Light Gets In: Poland to Palestine, Littleton to Selma, spirit to politics: Humus still smeared on my face

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Humus still smeared on my face

“Why should it be said

among the peoples,

‘Where is their God?’”

__Joel 2:17

It has come to this,

day of ash and cross. and good it is that this is so: we can start.

remember o mortal:

there is nothing to say, nothing that is real, nothing that is hopeful,

nothing that means anything without this,

this day of carbon: ground-up planetary minerals

designing dirt,

carbon cleansing,

reality

of God. remember o mortal who are you.

humus

my face honest

free from artifice, and God creating again.

we come to this day, to this place, where truth is told:

which makes forgiveness possible.

forgiveness, and turning, turning, turning

returning summoning nerve to tell truth

stretching taut muscles to lean down

‘presente’

about ourselves,

hearing truth

about ourselves.

this day. when truth is told:

which makes forgiveness possible.

remember, o mortal, you are dust:

you are humus,

the very humus

God uses to fashion your being: you come from God;

to this, dust, God-making material,

in humility, in humus you shall return:

back into the very heart of God;

you shall return.

And so we live:

we live,

we must live, awareness of our humus,

our humility,

our madeness, our createdness, our fashioning,

straight from the heart of God.

in the Imago Dei: the mystery of the divine shows up as we do,

the life of God alive as we come alive. God shows up in and through us,

the fancy word is ‘manifest.’

Or you can say, God. Is. In Her. Him. Them. “People, see, look! look at what God does.”

but we don’t.

we don’t ‘do’ God, we do us: broken-apart, scared, screwed-up us.

greedy, scared, anxious us.

shoot, but we are scared of our shadow like, literally.

and we project it not – oh, if only – on mother’s hung up bedsheets like a movie in the dark.

we project it on others.

and we live in fear of who we are – the we we see in them. the me we see in them.

so forgive me please: I’ll be back but first:

there is a tree trunk I need to pry out of my eye; it will require excavation; does anyone

have a crane? a winch?

ooo, there, almost, got it, but another will get lodged in tomorrow. this is not a life for the feint of heart, all this wrenching and rooting out. but it must be done.

for the love of God, I’ve done it again: screw up. oh, God, how we screw it up.

so here we are.

we have come

we have come to this time to tell the truth

so forgiveness, repentance can come out of us and

into us into us can happen and again something come out of us

that is the divine, God, who creates a new heart, a new desire, new love

for all that is God, for all that God desires – for us and for God’s whole creation

here, this. humus on my face, again,

so God can use it again to make of me the one God wants

to ‘do’ God, to ‘be’ the God that is alive for now with some skin and a mouth, a brain, and a heart.

NOT GOD. but the work of God, heart, love, inclusion, truth-telling.

so, again, forgiveness can happen

and turning and welcome and beloved community can find its place on this planet.

we have come to this. oh, good.

and we have come to this: oh boy, but this too is true:

turning comes with truth and truth comes with a prophetic word, a word that is honest, loving, but clear; there is always love or there would be no bother to tell truth,

and this:

prophecy is the return of blessing. truth gives space for blessing, for the new act,

and oh,

we still haven’t seen everything under the sun,

there is still something new and revealing what is and what

isn’t

brings forth the blessing

of that new thing, new creation, the new appearance of God’s design, desire, intention.

failure to make room for God to make, failure

to honor what all God has

what all God has poured Herself into, draws us here, to this:

“have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin…

create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

the sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart,

O God, you will not despise.”

this

here

is the only place for this to begin. This, this, here, here,

here

humus smeared in the sign of the cross on my face,

and water splashed around it, affirming my call, in baptism, and yours,

washed ready,

having told truth heard it,

having turned and bent down low to be fashioned anew,

built up out of the humus, in humility,

only now do I dare to

offer blessing, that is truth: the possibility of return,

repentance: I call in the name of God,

in the name of grace and all that is

right and good and

kind, in the name of

Creator God, I call to "Officials"

who have hard hearts (or blind guides), to turn

turn turn

turning, come

to my friends, to others,

as I rend my heart over the broken hearts of Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transexual, and Queer

humus-fashioned friends and strangers, in love for them,

telling truth their truth their reality their lives humus-in-the-image-of-God.

some harsh words for intolerance, impatience (Lord, help me!) and indignation because, oh,

how long do we really expect them to wait? impatience is not a bad thing always when

God is involved.

but

it must start here, digging the log out of my eye, knowing one will be back, I speak

only

only can I dare to speak with a face covered in dirt, the dust

from which I’ve come, to which I go,

and in the meantime, now

God -- who is is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast

love: needs our attention:

Return return, come back, come, come to me, return to me with all your heart: make room for me my people my banished exiled

all

and weep, mourn, and rend your hearts (not your clothes), break your hearts

over the hearts of my people, for them,

for them to see,

to know, to be clear

they are humus – “Mine, says God, Mine, in my image.”

Like you.

Like me.

“Why should it be said among the peoples,

‘Where is their God?’”

___Joel 2:17

Now that we are here, to the days of humus, with memory of humus, dust, fire, fresh in mind, past Ash Wednesday, the time for telling truth, so forgiveness is possible, so turning is possible, so the breaking in of blessing is possible, and even the miracles of change, the change we long for: now only now we can speak these words, dare to hope, to dig and prepare the ground for new life. After all, “why should it be said among the peoples, where is their God?” ---Why, right here, thank you! At work, through us! May God enjoy her work through you!

I offer these words with humus still smeared on my face, in humility and love – even when it sounds not so sweet and lovey-dovey. Truth doesn’t, always. But why else do this if not for love? And I offer these words in hope, that repentance is possible. God is compelling.

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Light Is In!

Forget your perfect offering; there is a crack in everything:

That’s how the light gets in.

__Leonard Cohen

Tallinn, Estonia, late May. 1982, again ’85: Nearing the Arctic Circle. Nights bleached with safely dim sun, dusky twilight a sanctuary from time measured by minutes that emptied too early into unrelenting glare of harsh exposure, daytime’s shaming obeisance to tyranny, unwelcome revelations, when all the wrong things are known and summarily judged: the vulgar and capricious, unrelenting unreal reality of absurdity is dominant; and so we sat, bow-legged, leaning on one another for warmth and strength, entirely illegally through the long hours hours hours, of crepuscular tenebrous tender time, only days away from the ultimate ‘White Nights’ of Midsommer and light got in, light from the porous place of mystery and heart.

The “verisimilitude draws up heat in us, zest to follow through, follow transformations of day in its turning, in its becoming,” (Denise Levertov, Matins)

We spoke through many nights of an entirely illegal alternative reality – in their Soviet country and, remarkably also in ours. Of beloved community, of Light from elsewhere, a beyond-belief manumission for our Soviet friends, for freedom! oh, would it ever come? --- and for the possibility of creating a common future that enters through cracks of imperfection. Life in Soviet Estonia then was entirely bleak and uncompromising (except when you were ‘compromised,’ which is another hell of its own.) Every time I left Tallinn they begged me for one thing: more Leonard Cohen. He expressed their reality like no one else. So I learned too of his deep, spooky honest analysis. And reluctant hope.

Entirely illegally, we sat out late through hours, hours, feeding soul and spirit with truth, light, such as we could conceive it, singing “broken hallelujahs,” even as we fed a pitiful, smoky campfire that barely, and needlessly lasted all night,while Juri and Patrick, Luanne, David, Heino, Muna, Paul, Kim, Tiit, Kadi, drop-ins, and me wondered this: what is possible?

In those days, it seemed Auden was right, “Nothing that is possible can save us…. we .. demand a miracle…” For everything worthy was ‘wrong,’ and the upside-down inside-out words of the prophet, Jesus, had never seemed so entirely true. We, entirely illegally – for it was forbidden for foreigners to fraternize with Soviet citizens, we together – no one offering advice, all of us humble, especially us Americans! – spoke in whispers, bare wisps of aspiration, then anticipation: for it must come, it must: the trajectory of history turns toward hope: doesn’t it, please? Doesn’t it?

We entirely illegally let the ashes of anguish gather at the bottom of the fire pit, it being unlawful for us to burn together, hearts one in expectation of future, a miracle when light would get in, when an unexpected, unimaginable – to ordinary apprehension – fissure would open, the crack allowed it – and even through the imperfection (the entirely legal illogical regulations and rules and even internal censorship that would not allow most to partake of our being together,) and so in our mystic communion even through the haze of hopefulness and our determination to struggle together against being overwhelmed, (L. Hansberry) we let the embers of one fire die, while an ever-deeper one burns within us.

Incipient warning broke our reverie: the breaking bad brilliance of dawn, a rooster crowed in the yard nearby, and the spell was broken. Still we had lived those hours of the night and nobody, nothing could steal them, or the horizon that beckoned beyond the farthest reach of light. We spent those quiet moments drawing up the heat, zest, follow through, courage-to-be, and for a transformation that brought us together to the place of turning, returning, becoming…and with early morning came bright unwelcome revelations, of course. Especially for our Estonian friends. But welcome, stealthy, awareness, also, of the horizon, coming closer. Living “already” so much as possible, in the “not yet” reality of another realm.

And so it has been. Their world changed within a decade. Heino went to Princeton. Tiit to Sweden and back. And others to the lives they had longed to live. And we, still, in community across miles, follow transformations, turning, turning, becoming, ever more grateful that, in a yet-broken world, through our broken “hallelujah’s and imperfection, LIGHT GETS IN.

honest. humbled. passionate and defiant but with humus smeared on my face. imperfection my teacher, cracked broken and light gets in.

Welcome! Three years ago I made an 11 week, 11,000 mile road trip alone from Denver to Nantucket and back. Conversations with deep and sweet old friends were mingled in with insights from folks I just met. I was covering familiar territory but it can all feel new, when moving quickly and all mixed together. It was beyond rich!

I invite you to consider this blog a long road trip around the world, from 5 Points in Denver and 'my' beloved mountains, all the way to Moscow, through a time warp of Soviet era Eastern Europe, modern Europe, my true home territory in Sweden, across the Mediterranean into Africa, especially South Africa, and back to the Middle East, especially Palestine and Israel. We travel by way of spirit and heart, conscience and engagement with the traditions and stories that I've gathered up through my desire and attempts to live faithfully according to the words of Micah, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, and with the words and life of Jesus of Nazareth, who said without irony that the life given away for others, will be the fullest life one could ever imagine. And who insists still, that grace, grace is everything. That's a lot of ground to cover!

You are invited to ponder, wonder, and ask right along with me: is this our best work? How can we get beyond the injustices and hate, the deep fears and frightening reactions society tends to put out there? I invite your feedback, ideas, 'best practices.' .

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Humus still smeared on my face

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Grace odyssey