Psalm 137
Proper 22 (27) - Year C
Go ahead, sing your song in the face of a coercive system.
So we ask the Judicial Council to make a declaratory decision about self-censorship. Is a statement about one's self incriminatory? The particular regards self-avowal of one's sexual orientation.
Go ahead, sing your song to your own destruction. Of such is the environment that makes martyrs.
For individuals this is a life-and-death issue in this life. For structures this is a death knell in years ahead as the blood of the martyrs eventually comes back to haunt the life of their little ones.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
What would devastate us more than anything?
That key issue is our "Jerusalem" or place of peace. Anything short of that finds us in "Babylon."
At some stage in our life food and hugs are Jerusalem. At others times parents or peers are our our Jerusalem. At still others we find Jerusalem in our work or sexuality or credit card or ....
What is your Jerusalem-Babylon ratio this day?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
How can we sing in a hostile land?
Remembrance is one response.
Today was a difficult day. I lost the first motion I made and was on the losing side of other "cultural war" issues. It's enough to make one want to stop singing.
Then I remember where I come from - a land that lived in harmony - and I remember where I'm headed - an augmented harmony. Now I can remember my work here in a United Methodist version of Babylon. My work is that of Jeru-Salem whether or not it is as it might yet become.
So I will return tomorrow to sing yet another song in Babylon West.
What do you need to remember to keep singing?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/may2004.html
Psalm 137
Psalm 34:2-15
"I will bless the Lord at all times." (34:1)
"How could we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" (137:4)
"I sought the Lord, and was answered." (34:4)
"Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites." (137:7)
"Keep your tongue from evil." (34:13)
"Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!" (137:9)
There are so many different realities experienced and expressed in psalms. The same is true in church music. How do we keep open to the wide variety of hymns and praises?
I would like for the church to be able to see that any good love song can be sung in church. It takes next to no work to translate a good popular love song into a religious context. How might we find our way to use songs with theological language in them and songs that demonstrate theology without using the official church lingo?
Having thus declared, I show my age. I just looked up Billboard's Top 10. It appears I have been passed by. Lyrics aren't where its at. There was some meat in the lament at number 8, "Where is the Love."
How do we sing the Lord's song in the foreign land of American pop culture? Who would know to ask for such a thing?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/august2003.html
Psalm 137 or Psalm 37:1-9
How do we pursue a journey to awareness of the presence of G*D in the face of our present situation demanding our attention be limited to it? When captured by Babylon, Capitalism, Preemptive War, Drugs, Sex, Niceness, Comfort, or Whatever -- how do we sing a different song that releases accumulated hatred? How do we sing Dylan's It Ain't Me, Babe to those who and that which would claim our soul?
A sense of detachment/assurance works wonders in this setting. We don't fret at what might be done to us, we don't become envious and do the same to others. All of this (me and my situation) will soon fade. This leaves a clearer vision of the possibility of doing good in the midst of subversions of a blessed creation.
So we engage patience and walk away from wrath. We participate in creative acts of parabolic living and active non-violence. We do this in regard to both ourselves and others.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/october2004.html
Psalm 137 or Psalm 37:1-9
"Weep!" or "Don't fret!"
Here we have a basic difference in response to life's circumstance when it goes awry (i.e., doesn't go our way).
We each seem to have a proclivity toward one or the other of these responses. Knowing which is yours can help you play toward or against type. It is not that knowing your tendency commits you to it, but that knowing it can free you to choose against it.
When you lament, lament. Wail it out and smash those children to bits.
When you refuse to lament, refuse. Wait it out and let G*D's anger decide to cut off those children.
Imagine using this formula on World Communion Sunday. Will you lament the lack of unity and find ways to do away with all who would follow a different sacramental rubric? Will you gloss over the differences and let G*D sort them out at some future time? Does it make a difference to you or G*D if you choose one response or the other?
- - -
rivers bring life
we find we are sitting alongside
a river that has taken our lives
and worse
mocks us
that we might sing of another river
one well and truly lost to us
how could we sing
of living water alongside
dehydrated water
further desiccating
a tree without healing leaves
without doing so
with a sawdust tongue
but we could mutter
under our arid breath
"we won't take it anymore"
and turn our vision of escape
into a program of revenge
and so we will
or will we
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html
Remembering forgiveness unlimited, we now weep at what has been lost. The music of our lives that brought us to dancing together, has been lost.
In this strange unforgiving space we are asked to sing of forgiveness out of a reserve we do not have and we find we have lost the words - we don't want to forgive our captors. Our good right hand of fellowship through restored community has withered.
No matter how we intend to honor our heritage of forgiveness, the words just don't seem to come - our mouth is dry.
Our lack of forgiveness has us wishing harm not only upon our current enemies but all their children, not just the first-born.
Yes, we are in Babylon. Weeping. Unforgiven and unforgiving.
To return to health we need this lament. May we see what we have done and are doing to ourselves and not take that out on others. Let us Remember Forgiveness and build Zion anew right here in the middle of Babylon - it is a reliable, long-term, tool still available to refugees from Eden and Everywhere.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/09/psalm-137.html