Poem: “Blessings” by Ronald Wallace from Long for This World: New and Selected Poems. Copyright University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted with permission.
Blessings
occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.
All around me people
are making silk purses
out of sows’ ears,
getting blood from turnips,
building Rome in a day.
There’s a business
like show business.
there’s something new
under the sun.
Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There’s rest for the weary.
There’s turning back.
There are guarantees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite put your finger on it.
Blessings
occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.
All around me people
are making silk purses
out of sows’ ears,
getting blood from turnips,
building Rome in a day.
There’s a business
like show business.
there’s something new
under the sun.
Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There’s rest for the weary.
There’s turning back.
There are guarantees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite put your finger on it.
............................................................................................
Quotations from Frederick Buechner’s The Faces of Jesus - A Life story,
Paraclete Press, July 2005, ISDN 1-55725-455-9
In his own way, Paul would have perhaps understood either view, Paul as the only one who ever dared speak of the foolishness of God, of the crucifixion itself as folly, of the folly of his own preaching. If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is not such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully---the life you save may be your own—and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law ands order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, get and Jesus says, give. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.
“We are fools for Christ’s sake,” Paul says, faith says---the faith that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus saner than the grim sanity of the world. Through the eyes of faith too, the Last Supper, though on one level a tragic farewell and failure---farce even---is also, at its deepest level, the foreshadowing of great hope and the bodying forth of deep mystery. Frail, falliable, foolish as he knows the disciples to be, Jesus feeds them with himself. The bread is his flesh, the wine his blood, and they are all of them including Judas to eat and drink him down. They are to take his life into themselves and come alive with it, to be his hands and feet in a world where he no longer has hands and feet, to feed his lambs. “Do this in remembrance of me,” Paul quotes him as saying. In eating and the bread and drinking the wine, they are to remember him, Jesus tells them, and so remember him not merely in the sense of letting their minds drift back to him in the dim past but in the sense of recalling him to the immediate present. They are to remember him the way when we remember people we love who have died, our hearts kindle to the living reality of their presence.
In its fullest sense, remembering is far more than a long backward glance, and in its fullest sense the symbol of bread and wine is far more than symbol.
As Albert Schweitzer wrote at the end of The Quest for the Histortical Jesus, “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside. He comes to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same words: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has us to fulfill for our time. He commands, and to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in their toils, the conflicts, the sufferings, which they shall pass through in His Fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”
Thus for Jesus the only distinction among people that ultimately matters seems to be not whether they are churchgoers or non-churchgoers, Catholics or Protestants, Muslims or Jews, but do they or do they not love---love not in the sense of an emotion so much as in the sense of an act of will, the loving act of willing another’s good even, if need arise, at the expense of their own. “Hell is the suffering of being unable to love,” said old Father Zossima or, as John puts it in his first epistle, “He who does not love abides in death.”
For Paul the Resurrection was no metaphor; it was the power of God. And when he spoke of Jesus as raised from the dead, he meant Jesus alive and at large in the world not as some shimmering ideal of human goodness but as the very power of life itself. If the life that was in Jesus died on the cross; if the love that was in him came to an end when his heart stopped beating; if the truth that he spoke was no more if no less timeless than the great truths of any time; if all that he had in him to give to world was a little glimmer of light to make bearable the inexorable approach of endless night---then all was despair.
Glory be to thee, Father
Glory be to thee, Word. Glory be to thee, Grace. Amen
Glory be to thy glory. Amen
I would be saved, and I would save. Amen
I would be loosed, and I would loose. Amen
I would be wounded, and I would wound. Amen
I would be born, and I would bear. Amen
I would eat, and would be eaten. Amen
I would hear, and I would be heard. Amen
Grace danceth, I would pipe. Dance ye all. Amen
I would mourn, Lament ye all. Amen
Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass. Amen
I would flee, and I would stay. Amen
I would adorn, and I would be adorned. Amen
I would be united, and I would unite. Amen
A house I have not, and I have houses. Amen
A lamp am I to thee that beholdest me. Amen
A mirror am I to thee that perceivest me. Amen
A door am I to thee that knowest at me. Amen
A way am I to thee a wayfarer. Amen
THUS, MY BELOVED,
HAVING DANCED WITH US,
THE LORD WENT FORTH.
Paraclete Press, July 2005, ISDN 1-55725-455-9
In his own way, Paul would have perhaps understood either view, Paul as the only one who ever dared speak of the foolishness of God, of the crucifixion itself as folly, of the folly of his own preaching. If the world is sane, then Jesus is mad as a hatter and the Last supper is the Mad Tea Party. The world says, Mind your own business, and Jesus says, There is not such thing as your own business. The world says, Follow the wisest course and be a success, and Jesus says, Follow me and be crucified. The world says, Drive carefully---the life you save may be your own—and Jesus says, Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. The world says, Law ands order, and Jesus says, Love. The world says, get and Jesus says, give. In terms of the world’s sanity, Jesus is crazy as a coot, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without being a little crazy too is laboring less under a cross than under a delusion.
“We are fools for Christ’s sake,” Paul says, faith says---the faith that ultimately the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men, the lunacy of Jesus saner than the grim sanity of the world. Through the eyes of faith too, the Last Supper, though on one level a tragic farewell and failure---farce even---is also, at its deepest level, the foreshadowing of great hope and the bodying forth of deep mystery. Frail, falliable, foolish as he knows the disciples to be, Jesus feeds them with himself. The bread is his flesh, the wine his blood, and they are all of them including Judas to eat and drink him down. They are to take his life into themselves and come alive with it, to be his hands and feet in a world where he no longer has hands and feet, to feed his lambs. “Do this in remembrance of me,” Paul quotes him as saying. In eating and the bread and drinking the wine, they are to remember him, Jesus tells them, and so remember him not merely in the sense of letting their minds drift back to him in the dim past but in the sense of recalling him to the immediate present. They are to remember him the way when we remember people we love who have died, our hearts kindle to the living reality of their presence.
In its fullest sense, remembering is far more than a long backward glance, and in its fullest sense the symbol of bread and wine is far more than symbol.
As Albert Schweitzer wrote at the end of The Quest for the Histortical Jesus, “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside. He comes to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same words: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which He has us to fulfill for our time. He commands, and to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in their toils, the conflicts, the sufferings, which they shall pass through in His Fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”
Thus for Jesus the only distinction among people that ultimately matters seems to be not whether they are churchgoers or non-churchgoers, Catholics or Protestants, Muslims or Jews, but do they or do they not love---love not in the sense of an emotion so much as in the sense of an act of will, the loving act of willing another’s good even, if need arise, at the expense of their own. “Hell is the suffering of being unable to love,” said old Father Zossima or, as John puts it in his first epistle, “He who does not love abides in death.”
For Paul the Resurrection was no metaphor; it was the power of God. And when he spoke of Jesus as raised from the dead, he meant Jesus alive and at large in the world not as some shimmering ideal of human goodness but as the very power of life itself. If the life that was in Jesus died on the cross; if the love that was in him came to an end when his heart stopped beating; if the truth that he spoke was no more if no less timeless than the great truths of any time; if all that he had in him to give to world was a little glimmer of light to make bearable the inexorable approach of endless night---then all was despair.
Glory be to thee, Father
Glory be to thee, Word. Glory be to thee, Grace. Amen
Glory be to thy glory. Amen
I would be saved, and I would save. Amen
I would be loosed, and I would loose. Amen
I would be wounded, and I would wound. Amen
I would be born, and I would bear. Amen
I would eat, and would be eaten. Amen
I would hear, and I would be heard. Amen
Grace danceth, I would pipe. Dance ye all. Amen
I would mourn, Lament ye all. Amen
Whoso danceth not, knoweth not what cometh to pass. Amen
I would flee, and I would stay. Amen
I would adorn, and I would be adorned. Amen
I would be united, and I would unite. Amen
A house I have not, and I have houses. Amen
A lamp am I to thee that beholdest me. Amen
A mirror am I to thee that perceivest me. Amen
A door am I to thee that knowest at me. Amen
A way am I to thee a wayfarer. Amen
THUS, MY BELOVED,
HAVING DANCED WITH US,
THE LORD WENT FORTH.
.........................................................................................................
More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.
Harvey Milk
Harvey Milk
..........................................................................................................
Voice of the Day: Charles Summers
The story goes that a North American missionary went out one day to preach in a barrio of a Brazilian city. Taking John 3:16 as his text, he stood on the corner proclaiming the love of God for all people. A crowd gathered. One man in the crowd interrupted the missionary, 'You are wrong, Senor, God doesn't love us. But the preacher was adamant. Oh, yes. God does love you. God gives all good things, including the Christ, for you. The Brazilian, waving his arms at the squalor surrounding him, replied angrily, Then somebody has been messing with the love of God! If God gave the earth for all people to share and enjoy, someone has been messing with God's plans.
The story goes that a North American missionary went out one day to preach in a barrio of a Brazilian city. Taking John 3:16 as his text, he stood on the corner proclaiming the love of God for all people. A crowd gathered. One man in the crowd interrupted the missionary, 'You are wrong, Senor, God doesn't love us. But the preacher was adamant. Oh, yes. God does love you. God gives all good things, including the Christ, for you. The Brazilian, waving his arms at the squalor surrounding him, replied angrily, Then somebody has been messing with the love of God! If God gave the earth for all people to share and enjoy, someone has been messing with God's plans.
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