Psalm 19
Epiphany 3 - Year C
Lent 3 - Year B
Easter Vigil - Years A, B, C
Proper 19 (24) - Year B
Proper 22 (27) - Year A
What does Madame Day teach every morning? and Professor Night each evening?
Is this a trick question simply because speech is not used?
Probably not. It is an opening to hear other important parts of your life that are also beyond being put into words. For instance, the whole category of sins of omission. How do you see what you haven’t done? How do you hear about what you failed to say?
May you pay attention to the macro as “Madame Day holds classes every morning.” –MSG
May you pay attention to the micro as “Professor Night lectures each evening.” –MSG
May you additionally pay attention to the every-day as “Sister and Brother bring their perspective each mid-day and mid-night.”
These are voices not heard, yet they go out through all the earth!
In the Psalm, “they” are the creation sequence—the evolution of creation—the elements basic to life.
In Scripture, “they” are also the poor, the widows, the children, the alien.
None of “them” has a voice and yet they cry out as mine-canaries deep below every political, economic, and educational system.
Have you heard “them”?
Do you add to the cry for G*D to attend to the vine, the creation, the poor?
Whether it seems your voice is heard or not, even whether you want it to be heard or not, it is important to know where you identify, what you listen to, what you pass on to G*D.
Listen well; speak clearly; act humbly.
May you pay attention to the micro as “Professor Night lectures each evening.” –MSG
May you additionally pay attention to the every-day as “Sister and Brother bring their perspective each mid-day and mid-night.”
None of “them” has a voice and yet they cry out as mine-canaries deep below every political, economic, and educational system.
Listen well; speak clearly; act humbly.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
Listening to the Universe (“Lord”, if you like) clarifies how short-run desires have long-term disasters associated with them. While doing one’s best to take a long-view does not assure good short-term decisions, it usually has a beneficial effect.
There are better outcomes by looking long, both fore and aft, and thus better results or “reward”s. Even so, unbidden and unseen errors creep in (some from looking long through short-lens glasses and some from focusing so long we miss an opportunity long prepared for or an opening in anticipation of a next step or two). And so the words of our mouth and meditations of our heart could use a liturgy to raise our consciousness and conscience.
Try this daily for the rest of Epiphany and see what light dawns.
A spirit of life is within me:
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
grounding good news in reality
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
being present with the poor
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
keeping solidarity with captives
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
removing blindfolds
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
revealing discrimination
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
naming belovedness everywhere
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
sowing and nurturing gifts
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
today in anticipation of tomorrow
Keep me from stupidly forgetting
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/01/psalm-19.html
Nature declares the glory of G*D without speech and explanations. "Unspoken truth is everywhere."
The Revelation or Law of G*D reflects this glory.
But what to do when the glory and the revelation no longer match so smoothly?
Quantum mechanics and astrophysics move us beyond the "our-sized" obviousness of Three-Story Universes and Newton's causes and effects. But the glory, once obvious, now needs to be revealed anew. We need to not only open our hearts, but our minds.
May you pay attention to the macro as "Madame Day holds classes every morning." May you pay attention to the micro as "Professor Night lectures each evening." As you forget not to pay attention to the every-day as "Sister and Brother Noon bring their perspective each mid-day."
Many rejoice in this new exploration of the interface between glory and revelation and many fear it. If you are a rejoicer, rejoice without claiming exclusivity for your findings.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2002/october2002.html
So how is "the rule of law" going these days?
Is it
reviving the soul?
making wise the simple?
rejoicing the heart?
enlightening the eyes?
enduring forever?
sweeter than honey?
How's the revelation of GOD going?
Does it
warm hearts to faith?
pull lives together?
point out the right road?
show the way to joy?
taste better than strawberries in spring?
How about the words of your mouth?
the meditation of your heart?
On this day that brings the trigger of war
we continue an ancient prayer:
Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
Keep us from stupid sins, from thinking we can take over your work;
Then we can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
[The Message]
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/march2003.html
What does Madame Day teach every morning? and Professor Night each evening?
Is this a trick question simply because speech is not used?
Probably not. It is an opening to hear other important parts of your life that are also beyond being put into words. For instance, the whole category of sins of omission. How do you see what you haven't done? How do you hear about what you failed to say?
To be healed of hidden faults is first to recognize them. Who do you trust enough to ask - what have I overlooked in my way of doing business with life? Presumably your spiritual director will aid you in developing an exercise that will clarify this as day does to day and night to night.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/september2003.html
The law, decree, precept commandment, fear, ordinance, revelation, signposts, life-map, direction, reputation, judgment, statute, instruction of G*D is reveled in.
Can you read "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer" as "The gift of my life is joined with G*D, forever"?
If something like this is at work might we consider that the law stuff is not intended as a stopping point, a being made in to a strict creed forever or even an eternal gazing upon a law enforcing potentate, but an important source of information and encouragement to live to draw near and even become one with G*D and creation and more.
If law does not produce the fruit of gifts lived, it is only a prison, not a seedbed.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/january2004.html
In the face of law upon decree upon precept upon commandment upon fear upon ordinance there is still plenty of room for things to fall into the gaps of what is not yet covered and a new law or decree or etc. A God of the gaps is not very satisfying. Living just waiting to be caught at something you hadn't anticipated is not a satisfying was to spend time.
A reset to clear whatever went awry in a code too cumbersome track down is a good thing. A reset for whatever has gone astray is important to keep the system in good working order. Sometimes we find our drive filled with spyware and it needs to be cleansed. Little-by-little, Jesus found that money took over the sacrificial system and a reset was needed. Little-by-little, Moses found that a sense of trusting I-AM was covered over by concerns about what was left behind and all the different ways in which neighborliness went out the window erased erased the community building he was doing and a reset was needed.
Chase moneychangers. Reset. Bring ten words. Reset.
In this lenten season may you find your reset process to be blessed.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/march2006.html
Psalm 19 or Psalm 80:7-15
Their voice is not heard, yet their voice goes out through all the earth!
In the Psalm, "they" are the creation sequence - the evolution of creation - the elements basic to life.
In Scripture, "they" are also the poor, the widows, the children, the alien.
None of "them" has a voice and yet they cry out as the mine-canaries deep below every political, economic, and educational system.
Have you heard "them"?
Do you add to the cry for G*D to attend to the vine, the creation, the poor?
Whether it seems your voice is heard or not, even whether you want it to be heard or not, it is important to know where you identify, what you listen to, what you pass on to G*D
Listen well, speak clearly, act humbly.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/october2005.html
King speaks to King - Arthur with David
"Morte D'Arthur"
from Poems, 4th edition (London: Moxon, 1845)
Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892
And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seëst--if indeed I go--
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."
Avilion tells of the glory of G*D, as well as does creation. Where wounds are healed voiceless stars sing and a sun freed from domesticity runs wild across the sky.
Let the words of our mouths, our prayers for one another's souls, find an acceptability and purity of our best intentions.
- - -
it takes several times around the block
no only going around once for me
to begin to glimpse glory
behind usual days marching on
all at once for no reason at all
what once was a silent loneliness
rattles the windows of our rooms
with every timbre of joy
a few more laps bring an understanding
of perfection never being perfect
and wholeness always being whole
that sets our eyes anew on
what might yet be beyond joy
and but a bit further
lies a funeral barge
and final words
still searching for peace
still praying for souls
still trusting simply trusting
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
Psalm 19
Exodus 20:1-17
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22
You shall not make a marketplace of your life, this community, this creation, this religious perspective, this glorious commonwealth.
Those wonderful markers strewn around the country in 1956 to commemorate 10 arenas of life where things can go awry in were to help market a movie. Now they become traditions that must be held onto at all costs. Law has become law has become law, dividing the very communities once held together by what stood behind such law.
Somehow the glory of life keeps getting pared down enough to pass a legislature. The meaning of day and night cannot be put into words, and yet we latch onto one set of temporal propositions or another. Through proliferating law is glory's silence broken and we finally settle for the law and not the glory.
We even market our religion as though it were the only possible revelation of an expansive love that pushes past every one of our sacred moments - even that of resurrection. No matter how broad even we progressive religionists envision life, we are too pale for the colorful dance that will raise all enemies to friends.
Indeed, zeal for someone else's vision consumes us. Evidence America's preemptive entry into Iraq. For whatever good may have once been possible, we have devolved. Zeal, all by itself, becomes marketed as righteousness. Even action against marketing, becomes marketing. What a dizzying, disorienting flurry.
- - -
a medium is a message
it lops off the ends
one size fits all
average is good enough
a medium whispers
stories behind stories
believable and not
what you see is not all
a medium well
is recommended
to burn out illness
and blood guilt
a medium nurtures
biologic experiments
testing theories
confirming evidence
a medium colors
pale lives
with pigments
life experienced
a medium law
keeps us from
in medias res
and attendant glory
a medium life
bounded by rules
binding with same
unconscious errors
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
Psalm 19 or Psalm 116:1-9
Proverbs 1:20-33 or Isaiah 50:4-9a
James 3:1-12
Mark 8:27-38
Physiologically, tongues are strong and flexible, made up of sixteen muscle groups. Metaphorically, tongues are also easily bitten and easily biting.
Tongues are equally at home carrying a blessing or a curse. They can cut to the quick or lovingly caress one another. They are a source of encouragement and a keener of despair.
Presume again an original blessing of "It's good." We heard it from our teacher leading us out of chaos, into life. In such an image we honor our teacher by offering a sustaining word tot he weary - those caught in moments and millennia of chaos.
The tongue of a creator becomes a tongue of the nursling. [I have long enjoyed an out-of-print book, The Tongue of the Nursling by P.E. MacAllister - here is a <a href="http://www.vohuman.org/Author/MacAllister,P.E..htm">brief bio and an online article</a> by him you might enjoy that could take you far afield of today's reflection (and yet have enough tangents to be instructive).
- - -
we see a forked tongue
and suppose we are
hearing a forked tongue
our senses aren't sensible
we mistake one another for hats
magnify molehills and ignore mountains
we execute desperate thieves
and reward those who contract to steal
missing what's behind the surface
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Psalm 19 or Psalm 80:7-15
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20 or Isaiah 5:1-7
Philippians 3:4b-14
Matthew 21:33-46
World Communion Sunday, by its very existence, recognizes that there are incompatible differences between those who sacramentalize a eucharist in Jesus' name. We emphasize different commandments and so are constantly balancing and rebalancing our boundaries.
Putting the Exodus and Isaiah passages together we find less emphasis upon the specifics of thundering commandments, than on what G*D expects to be their result -- justice (Isaiah 5:7).
Left on our own, we are afraid - who can keep every jot and tittle? But seen as precursors to a longer prophetic justice (thus the vineyard images in these pericopes) we are able to keep on.
In this light, the Psalmist is correct to see the commandments as clarifying - "Here is an example of justice: honor those who have gone before." In keeping that which builds justice we find a great reward, one worth pursuing with all our energy. It is also this that connects us with Prophet Jesus - identifying a great justice and what stands in our way of moving toward it.
- - -
listen to another parable
what is going to happen
to those in the tale
just so it will happen
to you and your family
as we project
so we are
change an expectation
and you change a course of history
facts are not immutable
or determinative
listen to a parable
live a parable
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
"God's Word is better than a diamond,
better than a diamond set between emeralds.
You'll like it better than strawberries in spring,
better than red, ripe strawberries."
[The Message]
In this day we are reminded of basics. What is your better? Is it Resources? Is it Pleasure? Are they located in economic security and/or advancement?
What pulls our life together? What is the value of silence? of waiting? of a way to joy before joy is experienced?
There are so many different explanations of G*D's Presence, so many different measuring tools. Our work is to move beyond fear and beyond sound-bites. Our work is to test "unspoken truth".
May you be blessed in your investigations and sharing of what you have found.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html
What if creation around us is telling the glory of G*D and we have our nose stuck so far inside our economic fears that we can't smell anything beyond decay?
What if time is telling the glory of G*D and we are so caught in fearing a future better, but different, than our modicum of control of the past that we can't experience anything but the disorientation from riding a centrifuge repeating itself ever more quickly?
What if fear is telling the glory of G*D and we are so caught in little preoccupying fears that we miss the mystery of the blessing of fear focusing us and moving us beyond our fears?
What if we miss these gifts and are only left with our errors? Well, we will have missed a gift of being able to act from the basis of resurrection and new life. We will have missed our opportunity to let kings know they are naked and to run idolaters of money and institutional survival far enough out of their comfort zone for them to catch a glimpse of life beyond their usual accumulated patterns of control and power. We will have missed the joy of simply doing what is helpful for the time and space we have available to us.
"What if" can lead us to "what now" and herein we find revival. Go ahead, make your day -- be glory.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
A tent as a pit stop for the sun, as a staging area for a beloved, portrays safety, nurture, comfort, strength - a source of joy. Today in the South Dakota "Badlands" a strong wind blew through, dislodging stakes and scattering tent supports. Tent images are various.
Yes, who can detect their errors. One of its corollaries asks, "Who can detect the difficulties of the many systems they are in?"
We find ourselves caught between competing laws and values from the variety of systems we participate in (consciously or not). This Psalm is an attempt to discern one response that will cover a multitude of errors - personal and societal.
When we come upon such a meta-response we want to claim it glorious and holy. But not every situation requires a hammer or judgment. For the "hidden" faults still occurring we may simply need duct tape. Blessings upon your gift of naming what needs changing and your other gift of mercy beyond judgment.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
Day says, "Let there be . . . ."
Night wisdom reveals, "And it is good."
Yet evening and morning are not heeded.
The on-goingness of creation carries no weight.
Likewise with laws and revelations, whether G*D's or not
they carry no weight.
Even warned, errors occur and are unrecognized.
So, how do I weigh my own words and heart?
Self-proclaimed as weighty (reprise Sen. Brown's "victory" speech)
and so weightless.
Weightless enough to be blameless and innocent
(not the highest of virtues in an incarnate world).
Now that we know enough to not take ourselves seriously
we can return to the top
to join day and night in
heightened expectation and expansive goodness.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html
A voice unheard goes through the universe. How wonderful and frustrating. The mystery of this is overwhelming and the lack of clarity a stumbling block of the first water.
As one with not so hidden errors, I still yearn for my meandering meditations to be reflective of that unheard voice. I still desire that my words would be in sync with the growth going on in moving from a glimpse of glory to more glory than glory can hold and it collapses from an external category into regular day-to-day life.
Eugene Peterson talks about “life-maps of G*D” and we all need to spend some time in imitating this by seeing what our current life-map looks like and where dragons are lurking on a raw edge beckoning us into new adventure. There are many models of life-maps from the rigid fundamentalistic to the overly open-ended idealistic. May we be blessed with greater clarity.
If you are interested in a map that does not pretend to be the territory it maps, you might try integral mapping. There are variations on this and you might also consider working with my friend Tom at bodymindspiritworks.com.
The Psalmist suggests you can find a larger map than you have been working from. Blessings on moving on.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2011/09/psalm-19.html
Invisible hands, unheard words, and unperceived errors - we live in an unconsciousness around us and within. There are strands of routine, control, and power that swirl us first one way and then another.
Into these voids we use small words and meditations to act like the crow in Aesop’s fable. May our words and meditations bring life to ourselves and others.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/03/psalm-19.html
There is experience aplenty. There is not language sufficient to express it. Every expression is an attempt to say more than can be said and a container that captures and constrains some aspect of an experience, portraying it as a complete whole.
The same is true about any attempt to comment on a religious collection. Whether Qur'an, Tanakh, Gospels, Epistles, Book of Mormon, Sutta Pitaka, Upanishads, and on and on - explanations are a second and further distance from the stimulus for the text.
Since we are meaning-seeking creatures we are able to use second, third, or fourth explanations as a trigger for our attempt to hold the day and night in place rather than to be held by them or with them in even larger "hands".
In this Psalm, someone experienced their celebration of a key relationship as a new day in their life. They used their undefinable joy in the event to describe a glimpse of the workings of the universe. Well done? Yes. Sufficient? No. Now we are stuck with undefinable joy as a cover for every jot and tittle of Law.
Sun and moon might bring us laws of motion, but laws of relationship - not so much. And so we continue the struggle to understand experience, to know who we are, to shape a future. This difficulty of expression is no excuse, though, to avoid an on-going wrestling with identity - ours, others, and all.
Homework: write a poem (any form) about the significance of your favorite fingernail or Mars landing or your friend. Share it with no further explanation. Rejoice that you don't even know the half of what you write and that much less of other explanations. Rejoice you can still proceed with these large empty ranges.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/09/psalm-19.html
Deep silence pierces even hidden error.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart ring true to this deep silence.
.
. .
. . .
. . . .
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/year-easter-vigil-or-hopeless-hope.html