Ah-lay-loo-ee-ah.

Rachmaninoff's vespered alleluias invoke
verities over baffled earphones transubstantiating cigaretted
censers on a glass-topped bar into holy urns of restless
prayer. Odors of earth, sweat, breath and sex raise a
choral rapture of confidence genuflecting before the
whisper of absolution at night's end.

Requiem votaries aflame in a vacant vestibule rouse the
smoke of souls to testify, testify, testify to tears
stinging the nostrils of so incensed a God - incendiary
ire self-consumed in anguish, weeping that washes the
stench of time from a wretched race suffering the fumes of
death in each day's hour.

Resonant voices ascend ever vigilant, ever vulgar,
finding no audience in the firmament above save
mercy deep-drawing from the bloodiest prayer fragile aroma,
mingling scents, expelling what offends, exhaling the
sublime, respiring grace out of time.

Sacred Judgments

In the middle of an excellent series on The Sermon on the Mount at church, I had these thoughts as we considered the opening of Matthew 7 regarding judging each other and the oft-quoted "don't give the sacred to dogs or cast pearls before swine".

Judgment is a sacred prerogative of God's that cannot be turned over to dogs and pigs. Dogs and pigs do not comprehend the value and meaning of judgment in the whole with the companion values of grace, mercy and righteous that are the provenance of the Kingdom of God. God has neither requested nor required us to judge until the day the Kingdom is revealed in its fullness, all is known, and the riches of God are manifest for all to enjoy or to reject. Only in that day will judgment be possible. Only in that day will the full sting of condemnation and full satisfaction of reward be felt and possibly justified. Only in that day will mercy and truth meet together and righteousness and peace kiss. If we are given the prerogative of judgment prematurely, we will ourselves turn on God and ravage Him for His judgments because they do not reflect our own.

Listening Still

I listen carefully for your voice,
  certain it will pulse with baritone smoothness
  massaging my anxieties, securing my soul's footings,
  feeding its fast. I listen in the lyrics of
  songsters and poets, in the cadences of preachers
  and newsmen, in the overheard confidences of diners and
  busriders, in the affection of friends and intimates.
I keep listening, slowly deafening myself
  to higher pitches as if to siren songs or comfortable
  seductions, sure as I am that Truth could not come
  from breasts that too easily give their breath
  to words. Altoed hushes promise
  color and light splash, honey and chocolate, down-
  filled beds and kindled fireplaces. But Reality
  and Identity remain the reserve of deeper
  vibratos stealing upon me like remote thunder
  or rhythmic tide whose weight, regardless how
  familiar and regular, carry me under in surprising
  force to a drowning helplessness that relieves me
  of the burden of my own survival and lifts me
  to a life undeserved but that I reach for
  with every word I utter
  and muscle I flex.
I listen
  and wait
    and listen still.

"Karakter"

You have watched me hobbled by circumstances from birth,
living in shame for what I could not help.
You have taunted me with promise of belonging and
an abominable curse until I don't know which to deny,
or whether to cling to both.
You have known my efforts to outrun myself and become,
become What I do not know;
You have seen me fail miserably,
left with who I always have been until the end
When you write 'Father' across my inheritance and
end the struggle to become myself.

The Question

It is implied in Luther's mot "sin boldly" that we possess great power to sin. Henri Nouwen writes of sin as a powerlessness to do anything but fall short: sin as an enigma of impotency vs. an engine of importunity. Both, I suppose are true and either requires the intervention of God Himself to interrupt our waywardness in an act of might and grace that we might be saved. Might. The tentativeness of the assertion is betrayed in a synonym of 'power' itself and betrays the indeterminacy of certain perseverance and particular election. At the end of it all, I still must fall. Whether it is a fall forward on my face or a fall backward into waiting arms is the question of hourless time.

On the Prodigal

Some observations about the Parable of the Prodigal.

One thing to note in the three parables in Luke 15 (the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son) is they are addressed to teachers and Pharisees. But Jesus began the stories by saying "How many of you...?". Indeed, how many of the teachers and Pharisees would have been shepherds or women - the least likely classes with which any self-respecting spiritual leader would have identified. In using shepherds and women as the protagonists, Jesus immediately distanced His hearers, making their inability to identify with the Father that much more difficult. After all, Jesus was not asking them to put themselves in the place of the lost sheep or son, but with the Seeker. He was asking them if they valued the "least of these" enough, if they loved the "least" enough to pursue them.

A subtext of all three stories is the value Jesus places on Life - not riches - which were lost in all three scenes, and whether lost or found were immaterial to the point. The son lost his own riches; but that he was "dead and is now alive" is the cause for rejoicing.

The wastrel son returns to the Father with only one - rather self-centered, though penitent - thought in his mind. "I have no other place to go." That was all the Father wanted to know - that, in the end, he could trust the Father's love. That was the only fruit of repentance the Father wished to receive.

Jesus never calls the elder son self-righteous or compares him to the Pharisee. He doesn't end the parable with a nudge to the hearers as to say "Feeling a little guilty now?". The elder brother is trapped in a sense of responsibility for everything. he is not relying on his goodness necessarily. He is struggling with the apparent meaninglessness of doing his duty for so long that he cannot enjoy anything in his father's house. He doesn't say "Haven't I been good?". He says "Haven't I worked hard?". He is more a pitiable character than an antagonist. The father does not rebuke him. He assures him of his place and invites him to joy.