scraps

sometimes i like to think of God as if he was an old, black woman
sitting out on the porch in the summertime piecing together quilts from old scraps of material
each with its own rich pattern
character
soul
and then i think
each patch gets to be a person
and all of us get mixed up and spread out and placed in our right spots to make some pretty design
and also i like to think that maybe that old, black woman with worn, wrinkly, black hands
took her rusty, metal scissors and cut two pieces of patchwork from the same bright piece of fabric and called one of them you and one of them me
and maybe that's the reason when i'm with you i feel like another part of me is there
and maybe that's why also, once having been with you
i'm alright, but i'd be better if you were here

relative

people talk about truth and the relativity of truth in the postmodern world and whether or not there is absolute truth and the nature of reality. if this world were the true reality, we would know nothing of any other world, ask no questions about other worlds. we would have no reason to question our existence or our circumstances or our being. this is just a place of shifting shadows. the true reality, the truth, lies somewhere deeper than this place. and we have a part of it in us. that's why we know it's there. it's part of us. and because this world is just a metaphor for something better, we cannot trust it to be true to us. it contains truth but it is not truth itself. if we seek the truth in the things of this world we won't find it there. only inconsistency. a metaphor has to have some deeper meaning to convey, some point of reference in order to make sense. a shadow must have a source. a reflection must be reflected by something real. and our world is just a reflection, a shadow. and isn't that why man must explain his life and his world with religion? because somehow it is hardwired into our minds that our story must fit into some greater context. we are not the beginning and the end. only somewhere in between. we know this or we wouldn't even have to ask why we were here. there would be no reason to ask. this world makes sense only when it is placed within a bigger context. here we have the shadow, but the truth lies in the one who casts the shadow. in Christ we find the Truth. our God is reality. our God is.
and his reflection speaks of all his wonder and majesty and love and beauty, but none of it makes sense without him. but if he is given the point of reference, if he becomes the cornerstone, the one whose reflection we now see, then the rest falls into place. the true reality is in the heavenly realms, it is Spirit.
the physical world is less real than we would like to believe. and it is relative because it is not the truth itself, only a shifting tool which points us to a higher truth.



now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face
--1 Corinthians 13:12

A Noble Idea

Sometimes, when I was little, they would use this expression.
And they would say --Don't be ugly to each other-- And by this they meant
stop being hateful toward your playmates, stop pushing yourself to the top, always fighting to self-promote, to step on someone else.
Because it's ugly, it's the stuff of humanity's shame, the mark of the fall.
And I like this expression because it equates ugliness with evil, with sin against one another.
And this in turn associates beauty with love, redefines beauty as being where love is.
And isn't that the beauty and wonder of our God? His unfailing, never-fading love.
A love that he would lavish on us if we would only let him.
That would make us beautiful like he is beautiful.
Would make us like him.

And this, I think, is a noble idea to plant in the mind of a child...

Song

What if You

Joshua Radin

What if you

Could wish me away

What if you

Spoke those words today

I wonder if you'd miss me

When I'm gone

It's come to this, release me

I'll leave before the dawn

But for tonight

I'll stay here with you

Yes, for tonight

I'll lay here with you

But when the sun

Hits your eyes

Through your window

There'll be nothing you can do

What if you

Could hear this song

What if I

Felt like I belong

I might not be leaving

Oh so soon

Began the night believing

I loved you in the moonlight

So, for tonight

I'll stay here with you

Yes, for tonight

I'll lay here with you

But when the sun

Hits your eyes

Through your window

There'll be nothing you can do

I could've treated you better

Better than this

Well, I'm gone, this song's your letter

Can't stay in one place

So, for tonight

I'll stay here with you

Yes, for tonight

I'll lay here with you

But when the sun

Hits your eyes

Through your window

There'll be nothing you can do

Birds

I am sitting on a porch
The air is still, chilly
Sun dipping below trees and mountains
My hand is outstretched in front of me—still, chilly
It is covered by a tiny pile of slippery seeds
They slide between my fingers at the slightest interruption of the stillness
And birds fly back and forth around us
I am silent, still
Now and again little feet tickle my open palm and fingers, spilling seeds onto the porch- wood beneath my feet
And your presence is in the still of the air around us, and I breathe its sweetness
There is an absence of time and circumstance here
The suspension of a moment in the quiet, cool of November
No before
No after
Only here, now
There is peace
And I feel beautiful here.

It is the lack of circumstances I think, of strings, of the pains of history that make memories so welcome in our thoughts.
They require no commitment, no striving, no choice for self-denial
They are nice but then they are not so real as reality, more beautiful because of its hard truth.

Fever

I have fever in my bones.
I keep night-time in my soul.
Sing the blues all day,
I got fever in my bones.

Girl, you speak in un-tamed verse of greater men than me,
And I don’t need no other medicine to quiet me.

You’re playin’ soft rhythm and sweet melody. The stars are trippin’ out of line, and I don’t need no other medicine to quiet me.

Sing me somethin’ sultry, slow. You always rain on my parade. This fever in my bones is killin’ me, but I don’t need no other medicine to quiet me.

I was singin’ songs of pain on street corners and alleyways before you called me yours, blue eyes.
And our music was just in time, but hurtin’ songs ain’t like the lovin’ kind.

Lay a poor man’s money down. It’s all I ask of you.
I’m dancin’ with the Devil now, and Heaven don’t approve

There’s healin’ for our ugliness, but it ain’t in this, it ain’t in this.
Home is waitin’ warm and kind and callin’ us by name.
And I won’t rest til’ I find it Love, and you’re safe there with me. Cause’…

I have fever in my bones.
I keep night-time in my soul.
Sing the blues all day,
I got fever in my bones.

my first mass

Gloire a toi qui etais mort, gloire a toi qui est vivant,
Notre sauveur et notre Dieu, viens Seigneur Jesus!

So the irony is obvious enough. I went to my first Catholic Mass my first Sunday at the international program I'm attending as part of my studies at a small, private, Church of Christ university. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum.
But there is truth at both ends. As well as truth forgotten.
I am more quick, I suppose naturally, to critique my own end and it's lack of color and mystery and to soak up the fresh perspective on the other side of the swinging pendulum, but I would like to think that's a sign of hunger for some sort of balance where I believe balance is seriously lacking.
Somewhere across the spectrum of Christianity I think the vision has been lost. Or really, maybe it's the relationship with Christ that has been lost. The body has been severed from the head.
And we are stumbling around without him.
The good news has lost its goodness, its power to redeem, restore, and unite. Or maybe we have forgotten the message altogether. Maybe we aren't even preaching the gospel anymore.
Somehow our familiarity is beginning to breed contempt. It certainly isn't breeding intimacy.
The church is characterized by division, lack of depth, and charade--not exactly the oneness Jesus prays for in John 17.
Bottom line is we've strayed. And it's time to remember who we are.

"I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." --John 17:22-23