Five Minute Friday:: Anticipate

• Five Minute Friday :: Anticipate Linkup

If FMF wrote to an image prompt and not to a word, Kate's picture of boots ready to start an adventure would be perfect. How fun to write about and anticipate the always unknown we walk into.

Lately I've been reminding myself a lot that the best way to predict the future is to create it. And I wonder what on earth happened when so little I anticipated came to be. I haven't said much about that recently, but my "life stuff" tag leads to some I dared make public.

With yet another devastating war filled with unimaginable violence and horror, what can we anticipate? More of the same or similar? This week for my scripture blog on Philippians 4:1-9, I'm writing on God's presence. I'll link to it here when it's live.

• Pentecost 20A on Urban Wilderness/City Paradise

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and petitions with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will protect your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7

Carly Simon's "Anticipation" opens with "We can never know about the days to come, but we think about them anyway (autocorrect just now changed my error to antiwar. Wow!) Anticipation the song ends with "These are the good old days" and I know I'm engaging in irresponsible eisegesis to align those lyrics with today anticipating a better unknown future, but you know about poetic license.

As I prayerfully and fearfully (fear in the sense of anxiety, not in the holy awe meaning of Martin's Luther's explanation to each commandment in his Small Catechism, "We should fear and love God above all things") anticipate the future of planet earth, particularly my current small slice of creation, more of Carly's music and lyrics encourage and remind us into God's future.

Let the river run. Let all the dreamers wake the nation. Come, the new Jerusalem.

We're coming to the edge // Running on the water
Coming through the fog // Your sons and daughters

We the great and small // Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire // Through the darkening dawn

God's sons and God's daughters! Let's trust God's presence and anticipate the unknown in our sturdy boots. Let's blaze a trail of desire. Let's predict the future and participate with God in the adventure of creating that future we anticipate. Amen? Amen!

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Five Minute Friday :: Stretch

• FMF Stretch Linkup

Intro

During the year Y2K, I was playing Saturday night Scrabble again with my last City of History landlord and housemate. I tiled a 3-letter word and asked Nick, "Is that a stretch?" because I tended toward imaginative or obscure (or imaginary) words. He replied, "No. It's a shrink."

One of my pastors in Previous City used to have a website called Stretchy Church! That one's defunct; online these days he mainly hosts a podcast called Spiritual Life and Leadership where he interviews people from all over the place. It's been a good way for the church to stretch a distance and it never could have happened without the worldwide stretch of the internet.


God, who stretched the spangled heavens
infinite in time and place
flung the suns in burning radiance
through the silent fields of space
we your children, in your likeness
share inventive powers with you
Great Creator, still creating
show us what we yet may do

© 1967 Hope Publishing Co.
Words: Catherine Cameron, William Moore
Music: Holy Manna, from Southern Harmony, 1835

• All the Words to God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens


Stretch

I began with stretchy scrabble words and a stretchy church, but before those I remembered a hymn that sings of our stewarding the earth and of our co-creating with God. People sing it to different tunes, but it first got to me because I'm a pushover for traditional Americana hymnody like songs from Southern Harmony.

Stretch has many physical and psychological connotations, but the most important for today is to stretch boundaries and borders, to stretch our expectations and hopes to pray to listen and to search, to heed what we hear, to start healing creation. It starts with a very first move that then extends and stretches way far beyond this time and this space. Formed in God's Divine likeness, we stretch out our presence and our gifts and our reach. And we help stretch the borders of our local churches! Logically that stretches the reach of the universal church.

• This is a five minute free write. I thought about what I'd say before starting, but some of it doesn't come together well so if you're reading, please stretch your imagination.

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Books :: 2017

You can friend me and my books on goodreads and follow me on Amazon.

Here are my twenty-three books for 2017 with links to my amazon reviews; I've finished four more that will start my review series for 2018.

• Return to Paradise: The Coming Home Series — Book 3 – Barbara Cameron

• Holding Up Your Corner: Talking about Race in Your Community – F. Willis Johnson

• My Very Own Space – Pippa Goodhart

• Motherprayer: Lessons in Loving – Barbara Mahany

• The Innovation Code: The Creative Power of Constructive Conflict – Jeff DeGraff

• Once You Know This – Emily Blejwas

• Ivy and the Lonely Raincloud – Katie Harnett

• The Crooked Christmas Tree: The Beautiful Meaning of Jesus' Birth – Damian Chandler

• The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times – James L. Kugel

• Peace in the Process: How Adoption Built My Faith & My Family – Kristin Hill Taylor

• Corita Kent: Gentle Revolutionary of the Heart – Rose Pacatte, FSP

• Paris for Two – Phoebe Stone

• Garbage Night – Jen Lee

• Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth: Spiritual Conversations Inspired by the Life and Lyrics of Rich Mullins – Andrew Greer & Randy Cox

• Sled Dog School – Terry Lynn Johnson

• Lily's Mountain – Hannah Moderow

• All Three Stooges – Erica S. Perl

• A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Hopeful, and Authentic Spiritual Community – John Pavlovitz

• A World Ablaze: The Rise of Martin Luther and the Birth of the Reformation – Craig Harline

• Faithful: Christmas Through the Eyes of Joseph – Adam Hamilton

• Living For Another: More of Others, Less of You – Brent Gambrell

• Being Brave: A 40-Day Journey to the Life God Dreams for You – Kelly Johnson

• Walking with Peety: The Dog Who Saved My Life – Eric O'Grey

Winds of Heaven • Stuff of Earth

Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth: Spiritual Conversations Inspired by the Life and Lyrics of Rich Mullins by Andrew Greer and Randy Cox on Amazon

In Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth you'll find a treasure-trove of memories, information, and testimonies to God's pervasive presence and everlasting faithfulness. Andrew Greer provides an ongoing narrative punctuated by reflections from musicians, publicists, producers, band buddies, friends and others who either knew the (sadly too early deceased) singer, songwriter, troubadour, and creation-lover Rich Mullins. Most of us have heard some stories from relatives, friends, or neighbors so frequently that even though the events happened long in the past or the characters died decades ago, the dynamism of the raconteur has brought them alive to the listener. In fact, that's how the canon of scripture began as an oral tradition before it became a written one. Drawing upon that tradition, the book also includes contributions from people who'd interacted with those who'd met him face to face so they'd developed their own sense of Rich's life and persona.

"Rich's imagination was so saturated by biblical narratives ... Yes, he longed for the winds of heaven, but he also ached for the redemption and restoration of the stuff of earth, and he had the courage to let some of Christ's passion for the world infuse his own." Page 175, from Chapter 34, "The Bittersweet Longing," by Carolyn Arends

I discovered Rich and his music when a friend linked me to "Help me, Jesus." The World as Best I Remember It was my first Rich Mullins album; "Calling Out Your Name" the cut that grabbed me so I couldn't leave it: "Where the sacred rivers meet // Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the Plains // I feel thunder in the sky // I see the sky about to rain // And I hear the prairies calling out Your name." The Revised Common Lectionary appoints Psalms 96, 98, and 148 for Christmas, the celebration of God's incarnation on earth in a body made from the stuff of earth. Fields rejoice, oceans roar, trees sing, sea monsters, fire and fruit trees, wild and domestic animals all praise God because God in our midst means the end of pollution and decay, the beginning of the new creation, the dawn of humanity reclaiming its divine image. Martin Luther described the divine presence as "in, with, and under" all creation; in his closeness to Creator and creation, Rich heard the prairies praise. How about us?

"Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth" celebrates Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit of Life, and the promises of God the Father throughout—though it's not exactly a devotional book. But reading the short entries in order or at random still could enhance anyone's devotional life; it's not too much to claim it has a place alongside any collection or single volume of lives of the saints. As much as we can learn from the people of God in centuries past (shoutout to this year 2017 being #Reformation500 / #Luther500 and our ongoing awareness of ways God used both passions and imperfections of Martin Luther and other reformers, and more recent Jesus followers like Saint Teresa of Kolkata), Rich Mullins' inner struggles, his contributions to the world of music, the world of the church, and society in general bear pondering and at their best, are worth imitating.

I've had the privilege of being on the launch team for Winds of Heaven, Stuff of Earth; I'm excited to start wearing my t-shirt and finding even more fans for Rich!

my amazon review: Remembering Rich Mullins

Five Minute Friday: Haven

Five Minute Friday host Kate's word for today is haven.


FMF: haven

"take 5" – minutes, that is.

A haven is a place of respite, of safety, of homecoming—a slice of heaven on earth. A few weeks ago in the adult SS class I lead we talked about God as a home-maker. I mentioned you don't buy or rent a home; you buy or rent a house or an apartment, and then you move in and create a home. Last Sunday I described the church at Galatia as the first ethnic church—ethnicity not in terns of Jews /gentiles as scripture typically uses the word ethnos for non-Jews, but in consideration of geographical and cultural differences. I suggested we can't require people to become like us to become members of the church; however they are, God calls us to the hospitality of welcoming everyone so that the church becomes heaven on earth, a haven for all comers. For next Sunday we'll discuss the Ephesians text that tells us in Christ we become members of the household of God. God the home-maker! Shelter, welcome, embrace, and safety sound pretty much like a heavenly haven to me. How about to you?


Header painting is my interpretation of a song from the American south. Words speak for themselves and also include:

Sister Mary wore three links of chain
On each link was my Jesus' name
All my sins been taken away, taken away
I'm on my way to the freedom land

Five Minute Friday: Easy

This week Five Minute Friday is ...easy.


In "Take it Easy" Jackson Browne and the late Glenn Frey (RIP) counsel us to...

Take it easy!
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don't even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy.

Take it easy, lighten up? Who doesn't need that reminder? If you're trying to complete almost anything – project, task, or chore –you generally get the best results with a moderate amount of effort. Trying too hard can tie a person up in knots. Not trying at all? Usually equals not getting any results at all. Lionel Richie and the Commodores sing "easy like Sunday morning." Sunday mornings, when we trust and relax into the easy, effortless movement of grace. You don't need to do anything, just gotta be. Be who you are. Be where you are. How you are. So easy! Sunday best attire's the style of how we are, act, and socialize on a Sunday or non-work non-school day. Easy's not about the outcome and the performance, Don't even try to understand... because if I try too hard, the sound of my own wheels turning around in my head will drive me crazy.

Five Minute Friday: Limit

Friday 12 February: Limit at Kate Motaung's welcome place. For FMF we write unedited for five minutes—at least one person calls it a writing/blogging "flash mob!"

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I could write about self-imposed limits on social media involvement—a popular current topic all over the internet. [I recently wrote about it in limiting, consolidating.] Or go back to calculus class and discuss limits of a function. But this is a theology blog, so how about reminding myself and my readers how the Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai covenant describe and define the borders, boundaries, limits, and extent of life together in covenantal community? I'll go with that one. You've heard of bounded freedom? That's part of the commandments' instructions to us. We freely can act, say, do, behave in a broad variety of ways as long as we don't cross the boundaries or limits the commandments outline. There's Martin Luther's almost incomprehensibly scarily truly comprehensive exposition of the Commandments in his Large Catechism, but Jesus of Nazareth didn't go there; Jesus summarized the limits and parameters of our interaction with other individuals and within community with what we call the great commandment:

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind; Love your neighbor as yourself."

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Many weeks Kate's word prompt reminds me of a currently or once-popular song. This week I thought of Thomas Troeger's hymn, "God Marked a Line and Told the Sea," and let's sing it to the tune "Kedron."



1. God marked a line and told the sea
its surging tides and waves were free
to travel up the sloping strand,
but not to overtake the land.

2. God set one limit in the glade
where tempting, fruited branches swayed,
and that first limit stands behind
the limits that the law defined.

3. The line, the limit and the law
are patterns meant to help us draw
a bound between what life requires
and all the things our heart desires.

4. But, discontent with finite powers,
we reach to take what is not ours,
and then defend our claims by force
and swerve from life's intended course.

5. We are not free when we're confined
to every wish that sweeps the mind,
but free when freely we accept
the sacred bounds that must be kept.

five minute friday: time

Friday 15 January: Time at Kate Motaung's cyberspace place. For Five Minute Fridays we write for five minutes. Basically unedited, but I'll mention again I try to be sure auto-correct read my intentions correctly.

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More weeks than not, Kate's one-word prompt evokes a song. Liturgy – holy time. Sacraments – holy space. Every time I hear Al Stewart's "Time Passages," I'm in the Salem, MA, train depot, waiting for the Buddliner to take me south to North Station. "It was late in December." Snow fell from the sky. I was going home. To my former home church, to celebrate eucharistic liturgy for the feast of the Nativity, that highly sacramental incarnational festival of creation.

Most of us physically sense the passage of linear time; sometimes we count elapsed years since an event in our individual lives or in our common history. Most of us yearn for, dream of, and imagine what a true coming home would be. Liturgy's holy time reenacts the history of God's people in every place, every era, and I find myself creating my own mini-segment of that long, dense, complex history in my every day activities. For all of us, "years go falling in the fading light; years run too short, days too fast."

Former neighbor SKJ (we've both moved away from where we met) suggested remember encapsulates the gospel in a single word. When we assemble as God's people, the liturgy places us smack dab within that holy time history. So I listen to Time Passages the song, remember places I've been, people I've met, experiences I've had within those passages of linear time.

Time Passages

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was goin' down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Well I'm not the kind to live in the past
The years run too short and the days too fast
The things you lean on, are the things that don't last
Well it's just now and then, my line gets cast into these
Time passages
There's something back here that you left behind
Oh, time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Five Minute Friday: Reflect

Friday 11 December: Reflect at Kate Motaung's place. FMF's an unedited free write, though I do my best to check auto-correct's solutions. This week's "reflect" prompt also fits Fleetwood Mac's Landslide I quoted last week; so I'll start with the song. BTW, the font in Fleetwood Mac and Landslide is Fleetwood!

Landslide

I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
And can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know

Fleetwood Mac, "Landslide," by Stevie Nicks

start writing

Before I begin to write, I always ponder, consider, or reflect upon the word (or image if that's the case) prompt. Sometimes for five minutes, sometimes overnight. Interesting that I suddenly realized although typically I refer to my spoken or written ideas on a topic as reflections (rather than thoughts, ponderings, ideas, or musings, that last word being so commonplace in the blogosphere it makes me cringe, though it's from the same root as music. I'm ready to give up on "ponder /pondering/s" for the same reason). Every one of my considerations on "reflect" pertained to what we perceive with our eyes, our visual sense. With the single exception of remembering we need what that ringleader called "our reflection from the other" to know what's going on with us, how the world perceives us at this time or assessed us at that time. The sun casts a shadow that reflects an object. In graphic design we have a "reflect" command so an object appears vertically or horizontally. Sometimes we retain the original object and have doubles, sometimes not. A mirror, a "looking glass" reflects what's in front of it, but in reverse! How about other people we need to trust reflect our behaviors, our presence, our speech? We need to realize sometimes they sort of get it right, at times totally backwards or reversed or what feels like inside out to us, but that reflection never is quite the same as the original, though it well may contain an aspect of the real truth.

stop!

Five Minute Friday: Season

Friday 04 December: Season at Kate Motaung's place. As always, FMF is an unedited free write. As usual, I check to be sure auto-correct read my mind accurately.

Intro: "Season" is another prompt I could use for a very long post, or a series of long ones.


People have seasons in similar ways to nature's. Have you noticed how often the changes, growth, movements, surprises of creation form models for almost identical happenings in humans? Humans, who, of course as part of creation are Human Creatures. After traveling through so many cycles of 3-month long meteorological / astronomical seasons, I'm finally beginning to appreciate and to love the physical and emotional and psychological effects of nature's differences in my own life. It used to be that I couldn't wait for late spring and the fullness of summer; only through mid-October was the natural world outside enjoyable, or even worth enjoying. I never wanted summer to end. Why wouldn't anyone long for a life that's endless summer, and all that entails in terms the fullness and maturity of our own creativity, productivity, and ability to contribute to the world surrounding us? Summer 2003 was the very first summer ever I wanted to be over as soon as possible. And then the next year's summer, and finally more than another decade of this next season hasn't born the type of fruit I imagined any more than the past one did...

Landslide

I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Till the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
And can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Oh oh I don't know, oh I don't know

Fleetwood Mac, "Landslide," by Stevie Nicks

light and love Friday 5

light, love, laughter Friday 5 on the RevGals.

Host Julie has a healing idea: "For Friday Five this week, let’s keep the light, love and laughter going with a random selection of things to make your heart sing."

1. Music: a song or orchestral piece that stirs your soul

The Beethoven Symphonies – especially #1, 2, 4, and 7 – transcend time, place, and mortality (what? The Ninth Symphony didn't make my Bests List? Nope, it didn't and never does). Lately I've been listening a lot to Kari Jobe singing...

We Are

Every secret, every shame.
Every fear, every pain.
Live inside the dark, but that's not who we are.
We are children of the day.

So wake up sleeper, lift your head.
We were meant for more than this.
Fight the shadows, conquer death.
Make the most of the time we have left.

We are the light of the world.
We are the city on a hill.
We are the light of the world.
We gotta, we gotta, we gotta let the light shine.

Songwriters: Chuck Butler, Ed Cash, James Thiele, Hillary McBride // Published by Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group, Music Services, Inc.

2. Indoor Place: have you got an oasis at home that you can hide away in?


It's not in my actual current dwelling place, but one of my oases in the city is the Armand Hammer Museum. I always check in for special art exhibits, and I attend Mindfulness Meditation almost every early Thursday afternoon.

31. Outdoor Space: is it water, hills, woodland? Is it the fresh country air or the bustling city?


The Hammer Museum I mentioned in #2 is a sanctuary amidst urban bustle; for this line item it's one of the most ethereal outdoor spaces anywhere: Ramsey Canyon Preserve in Sierra Vista, southern Arizona. These views show Mount Huachuca in the background.

4. Picture: this may be a piece of art, something you created, something someone gave you.

In the interest of not continuing to search for famous artist art I legally can repost, I'l link to the liturgical art page from my design site. As my landing page tells the world,

In the beginning...a small bell chimed.
Creativity! It chimes like a small clear bell at the heart of the human spirit!

My own creativity makes my heart sing, my spirit ring.

5. Person: do you have a go to person, for when the world is crowding in?

No one specific at this time, but since I've been in this town I've met many many trustworthy, friendly, non-threatened and non-threatening people. I'll mention the fun and conversation at every Sunday post-liturgy brunch at the church I've mostly been attending; also, a couple of my current housemates are grace and peace to me.

Five Minute Friday: Dance!

Dancers Silhouette from DodgertonSkillhause on Morgue File
Every Friday Kate Motaung hosts a 5-minute free write; Kate's prompt for today is Dance...

...Dance!!!!!

I could spend 5 hours writing about dancing and listing dances, so for only 5 minutes, a very short string of memories for this Five Minute Friday.

Every piece of music is a song; every piece of music is a dance!

Joining in the dance class in the room next to 105 where I loved practicing the small 2-manual Holtkamp organ back in music school. It was a School for the Arts, with music, visual/fine art and theater divisions; the dance teacher-coach noticed me and invited me.

Line Dancing in the Intermountain West and on the rural east coast...

Dave Grusin, "Mountain Dance" and "River Song".

Jazz dance classes at the church I served in City of History. A HS girl from our youth group offered one series; a seminary classmate taught the other. Both had been dancing all their lives!

Some of my favorite pieces in my piano repertoire are dances: Paul Creston, Prelude & Dance Opus 29, #1; Prelude & Dance, Opus 29, #2. Appalachian Dance by Paul Nordhoff. Many many MANY more I can't recall quickly enough to list in the allotted time.

I want to dance with Miriam! "Then Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances." Exodus 15:20

from The River Is Here by Andy Park

Down the mountain the river flows
And it brings refreshing wherever it goes
Through the valleys and over the fields
The river is rushing and the river is here

The river of God sets our feet a-dancing
The river of God fills our hearts with cheer
The river of God fills our mouths with laughter
And we rejoice, for the river is here

The river of God sets our feet a-dancing, and we rejoice, for the river is here! Rivers, oceans, waterways, springs, and rejoicing always will be here to keep setting our feet a-dancing, as long as we take care of all creation.

29 October: Sea

Only a duo of days to complete this month of Kate Motaung's October 2015 edition of 31 days of free unedited writes, this is day 29.

Thursday 29 October: Sea


The Spirit of God brooded over the face of the deep, and birthed planet earth from the depths of the sea.

Let the sea roar, earth rejoice, heavens sing!

Most days I've written a little about one or two aspects of the single word prompt, but how can I put limits on the boundless sea? Water is life! No water—no sacraments. As much as I love the desert, my heart lives close to the ocean, the beach, the shore. I first saw light of day by the bay.

Scripture is full of sea-related and other water-saturated accounts. Songs about the sea include baptismal, homecoming, wayfaring, and nautical imagery. Quite a few of my analog drawings and paintings feature an ocean, river, or sea. "They're all the same," as streams and tributaries flow into the rivers that make their way into oceans and seas.

Gerry Rafferty sings about finding "a ship to take us on the way." For centuries they've built church naves in the shape of a (upside down) ship; the word nave is the same as "navy." The church becomes our ship as we navigate the sea(s) of life in the Spirit.

"The Ark", from Gerry Rafferty's City to City

See the dark night has come down on us
The world is livin' in its dream
But now we know that we can wake up from this sleep
And set out on the journey
Find a ship to take us on the way.

The time has come to trust that guiding light
And leavin' all the rest behind
We'll take the road that leads down to the waterside
And set out on the journey
Find a ship to take us on the way.

And we'll sail out on the water
Yes we'll feel the sea grow
Yes we'll meet out on the water
Where are all strangers are known.

If you travel blindly, if you fall
The truth is there to set you free
And when your heart can see just one thing in this life
We'll set out on the journey
Find a ship to take us on the way.

blog action day 2015: #RaiseYourVoice

blog action day | Friday, 16 October 2015

BAD tags for this year are:

#BAD2015 | #RaiseYourVoice | #Oct16 | #BAD15 | #Blogaction15 | #FreeToWrite | #JustABlogger

The BAD organizers explain:

Why we picked ‪#‎RaiseYourVoice‬ as the theme for Blog Action Day 2015:

We have the power to create the world we want to see when we raise our voice to promote positive change and expose unjust actions. This Blog Action Day we will celebrate those heroes who raise their voice when faced with censorship, threats and even violence. We will overcome silence with our words and actions.

#RaiseYourVoice is good theology, first-rate activism, and an excellent fit for this blog. As scripture demonstrates, in God's reign of heaven on earth, the priest – the ritual mediator between heaven and earth – is not the one who holds true power and authority. The prophet speaks truth to unjust power, raises their voice, brings a word from heaven to earth, counters and protests the death-dealing voices of empire. The prophet carries true power and authority. Raising a voice that challenges? Yes, of course. That exposes? Indeed agreed.

The prophet becomes the voice of God; the prophet also becomes a voice for, the voice of, the broken, needy and vulnerable. The prophet brings God's call to us to partner with heaven in re-creating justice and righteousness in a broken world.

Who are these speakers of the word? Among many others, scripture brings us a couple of women who sing of a world very different from the same old, same old—a world and a way of life so different it inverts and subverts the old.

Mary's Magnificat:

Luke 1:46-55

And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior ... He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty."

Marian icon by Scott Ward

Mary must have heard and probably even memorized Hannah's Song:

1 Samuel 2

Hannah prayed and said, "My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in my God. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory. ...The bows of the mighty are broken, but the feeble gird on strength. Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread, but those who were hungry are fat with spoil. The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up...

Sometimes God in the Spirit raises up prophets from amidst a particular gathered people—Moses. They've been known to arrive on the scene from very elsewhere: farmers like Amos! The last century heard prophetic voices like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. Because the world heard them and heeded them, their words helped create a different world. Only a couple years ago, Pakistani teen Malala got shot for advocating literacy for girls. Her voice resounded all around the world, and resulted in a lot of action, lots of change. You get the idea from my super-short list.

"Power to create the world we want to see" by raising our voices? Would any of us speak words of justice and life? Raise your voice? My voice? Someone might hear, might even listen? We know Moses and Amos made a difference; so did Hannah and Jesus and Malala.

Jesus of Nazareth became a living word from heaven, moved into the neighborhood (as Eugene Peterson's Message version of the bible puts it), spoke justice, acted justly, embodied God's authority. Jesus was and Jesus is the word that Martin Buber tells us is "incomprehensible, irregular, surprising, overwhelming, sovereign." Buber adds, "Therefore it is the virtue of this word, and of this alone, to lead, that is to say, to show the way."

How about us? Last Sunday's readings from the Revised Common Lectionary again reminded us about The Way of Jesus, the Way of the Cross. Luke's New Testament book of Acts call Jesus' people followers of The Way—a way of living and being so different it inverts and subverts the old.

Huey Lewis & the News

Everything's gonna clear up
And the sun will shine
Everybody's gonna cheer up
'Cause it's redemption time

Don't you worry 'bout a thing
'Cause you know that
Things are gonna change
When the time has come

Walls are gonna crumble
And fall into the sea
Oh, all men will be humble
That's a guarantee

When the time has come

Scripture distinguishes between chronos that's the measurable, countable time on our clocks, devices, and schedules, and then kairos, the right and ripe fullness of time that's wholeness, redemption, and shalom. Huey Lewis & The News mean kairos, and they promise it seriously. This "redemption time" is what the prophets yearn for, sing about. This redemption time is what God through the prophets calls and charges us to help enact. This redemption time is the very un-ordinary dawn of the new day of kairos time.

So we had Amos a sheepherder, MLK a pastor with a PhD, Malala, a female teenager in a culture that devalues girls. Where else can we go to hear pleas for justice and equality? Simon & Garfunkel tell us about somewhere a lot of us urbanites have been: "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence."

Overcoming silence with our words and actions? This kairos time is God's thing? Something God enacts? Remember God's dialogue with Moses: "Moses, your people!" "No, God, these are your people!" "Your people, Moses..." so it's always both/and.

Bob Dylan

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide; the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon, for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin',
for the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'

The line it is drawn; the curse it is cast
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

Moses! Hannah! Jesus! MLK! Us!

Along with celebrating those other heroes who raise their voice, let's all raise our voices to overcome silence with our words and our actions, too.

Since 2007, Blog Action Day has inspired bloggers from different countries, interests and languages to blog about a single important global topic on the same day. Past topics have included Water, Climate Change, Poverty, Food, Power of We and Human Rights.

05 October: Home

Day 5 of Kate Motaung's 31 days of free writes, October 2015 edition. You know the drill: write for five minutes without edits, though I always check to be sure autocorrect has changed my inaccuracies to what I intended.

Monday 05 October: Home

Intro: yesterday's word "embrace" was so immediate and familiar I could have kept writing almost forever. Not surprisingly I think about each day's prompt before I start writing, and I realized I've already written and blogged about home and homecoming at least as much as I've considered God's gracious mercy-filled embrace of all creation in Jesus Christ and in the sacraments.

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Home has a literal plethora of dimensions that include a place to be, a way to be, people to be with. We talk about a house becoming a home. First off, several songs with home-related lyrics popped into my mind, and if I blog more about this later, I'm positive I'll think of several more. My starter songs:

Karla Bonoff, Home: "Home sings me of sweet things; life there has its own wings though I'm standing still."

Gerry Rafferty, Baker Street: "When you wake up it's a new morning; sun is shining it's a new morning, and you're going, you're going home."

Al Stewart, Time Passages: "It was late in December, the sky turned to snow ... buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight." (This one is exactly about boarding the train at the commuter rail station in Salem, Massachusetts long ago.)

Mary Chapin Carpenter: Almost Home: "I'm not running; I'm not hiding; I'm not reaching—I'm just resting in the arms of the great wide open. Gonna pull my soul in, and I'm almost home."

Phillip Phillips: Home: "Just know you're not alone; I'm gonna make this place your home. "

And I remembered the last episode of Will & Grace when Grace says to Will, "I don't live here any more." She no longer claimed that physical place and space as her street address or the place she returned to at the end of a work day or a vacation time away. It no longer was her home. That happens to almost everyone in this physically, emotionally, and psychologically mobile society.

You hear about people feeling at home with themselves. Most of us are restless and not at home with ourselves a lot of the time, and it seems as if we feel the best about ourselves, the most at home with ourselves, in the presence of another person who brings us home and makes us at home with ourselves.

A few months ago I returned to Huge Metropolitan Area that wasn't a place I'd previously lived (so technically I didn't return to that city since I never had a street address anywhere there), because I feel at home in the noise, excitement, diversity...

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five minutes already! Posting now, and I'll try to make this one I develop more later. Or maybe not.

december random 5

another random Friday 5 on RGBP central

This random 5 from Karla officially is Tinsel Toe Edition.

1. What song are you grooving to these days?

A lot of Advent and Christmas; for a sampler, my YT Nativity playlist includes: Canticle of the Turning; Comfort Ye/Every Valley from the Messiah; Amy Grant's O Little Town; Shake it Out; Celebrate Me Home; Do You Hear What I Hear...

2. If YOU were a room in your home, what would it be, and why?

Currently I'm in housing transition, but like many people, I fantasize about that almost ideal playroom-workspace. I'll have my iMac and some books there, and also add a super-comfy sofa for sitting, lounging, visiting, and cats. Walls painted 4 different light colours, lots of random posters and other fun stuff splashed across the walls. There's gotta be a big window for the sun to shine on on sunny days, for enjoying the clouds and rain on days like this one.

3. What ever happened to LipSmackers? Does anyone remember that lip balm from the 70’s? Do you have a recommendation for a really awesome lip balm?

I still use Bonne Bell LipSmackers, in all their awesome hues and scents and flavors! A couple in my purse, and a couple at strategic spots around the house. Officially you still can get them at Tar-Jay, Wally World, etc. or online at the Color and Flavor Shop. A few years ago I started finding them at the 99.999¢ only store, sometimes even 2-packs or 3 packs, so I have a constant stash.

4. Tell us about a tiny (or HUGE) grace moment from this week.

After yet another strong signal I need to leave this geographical area since it clearly amounts to being in remote rural nowhere in terms of the opps I need, someone local actually emailed me and asked for a poster and bulletin cover design for an upcoming Blue Christmas!

5. If you could just have any treat/snack in the world right now, what it would be and with whom would you share it?

How about some succulent, multi-ingredient, savory, spicy, stacked to the ceiling nachos? Sharing with the world, of course!

Bible Readeez

Legal note – "Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this product for free from author, publisher, distributor, or publicist in hope that I would mention it on my blog, and was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: 'Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.'"

Bible Readeez, The Word Set to Music. According to the website, this Bible Readeez CD-DVD set brings us The Bible's Greatest Hits.

I am loving this scriptural set of "Learning Disguised as Smiling," especially because it's all-around plain, simple, and unpretentious, along with being refreshing and refreshingly low-tech. DVD images and text are formatted in basic Powerpoint/Keynote slide show style with nothing fancy, no flashing lights, no fantastic effects or transitions, just nice nature images or drawings accompanied by song and scripture text. Kids or adults can watch and learn by singing key scriptures—some in RSV, others in KJV. Bible Readeez brings us Corinthians 13:4-13, Beatitudes, Psalms 23 and 100, the Genesis 1 creation story; the First Christmas account from Luke 2. You also get a catchy Books of the Bible song (I never learned one, so maybe this is one of the standards?) and "Amazing Grace," a song I consider sorely theologically lacking, but most people like it. Besides singing along with the songs, you can listen and read along with a separate reading of each scripture. You, your kids, family, friends, neighbors, various assured significant others also can sing along with either a slower or a 90-second Book of Common Prayer – "trespasses" – Lord's Prayer.

On Amazon you can download a single MP3 of any of the songs or readings. I wish the trifold package anchored the DVD and CD discs more securely, although they stay put well enough when you close the container.

Nota bene: Readeez not only come in scriptural versions, "Readeez are a new way to learn reading, math, ESL, spelling and other useful things. A Readee is a short video, usually musical, where you see and hear every syllable at the same time. We call this SyllableSync. More than 150 Readeez have been produced so far. Readeez were created by Michael Rachap."

my amazon review: simple and refreshing