problem? Take it up with my security officer after you sign over all your wine boxes, pal.
So, all this comes to what? I always tell my friends that there is no truth in politics. There is no truth in any of it. Save Jesus. Jesus saves. “What’s so remarkable about that steve?”. What’s remarkable is that I am sounding very much like Billy Graham. Without the clout. George Beverly Shea on my iPod. No matter how complicated no matter how fractured it all is Jesus seems to be the constant. Then and now. I’m wondering why, oh why I get so distracted? It’s nothing more than lint exposed in the sun and I’m always the cat dashing after it. Problem is; I’m no cat. How tough can it be to remember that.
To start, I’m feeling a bit melancholy as of late. I can’t quite put my hand to it …. Truth of it is I can put my hand right on it but I don’t care to talk about that. Where am I going? I finished the book Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini recently and I had a passage that affected me and I remembered the page so as to expound. Turns out I didn’t remember the page correctly and the passage is lost as is the intent behind said passage. You see I was going to use the passage to remind me of what struck me. “The mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
It’s o.k. though because there was something else that struck me. The book details the main characters life with his father in pre (Russian) war Afghanistan. First off the book is beautiful. This is the talent that elevates mere words to literature. As I traveled through the book I embraced his center. His knowing where he came from and how distinct that is from other lands, even other villages. Traditions, be they cultural or religious, really give one something to stand on. It gives one a place.
I look at the carnage that is distinctly American. We are the stuff washed up on the far shore. Assembled and stuck together with sweat, even passion. Maybe just survival. It is a land of drive thrus so we don’t have to connect. Connection is messy. When I was a child I remember McDonalds posted the number of burgers sold. Not eaten, just sold. At the point of absurdity they now just trumpet “billions and billions served”. An update of Biblical scriptures would have us numbering our offspring “as the burgers of McDonalds. Verily.
But I realized I don’t have those cultural traditions that are more than quaint. It is a thing that can hold neighbors together and it marks ones territory. Our territory is for sale. My mother’s parents were from Italy. A large Italian family that gathered continually at their home where food was piled high and bocce ball was won not so much from talent but from how susceptible an uncle was from Nonie’s dandelion wine. I was young and there were tons of us always running around the property. Poppi-Joe died. Noni passed within a couple months. I was about 7 or 8. From that point I don’t remember ever getting together as a family again save funerals and weddings. We became Americanized. Separate but equal. My father was neither Italian nor catholic and his family traditions were destitution and alcoholism neither of which he participated in. Thankfully. But what he wasn’t shown, family, was passed on. This wandering distraction of a life. Something just off center. Shallow focus.
Now, we got the money. I live in the wealthiest state in the union which means I live in the wealthiest place on the planet. Anyone that has seen my profile knows I never miss a meal. But there are curses to our blessings. And I’m not so sure we fully understand what a blessing is. Is it small wonder that our children need to bring arms to school to ….. what, even a score? Feel better about themselves? The experts are still swishing that bitter taste in their mouths before they spit out a conclusion. And just like wine it always comes down to individual taste. There is an estimated 30+ serial murderers roaming our country at present. We have the wealth.
All that distilled into this; I am American to the bone. My family gets together on Thanksgiving. Well, one of my two brothers lives in Florida and the other family are all vegetarians. Turkey be damned. Gravy too. I wish I had made up a whole slew of traditions as my kids grew up. I didn’t think to. I didn’t know I was supposed to. They should have just been there. There is nothing that kids do in my neighborhood that I did or my parents did. We are as changing as shopping malls. Even the analogies use current vernacular because nothing old sticks. Or is it metaphor? I used to know the difference.
As I ramble I do realize the spiritual aspect in all of this. Traditions can give one a sense of place. Even in a culture removed from any semblance of God their traditions solidify them. They won’t stalk each other to fulfill a fantasy and they won’t secret their dad's revolver in their knapsack for an ego boost. But then they are left with a gnawing that tradition doesn’t fulfill. There are books of these stories. Truckloads. They even make their traditions God and their burning candles give off a pleasant odor. Even if it covers something that lies decaying just under the sound structure.
The remarkable advantage of being American is that we have no tradition to edify. Our hunger, to, goes to the marrow. Why else do Americans worship all that they do? We are starving. Other cultures abate this hunger with tradition we cover ours with stuff. They set the table exactly the same every generation. But their plates are empty. We pile our paper plates high with salacious abundance all set on TV trays. And when the bite is taken we find it is a semblance of food craftily constructed of Styrofoam
I wasn’t complaining. I really wasn’t. I was just chewing on something and I had to spit it out. Some wines are bitter. Especially wine that comes in a large cardboard box with a pull out plastic spout. Our traditions are every bit as transient as our technology. Every bit as transient as Americans. Yet there are no new uncharted lands to the west. The temperate ideal of southern California is smothered in emissions and an array of highways that don’t drive us together but separate us with vast cement plains. Plains where no buffalo dare roam. America is settling. And unsettling. But in whatever grand political experiment that history has sprinkled over us like some loving compost we find someone gets plowed under. And this always creates fertile conditions for the church to grow. Totalitarianism, fascism, communism, capitalism, harperism ….. yeah, I’ve got a world domination scheme going on. That a problem? Take it up with my security officer after you sign over all your wine boxes, pal.
So, all this comes to what? I always tell my friends that there is no truth in politics. There is no truth in any of it. Save Jesus. Jesus saves. “What’s so remarkable about that steve?”. What’s remarkable is that I am sounding very much like Billy Graham. Without the clout. George Beverly Shea on my iPod. No matter how complicated no matter how fractured it all is Jesus seems to be the constant. Then and now. I’m wondering why, oh why I get so distracted? It’s nothing more than lint exposed in the sun and I’m always the cat dashing after it. Problem is; I’m no cat. How tough can it be to remember that.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
REDEMPTION UNFOLDED by Judy Biltcliffe
Majesty bows in obedient genuflection to the will of the Most High
"here am I, send me"
Humility in literal motion
Beauty the interloper takes a stance
Amidst all that refuses to yield
Love reposes itself against a backdrop of flesh and grace and willingness
Compassion grows
And strolls the darkness
A lily among thorns
Joys' countenance betrayed by the carnage of the human heart
Recompense counted out with so many blows to the flesh
God's bargain for ransomed humanity in the temple of war's theater
Death's toll pays the price
As glory's reprieve voices itself among the unheard moans of angels
It is finished!
Grief and love embrace over a poured out drink offering
fragrance and linen caress the emptied vessel as
Darkness closes in on light
God's indescribable gift left unopened
Resurrection descends
Forced to retrieve what it did not take
Return to earth
Faithfulness springs forth with a scattering of gifts abroad
God ascends amid shouts of joy
The Lord to thunderous trumpet applause
Victory fashions a crown of love and compassion
For all who would bow down to receive
For those who believe
The light shines in the darkness
For He has done it!
"here am I, send me"
Humility in literal motion
Beauty the interloper takes a stance
Amidst all that refuses to yield
Love reposes itself against a backdrop of flesh and grace and willingness
Compassion grows
And strolls the darkness
A lily among thorns
Joys' countenance betrayed by the carnage of the human heart
Recompense counted out with so many blows to the flesh
God's bargain for ransomed humanity in the temple of war's theater
Death's toll pays the price
As glory's reprieve voices itself among the unheard moans of angels
It is finished!
Grief and love embrace over a poured out drink offering
fragrance and linen caress the emptied vessel as
Darkness closes in on light
God's indescribable gift left unopened
Resurrection descends
Forced to retrieve what it did not take
Return to earth
Faithfulness springs forth with a scattering of gifts abroad
God ascends amid shouts of joy
The Lord to thunderous trumpet applause
Victory fashions a crown of love and compassion
For all who would bow down to receive
For those who believe
The light shines in the darkness
For He has done it!
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