Tuesday, September 22, 2015

A Gentle Thing.........




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Come

Quiet
your Martha heart
dashing about
fixing
fussing
frantic

no need
no need...

all that needs done
is done

Come
Sit
Be Still
Be Small

I AM Big Enough

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"Cease Striving.
Know that I AM God."
-Psalm 46:10

Monday, September 21, 2015

Rise



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Dead.

He was Dead.

Past the Point-Of-No-Return
Beyond Hope of Healing
A poster child of unanswered prayer
Underscoring God's Silence

Against this macabre backdrop
Mary and Martha mourned
the Loss of their Beloved Lazerus
Soaked in the Almighty's Silence
And the Loudness of Anticlimax

Friends, in response,
Surrounded the sisters
with flimsy songs of the Sweet By-and-By

While Jesus came on the scene
to deliver a Powerful Here-and-Now

The world's thirst has grown too great 
to be slaked with Sunday morning sentimental slush,
Man's Very Real Need
for The Bread of Life
can no longer be placated 
with potlucks, pithy pulpits, and polished prose

When the Rubber meets the Road
and men need Miracles,
The Beloved of God better Know their God
and be ready to offer
Resurrection

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"...my speech and preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of Power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the Power of God."
-1 Corinthians 2:4-5

Sunday, September 13, 2015

New


"The Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces

But the LORD was not in the wind; 

and after the wind an earthquake, 

But the LORD was not in the earthquake; 

and after the earthquake, a fire

But the LORD was not in the fire; 

After the fire came a sound of Delicate Stillness, 
A Still, Small Voice, 
A Gentle Whisper."

-1 Kings 19:11-12

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Rosh Hashanah , the Jewish new year 5776, begins tonight, at Sundown.

It is also called The Feast of Trumpets, or, in Hebrew, Yom Teruah, 
which means literally, "day of shouting/raising a noise"

May God give you, in this new year, joy befitting the blast of trumpets, shouts and raising a noise...

But may it also be for you

a year of Peace that passes understanding
Stilling of the storm
Beauty for ashes

May He make this for you,

The Year of 
The Gentle Whisper.

Shalom, my friends,
Shanah Tovah,
Happy New Year

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"You crown the year with Your goodness"
Psalm 65:11

Friday, September 11, 2015

9/11 Remembered


I wrote this five years ago, a tribute to the day we all remember, and to the ephemeral unity this destruction paradoxically brought to our country, its leaders, and their constituents, when, for an all too brief and beautiful moment, congress stood together on the steps of the white house, actually holding hands, and there was a fleeting forgetfulness of differences and division, a trading of the self-serving status quo for one of self-transcendence, a laying down of the vitriol that too often trademarks our government, and a taking up of the standard,
 - may it be said of us again -

"United We Stand"




Two towers fell today ten years ago
Two lives torn apart and ten million more
Two parties came together and cried out to One God
Dual towers downed ending duality on our sod

But oh what ephemeral unity
Was born of death that day
That Tower fell so swiftly
So silently gave way

To ambivalence and bickering
To answers we could not find
To forgetfulness of heroes
To the novocaine of time

The best of human nature
Could not stand the test
But sadly deferred
Humbly bowed
And laid itself to rest.

 
-E.A.A. "Hindsfeet" 9/11/10

~ ~ ~

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity...For there the LORD commands the blessing"
-Psalm133:1,3

Monday, September 7, 2015

Of Dogma and Deity



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You cling so tightly to your dogma
Instead of to Deity

Let the flimsy boat
of your 'do and don't' doctrine
break up
The one that insulates you from falling
into the Living Breathing Beautiful Fearsome
Ocean of Him

Jesus was rightly called
"The Stone of Stumbling"
"The Rock of Offense"
The Scandalon

He never missed an opportunity
to scandalize their ersatz "faith"
when it was in anything other than God
To knock the legs out from under
whatever they were leaning on
if it kept them from leaning on Him...
To expose the base "get out of hell free" cards
we so blithely dole out to a world starving for God
"don't drink" "do drink" "don't heal on the Sabbath"
"don't wear that" "do wear this" "be rich" "be poor"...

All of these counterfeit pursuits,
base alternatives to knowing The Almighty
Nothing more than chasing foxes...

And He doesn't want us chasing foxes...

He wants us
Chasing
Him.

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"Jesus said, 'I AM the Way' " 

Period.