Saturday, October 29, 2011

Heaven

For the past week I cannot get the song Heaven by Brett Dennen (featuring Natalie Merchant) out of my head. The third or fourth verse is:


Throw away your myth misconceptions
There ain't no walls around heaven
There are no codes you gotta know to get in
No minutemen or border patrol

Listening to the lyrics offers me a solemn hope that is indescribable, it is likely a combination of the lyrics and the mellowing sound. In times like these we are challenged to find our Gospel conscience regarding Iraq, Afghanistan, immigration, healthcare, education, Wall Street, and ad infinitum. The above verse offers insight into the grace that flows from our Creator as we look in our hearts and decide how to act. The Gospel is a dangerous response to life. It requires that we not allow opportunity for complacency and trepidation. We are to seek conviction in the life of Jesus Christ and through this experience the emancipatory love given to us and then offer that same love to others. Thinking about Heaven does not have to be some lofty enterprise and in the verses of this song right now I am finding a home. It is not a home that is open to my snuggling-up into false security or holds me hostage to my own lack of consideration. No, in the Heaven Dennen describes goodness and change are fostered and all are welcome, something we do not often find here on earth. This song is challenging me to think of my commitment to the Gospels this week and the role that Jesus played in them, as well as what he had to say about Heaven

Friday, October 21, 2011

A Presence That Disturbs

I have learned
to look on nature, not as in the hour
of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
the still sad music of humanity,
nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
to chasten and subdue. And I have felt
a presence that disturbs me with the joy
of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
of something far more deeply interfused,
whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
and the round ocean and the living air,
and the blue sky, and in the mind of humans:
A motion and a spirit that impels
all thinking things, all objects of all thought,
and rolls through all things.

William Wordsworth (1170-1850)
Tintern Abbey” (1798)
Lines 88FF
The above is taken from the book A Presence That Disturbs: A Call to Radical Discipleship, Anthony Gittins, CSSp, and is the foundation for a prayer service and conversation that I am preparing for tonight (if this is published after 12:00 a.m. that is...tomorrow if before). The line that continually returns to my thoughts is "but hearing oftentimes the still sad music of humanity." I can almost feel a heavy melody played out by flutes and cellos as I read this short section. All day I have been thinking of the events in Libya and the news that Ghadafi is dead. I am disturbed by this news. I cannot yet articulate what is disturbing me, there is a depth to this feeling that I have not been able to shake or articulate. The "presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts" is also the presence that disturbs me in this moment of silence. Tonight the people of Libya are in my prayers as they work toward putting the pieces of their lives together. I think part of the sadness is that although the tyrannical leader is gone after much struggle so many people in Libya are left with broken lives. This will be a long, strenuous journey toward greater emancipation. Fortunately, they have one another to hold onto during this time and the hope of "a spirit that impels." The delicate hand that plays the cello through the "sad music of humanity" is indeed playing out the realities faced during such turmoil. In this music we have the opportunity to heed the rest of the piece if we are disturbed enough to lend our lives to the harmony that is needed. Together we may be able to create the beauty that is a necessary accompaniment to such tragedy.