Kiss

Lord that I might kiss thy face,
Kiss thy face as one who loves thee,
No longer as thy Judas,
But new, again, as thy friend and lover.

Lord that I might engage you with all that I might,
Knowing it is not within my power,
Knowing that it cannot end with me.

Lord I ask for thy Holy Embrace.

Lent

Lent is, as described by Buechner, akin to tithing a year. 10% of a year is roughly 40 days. 40 is also a symbolic number to the Jews and early Christians in that it is the number of transfiguration. Moses was in Midian before going back to Egypt. Then he's in the desert for 40 years. Christ spent40 days in the wilderness before being tempted.

Lent, then, is our time of transfiguration. It is a time to give something up. However, as Paul Tournier states in A Place for You, we need to have something to abdicate before abdication. That is to say, we need an identity to shed before we can shed the identity. Francis of Assisi was able to take the vow of poverty after living the life of the wealthy; Diogenes the Cynic was able to renounce his position only after acquiring the position. Lent must be the abdication of that which you have, in order to transform yourself into that which you desire. Thus, again as Tournier states it, the first move has been completed; a personage has been identified that we then want to shed.

The second stage that I see in Lent is the process of abdication. The shunning of one's former self insofar that they will transform. However, we must ask ourselves what it is that we are trying to transform. If we are attempting to abdicate our Person, then we are in for a world of hurt. We are not to shed that which we are; we are to shed that which we do. The shame as I see it in modern man is that he confuses that which he does or has done with his Person. I know that I myself have fallen guilty to this, but alas I have shed the shackles (yes, I use the word shackles) of the doctrine of inherent sin. We are not sinful; we are prone to sin. Lent, then, or at least the second movement - that is, abdication - is the recognition of the separateness between us and sin. The transformation that arises from abdication is the realization that we are once again able to view ourselves as useful tools of God. And once the second movement - that is, away - has taken place and we have transitioned, we are then required to take a third movement: reincorporation.

This third movement is the return to our lives, or at least the other 90% of our year, anew: free from our previous personage. However, this is not to say that we are to be personage-less, and this is where I feel the Orthodox or Catholic traditions of Lent is more true to life. To explain this, I must first define one of the most evident of schisms between the Catholic and the Protestant movements: the lack of symbols in worship. Symbols are designed to help us, to aid us, they are not to be worshiped, but rather worship through. The Protestant movement removed all symbols from the church, and, arguably, symbolically calls the person to remove symbols from themselves. That is, I mean to say that Protestant man has a belief that he must attempt to live a personage-less life, which we are not able to do. Many Protestants don't even celebrate Lent as it is an Orthodox and Catholic symbol of faith. Protestant man has taken the abdication of symbols to far and lives a torn life: a life that says he is not to live within roles. The paradoxical nature of this is that Protestant churches have high rates of shame-based, institutionalized role-players who have been told for far too long that they are not to play roles; that is, they have not been able to accept a personage, and thus they attempt to abdicate that which they do not have. Also, in the Orthodox and Catholic faiths the practice of Lent is the acquisition of a new practice that they wish to incorporate into their lives. They symbolic meaning of this is that they have a new place to live, as Tournier would say, they have a new personage; and identity.

Lent, the transfiguration of man, is a rite of passage, and in a rite-less society, we need something to hold to. We need rituals; we need symbols; we need rites in order to form for ourselves a place. A place to live.

This is my prayer...

Lord, I confess that I do not understand-
-Help thou my clarity.
Lord, I confess that I do not Know-
-Help thou my assurance.
Lord, I confess that my thoughts aren't right-
-Help thou my alignment to truth.

~yet~

Lord- Help me not to rely upon my understanding.
Lord- Hide thyself such that I might still seek thou.
Lord- Help me not to assume righteousness such that I worship my thoughts as idols and not thou.

This is my prayer-

Lord, hear our prayer.

We are all idolaters

Sun scorched bronze statue rises in the distance,
Meant to take the onlooker to a different place.
A different time.
My eyes are affixed to its glow,
Gentle,
Warm,
Inviting.
But my thoughts are on it;
It is my point of desire.
I long not to know the story behind it;
I long to know its creator:
Who? Why? How?
Made with inquisitive mind,
Trained with scientific precision:
I want to know more.
Not to be transfixed to the point and time of the statue.
“Thou shalt not create a graven image!”
Bellows the pastor to the pews,
“Now let us all listen to the word of God,”
He prefaces and begins to speak.
His words.
Who is he?
“God?”
What is this, then?
Graven?
Crafted?
English?
Representations – our best shot:
We worship our idols.
Our best ideals.
OUR best shots.
Our doctrine, our notions, and yet –
Are we not here?
Do we not have to work with the here and now?
Or can we,
Rise above,
Get lost,
In the True God?
A mere representation now – idol!
Can we get lost in God’s essence?
Fearful?
Loved .
Trembling?
All things hold the power to be idols.
Especially things we ourselves create.
And yet; our commands from God:
“Be fruitful and multiply;”
“Name, and create meaning.”
Our thoughts limit God to an idol of ideology.
May God free our hearts to His essence.

Which power posits you?

This is rough, it came to me while walking:

Our generation is the first of the centuries to be completely paradoxical in its presentation and schematization of reality; we are completely narcissistically pluralistic.

At the same time that we are the end all of reality unto ourselves, we “don’t feel the need to impress our reality and beliefs upon others” as modern colloquy will present it; in reality: we believe and don’t believe at the same time that our reality, our truths, are indeed real, are Absolute Truth.

We have complete assurance of our reality: we believe that we are “the shit” as it may stand; and yet, however, we rarely every stand completely, rather falter in our foundation as it is grounded in ourselves that posits our reality. We are not, however, “grounded transparently in the power which posited it [ourselves as relation]” as Kierkegaard would state it.

Insomuch as we are right and real, while maintaining the theory that we cannot however be right as the other is simply as valid, we have no ascription towards an objective mediator of reality. How can we, when the other is but is not inherently right?

When there is no objective mediator, there can be no objectivity to our argument which is the only way to make it transferable to other people, and thus we are forced to attempt to create ourselves into a vacuum; this cannot be, however, and by our own doing insomuch that we believe others opinions are as valid as our own, thus negating our vacuum reality: we both desire and yet cannot be and don't desire in a vacuum.

In that stance, there is no power which can posit us, save ourselves, which is only as stable as our beliefs in that power; the power which posits our beliefs is that which is in turn supposed to posit itself and there is no perpetually self generating stasis.

The sun is hot today. Bright, glowing orb of the heavens, I bless thee and beseech thee: give me rest from thy heat. O Lord who controls the lights, please, for thy servant: grant me relief.

My legs are tired from travel, and my back sore from porting my supplies. The cotton vestments itch and scrape my sweat laden torso. My sandals are worn; the leather creaks with each movement.

My feet! How disgusting my feet! Grimy and covered in dirt; sweat from my legs caking mud to my toes. Jagged rocks have caused numerous lacerations, and dried blood marks only the sections that are not covered in earth.

My destination: I see it! A small hill in the distance – the length from my hut to father’s. I miss father, and mother, my wife and my kids. I haven’t seen them in months.

Why? Why did I undertake this message? This calling? Why did I agree to go? I’m tired, sore, hot, lonely, and my feet! My feet!

Closer now, there it is. I see the spot where I will stand and deliver. What am I even to say? I have not the words. O Lord who controls the earth and its inhabitants – grant thy servant words.

Almost there, a little - aah! Cursed rock! Rest ye in the middle of the road to torture the wandering soul! My feet, you have injured my feet: the vessel of the vassal! I throw you to the depths of the hells, you accursed creation. I damn thee to the depths of nonexistence for your wicked stature.

I cannot continue. My feet are burning, I am tired, the sun – O Lord who controls the universe: please dim the light!

Sheep bray in the distance; a breeze wisps the olive trees.

What am I doing here? I have no message, no life changing speech. I have nothing new to say. I am worthless; certainly not worthy to do Your holy work, O Lord who controls all of time and space. You who reign in Your Holy Land, Yisroel. You who discern every man good and blessed in your sight, O Lord who pours salvation: grant thy servant strength.

Twenty more steps till destination is upon me. Blood is coursing from my feet and on holy ground nonetheless. Tattered they carry my body the last twenty steps, trudging with a might that they cannot know. Strips of flesh are hanging on only through their mercy to me. I collapse and remove my sandals, writhing in the dirt. Rocks that have been digging into my soles fall out of their place, allowing new blood to flow freely onto the blessed land. My wineskin in hand, I begin to wash my wounds. Hand outstretched to the final rock where I will once again stand, I begin to crawl to my appointed spot.

How beautiful on the mountain
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace
who bring good tidings
who proclaim salvation
who say to Zion
“Your God Reigns.”

Ordinary Words

Umbrella, light, landscape, sky –
There is no language of the holy.
The sacred lies in the ordinary.

Is how Deng Ming Dao puts it to open up his section for the day. And Buechner for the same day:

“[My English class] was a course less in literature than in language and the great power that language has to move and in some measure even to transform the human heart.”

And it all returns me to paradox: at the same time our language is inherently limiting; yet it is all we have to communicate with. It is especially limiting here where written (implying distance or separation) language is used.

And at the same time that we are stuck (doomed, to be precise) to a restrictive form of communication: “the sacred lies in the ordinary.” God lies in every steaming, putrid, foul piece of drivel that oozes out of our filthy mouths. He rests within every one of our words. He did, in fact, become: The Word. He became, to us, a metaphor, as all things everywhere are.

What is a word if nothing more than an allusion marker to another deeper meaning? And what is that meaning without a maker to the meaning? On both ends – in no way am I about to condone post-modernism and it’s foolish and deceptive “it all lies in the interpreters perception” stance. Nay, both the speaker and the listener take the word and infer it to mean and be something that they both think the other understands.

Right now, I hope in faith that you and I are talking around the same thing.

In riddles, He spoke, in parables. In metaphors and allusions – just like the rotten, stuck rest of us. Because He KNEW that the only way to convey something, would be to talk around it with ordinary situations and objects with the purest (bad pun) hopes of us getting it.