...wondering and weary

In Lenten practice we, with Jesus, 'turn our faces toward Jerusalem', facing along with him the steps that led to betrayal, accusation, abandonment, and death. We spend ourselves in meditative practices that guide us deeper into Jesus' experience--so that, having suffered with him, the Easter of rising might be infused with a celebration infused with depth of meaning and debt of love.

In Advent practice the breathless steps we take toward the oddly-filled manger imbue our days with a sense of wonder. The gentle, expectant searching for hope, peace, joy, love in unexpected places--in a stable? among the ragged people? sought by faraway star-scientists?--can create the feeling that things, things, are possible.

Wonder is in this world at Advent.

But so is weariness.

Even in candleglow, we see the dust in the corners of our lives, and the ugly cobwebs high in the eaves of others. We notice the good intentions and horrid execution of strangers, and of friends. We have big plans, and we blow them. The very people, and institutions, that we count on to make the world kinder, and lovelier, let us down. We mean to be better, and we aren't.

And we are so weary.

I have to think that, somehow, all of the wonder, and all of the weariness, is gathered into this Advent journey. I will keep walking. I will find out.

...for all the days we have

We praise all we know of you!
We praise you in holy places we have made for worship.
and in holy places you alone could have dreamt into existence!
We praise you for what you have done,
we praise you for the essence of who you are!
We search for ways to praise you ---
with horns,
with strings,
with drums and shakers,
with pipes,
with bells,
with crashing cymbals,
with the dance!
We, all of us who take our breath,
from the first day you give us till our last,
we praise you!
We praise all we know of you,
in all the ways we know, 
for all the days we have!
---Psalm 150 (para. laca)

...in the face of this cold

Praise to you from the beloved community,

rising to you from your own!

For you do what is needed 

for us to dwell secure,

for our community to continue 

after our own time is done.

You grant freedom from anxiety

and freedom from need, 

filling the fields with lovely wheat.

You let your word be known,

like swift-flowing water.

The snow you send is like a 

fine wool blanket,

the frost like ash,

the hail like crumbs---

how are we to stand 

in the face of this cold?

But your word, that swift word,

is sent from you,

and melts them away in an instant;

you breathe the gentle wind into being,

and the frozen waters flow again.

You make your word known to your people,

in a relationship shared by none other.

Praise to you from your own!

---Psalm 147:12-20 (para. laca)

...open-eyed awe

My song rises from a thankful place;
a song accompanied on strings.
You cover the sky with clouds,
they grow heavy with rain 
you intend for the thirsty earth,
for the new grass reaching skyward 
on the hill.
This is the cycle you spun out of 
creative vitality
to provide the animals with their food, 
the young birds with what they need.
You take delight,
but not in the strength of power,
like a mighty stallion;
you take pleasure, 
but not in the feat of speed,
like a lithe runner;
your deep joy is in those 
who approach you with 
the open-eyed awe of children,
who put their hope in the 
steadfastness of 
your love.
---Psalm 147:7-11 (para. laca)

...full of grace

I lift your name,
you who will not be named.
It is good to let praise rise to you;
for you are full of grace,
and a graceful song is fitting.
You build up your beloved community;
you gather us, outcasts all.
You heal the broken hearts,
you bind up the torn places.
You number the stars,
you name them.
You are great in mystery,
abundant in strength,
measureless in understanding.
As you cast the wicked mighty to the ground,
you lift up the lowly downtrodden.
I lift your name,
you who will not be named.
---Psalm 147:1-6 (para. laca)

...thanks be, blessing be.

The earth hums with frequencies
of deep joy before you!
I join the eternal procession of all
echoing the gladness of abiding 
in your presence.
I have known on my very soul 
that you are God.
You have made me for you,
and you shepherd me.
I draw near to you garbed in gratitude,
close to you perfumed with praise.
Thanks be,
blessing be.
For you are the heart of goodness;
the steadfastness of your love 
began before, and lasts into forever;
the steadiness of your faithful attention
is for generations long gone and yet to come.
Thanks be,
blessing be.
---Psalm 100 (para. laca)

...an acceptable time

As for me, Mystery, 

I lift my prayer to you.

At an acceptable time,

when your steadfast love 

overflows its bounds,

answer,

for I call out and the silence is deafening.

At an acceptable time, 

when your faithful help

flourishes like wheat,

rescue me,

for I am sinking and the waters are deep.

At an acceptable time,

when your pity

churns like the tide,

save ---

from flood, 

or deep, 

or Pit.

At an acceptable time,

answer, 

you whose goodness

is defined and demonstrated

by steadfast love;

turn to me,

show me the fullness of your mercy.

Let me look into your face, and

look into mine;

I am falling --- how long

shall I wait for you?

Draw near,

pay the price for me,

at an acceptable time.

---Psalm 69:13-18 (para. laca)

...bright hope for tomorrow

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923

The blessings of a life with God are many and varied, and this familiar hymn explores lots of them. One verse speaks of the blessings of nature --- the change of the seasons (can I get an Amen for the beautiful weather lately?), the constellations in their utterly predictable paths, all of nature witnessing the attentions of a good God with imagination and aspiration.

I will admit to the next verse being my favorite, though, and it’s all about the third line --- “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” God provides for us not only what we need to get through whatever presently troubles us --- worry, sorrow, fear --- but offers us a view of a tomorrow bright with hope. This seems to me the gift that keeps on giving.

All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided, indeed.

...etched on their hearts

The days come, they come,
says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with my beloved in Israel
and in Judah.
It won't be like the covenant of old,
when I led the children by the hand 
up out of their bondage in Egypt---
a covenant broken, 
even though I stood as head of household 
for them, strong and caring, says the Lord.
But this is the new covenant I will make 
with my beloved people after those days,
the Lord says: 
my law will be an inner guide,
etched on their hearts
as surely as if on stone;
I will be their own, 
and they will be mine.
The need for second-hand knowledge of me
will pass away;
"Know God" won't have to be spoken,
for my people will know,
from least to greatest in the land,
says the Lord;
for I forgive the shortcomings
of my beloved people,
and cede my right to remember their wrongs
from now till forever.
---Jeremiah 31:31-34 (para. laca)

...the good of the crossroads

My prayer for the holy city:
"May the lives of all who love you
be enriched in the very act of loving.
Peace fill the spaces between your walls,
pervasive safety make watchtowers obsolete."
For the sake of love,
for my beloved ones, I gladly say,
"Let peace reign!"
For the sake of the abiding place 
of Mystery, the heart of love,
I will seek the good of the crossroads.
---Psalm 122:6-9 (para. laca)

Jerusalem is an important city, and has been for thousands of years. The meeting place of three major world religions, and too often their boiling point. Open the newspaper (or, more likely, your home page) and, chances are, it won't be hard to find a headline concerning unrest in the Holy Land. Ironically enough, as holy days approach, the tensions ramp up, religious fervor fueling the fires of suspicion and hatred.

Open the Scriptures, and you see the same stories, Beta version. Jerusalem, the city with peace (salem) in the name, but none in the streets. Religious strife, political machinations, tribal feuding all kept Jerusalem from experiencing shalom, the 'wholeness that leads to life' that we translate peace.

And we should pray for peace in this holy place, pour out our hearts for peace. And we should add feet to our prayers, acting in ways that promote peace in this part of the world where it is possible for us.

But the world is a kind of Jerusalem. Through global travel, internet, and media of all kinds, our world has shrunk considerably, and our global village is just that. And our Jerusalem is an incredibly diverse place, with innumerable divisions of race, clan, faith, gender, politics, and economics. And those divisions cause distrust, and inequity, and violence, and hoarding. And fear, which may be the long, ugly taproot of them all.

Our Jerusalem is this world at the crossroads. And we are all in the crosshairs. We can be destroyed by the fear we foment. Or we can be enriched by the very act of loving. This is peace.

Seek the good of the crossroads.

Enjoy a beautiful sung prayer for peace by a talented woman I am privileged to know, Amanda Powell:
https://youtu.be/VX9L3zfZ_dc

...I sing you

I sing you,
with all my soul I sing you!
I seek to give my spirit wing
with each new day,
with rising song lift you 
for my ever.
I've found gladness in knowing 
your help is my sure footing,
your hope is my soaring,
maker of under and over,
the blue all around.
You are faithful:
you pursue justice for the innocent accused;
you fill hungry mouths by your provision.
You grant freedom to the bound,
clarity to the unseeing;
you carry the burden of the bent as if
it were you own;
you rain down love on those 
consumed with law, drown us in love.
You keep watch over the unnoticed;
you stand for the underserved and neglected,
you shake your head as the wicked 
bring about their own destruction.
The community you dream for us 
will be forever. 
I sing you.
---Psalm 146:1-2, 5-10 (para. laca)

...as if to touch you

Hear, for I call;
in your faithfulness, listen,
in your righteousness, answer.
Reserve judgement against me,
for who among the living 
can stand under your perfection?
I stretch my hands as if to touch you,
my thirsting spirit longs 
for your quenching.
Will you answer?
I have grown weary with the waiting.
Do not turn away from me,
or I will surrender hope like one
damned to hell.
Let me hear the morning song
of your hesed, your steadfast love,
for all my trust is lifted to you.
Let me know your wisdom
and I will follow,
for all my soul is lifted to you.
Teach me what you have in store,
for you are mine.
In your goodness make my path,
and lead me on it
...for I am your servant.
---Psalm 143:1-2, 6-8, 10, 12b (para. laca)

...stand in your way

Where can I go that your spirit is not?
Or where can I slip away from your presence?
If I take to the heights, lost to the eye,
you.
If I plunge to the depths, to abide,
you.
If I soar on wings of dawn
to the spot where sea meets sky,
even there, you before me,
even there, you surrounding me.
When I think that surely the darkness
should cover me over,
and where there once was light
only deep dark remains,
even that stifling dark is
not, to you;
the new-moon sky is like noon-day,
for dark does not stand in your way.
---Psalm 139:7-12 (para. laca)

...you envelop me

You, and you alone, 
have looked on me long enough
to know my soul.
You know the minutiae of my mundane,
the sinking, the rising;
the thoughts that occupy me,
dark to dark.
You seek both my footfalls
and my resting breath
with equal concern;
no way of mine is an 
unknown quantity to you.
Before my thoughts take tone,
leave lip,
you know them for what they are,
even what I intend them to be.
You envelop me, 
I am surrounded by your care.
Nothing in my heart or mind can grasp 
the beauty of knowing this,
knowing you, Mystery.
---Psalm 139:1-6 (para. laca)

...heart, be broken

Let your heart be tender and your vision clear ---

see the world as God sees, serve Him far and near:

Let your heart be broken by another’s pain,

Share your rich resources --- give and give again.

---Bryan Jeffery Leech, 1975

I’ve heard it…have you? Someone who has dedicated his or her life to serving “the least of these” is described as a “bleeding heart”. The implication is that if you are giving to others, serving others, you are being taken advantage of. And perhaps that is sometimes true. If you are going to pour out your life for others, you will be used from time to time. Perhaps Jesus was.

In this verse from the hymn, we are called to two complementary characteristics to guide our actions. We are to cultivate both tender hearts and clear vision. We are to serve, act, share, and give, all guided by hearts that feel the pain of those in distress and vision that clearly sees the source of that pain. With heart and eye, we seek to salve wounds and seek solutions. With heart and eye, we serve God in a way that the practical world may not ever understand.

And that’s OK.

...short of soul

From Mount Hor the people set out by the way to the Sea of Reeds, to bypass the land of Edom; but, on the way, they became long of grumble, and short of soul.
---Numbers 21:4 (para. laca)

The people of Israel, during the sojourn in the wilderness, often remind me of the Keystone Cops --- one frantic, hopeless, ridiculous antic after another as they bumble their way toward making a 40-year journey out of an 11-mile weekend jaunt. Could they be any more clueless? Could they have any more positive signs that the One God was leading them? Good grief! Yet, time and again, God's chosen people checked 'NO' and tried their best to pass the note back across the row to the hopeful-looking kid in the new sneakers and shy grin.

Things had gotten bad. A few verses later, the people even yelled into the sky that they hated the miserable food.  That fell out of the sky. Every day. For free. Just because. Yeah. They were those people. The ones movies and Buzzfeed Videos and SNL skits (and we) like to make fun of. Partly because they deserve it. Partly because they are such an easy target.

You see, they'd got impatient. With the journey. With Moses, for sure. Most definitely with the once miraculous-seeming manna (the very name of which translates, "What IS it?!"). And they were impatient with God. And the Hebrew word used here that we translate with our English word 'impatient' can be illuminated with the phrase 'short of soul'.

Short of soul. I've been down that 11-mile path before, dusty and thirsty and bone-weary and ready for anything but the same old thing. I've been long of grumble, and short of soul.

And a grace was raised up for me in that dry place, and it wasn't on my own strength my soul was restored.

...there is mercy

From depths I could not have imagined
I call to you, One.
Hear. 
Will you hear?
This mystery ---
let the ear of your attention
note the voice of my reaching.
For, if you, if you are the one
who measures shortcomings, 
which of us could stand?
But with you there is mercy, 
mercy;
and we count it holiness in you.
I wait for you, my soul stills itself,
my hope rests on a word from you;
my spirit longs for your advent
more than the sleepless search the sky
for the first streaks of cold purple dawn.
---Psalm 130:1-6 (para. laca)

...you enwrap me

My gaze endlessly scans the rugged foothills ---
if help is there, 
where?
Is it you, Mystery,
spinner of loft and loam?
It is you who will steady
my wavering step;
you stand guard through the night 
to keep watch beside me.
You who keep your beloved
will neither doze nor dream,
not in all the watches of the night.
You nursemaid me;
you protect me from the harshest of life.
When light and heat prove too much,
you shelter;
you enwrap me in your safety when moonlight
feels sinister.
You keep evil from overwhelming me;
you preserve.
You sanctify my goings and comings 
now and tomorrow and 
tomorrow.
---Psalm 121 (para. laca)

...joy in the coming

A clarion call from the heart of earth,

"The Unsearchable is the most high!

The world you have imagined for us

is set in its course; there it shall spin.

You rule among your people 

with an even and discerning hand."

The stars sing,

the very earth thrums with joy;

the seas churn and and foam their praise,

creatures of the deep take note;

the waving fields bend, 

ready for the offering, 

beasts of the field yield up praise. 

Now the trees,

even the trees of the forest --

where the shadows lie 

long and cool and silent --

even the trees begin their humming.

I hear it, even now, a sound of pure joy

before you, Mystery; 

for you are coming,

you are coming to be judge

on this blue and green planet.

And there is joy in the coming, 

because in the judging, most high,

there is truthful rightness.

---Psalm 96:10-13 (para. laca)

...set us all shaking

I will sing you something new;
the earth bursts with it,
blessing your name;
every song a new attempt to tell 
the fullness of your ongoing salvation;
every shout a new chapter in your story
to all the world,
of your moving in the world.
You are vast;
o, that my praise could match 
that vastness.
Any god I could imagine, you exceed;
only you create on a universal scale.
Majesty and dignity herald your coming,
strength and beauty adorn the 
place of your abiding.

Let it be known, tribes and peoples,
the One who is Mystery 
is the source of strength.
What will you offer,
when you find yourself drawn to the heart 
of the Presence?
Offer the best of who you are
to the One wrapped in brilliance;
let it set you shaking, 
let it set us all shaking.

---Psalm 96:1-9 (para. laca)