In Our Distress

Meditation: angelus est nomen officii

In my extremity, I called out to the Lord;
I cried out in the congregation in my distress.
I was answered with love;
I was restored and removed to a better place;
With the love of the Lord with me, how can I be cut down?

Place your trust in the Lord;
Seek the Almighty where he waits upon his beloved;
Though your enemies surround you;
Though you find yourself at fault and unworthy;
Though you see no escape, there is help and hope for you;
The Lord is our strength and right arm;
His servants listen for the cry of the oppressed;
They wait upon the word of the Lord.

The Lord is our salvation and our help;
Though we may be chastised,
we are not condemned;
Though we find ourselves in distress;
even at the end of our lives and beyond;
We are enfolded and comforted;
In the Lord we find our true labor;
In the Lord we truly find ourselves.

-distantly after Ps 118

Who Is It?

Meditation:  Bring your sins to God's throne, and you will receive the peace of God.

Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?
Who is this that cometh up as a flood, whose waters are moved as the rivers?
Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?
Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?
-This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?
Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass?
Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us:
this is the LORD; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.


Songs 8,
Jeremiah 46,
Songs 3,
Isaiah 63,
Lamentations 3,
Isaiah 25

Throw Me Away

Proposed antiphon: God blesses us and keeps us, and hereafter will make us new

Sometime in late spring
The pansies were discarded
Dumped in the common area
Behind the houses
Where the blackberries grow
And the morning glories dance
Twisting from cane to cane

There the soil is rich,
Full of grass cuttings and bits of bark
Discarded potting soil
Leaf mould and pine needles -
The detritus of years past

There the essence of green life
Spirals up like slow flame
Through the stems and leaves
Through the curling growing tips
And into the air

You can smell it, see it
Wafting from the full petals
And shining from the generous faces
Of the pansy blooms that grew there
Burgeoning with beauty and life

Throw me away
Cast me aside
Into the dung-heap of creation
Let the sun beat down
And the wild rains fall
Let me bloom

We Wander in the Wilderness

Proposed Antiphon: Creation starts with chaos

We wander in the wilderness

And all our stars are out of place

We hide in holes and in ditches

And the wind passes over where we lie

We have little

And what we have is taken from us

Once our counsel was sought after

But now we are counted as fools and idiots

Once we spoke and others leapt to obey

Now we speak and only the beasts answer

Friends are struck down

And family members suffer and die

We persist in our prayers

And call out to our God

Where is the path of truth?

Where is the way that leads through this desert?

We wander in the wilderness

And all our stars are out of place

I am a jumble of broken parts that know nothing of each other.

Antiphon: We Will Meet Again, The Wolves, The Fire, And I.


I am a jumble of broken parts that know nothing of each other.

It is as if a farmer opened his seed bin and found;
An acorn,
Seventeen rusty machine screws of unmatched sizes, some covered in tar,
Three quarters of an inch of bailing wire,
Half of a stale cookie,
Four ants,
And a dead mouse.

Or maybe it is as if a householder planted squash in the garden;
and watched the plants sprout, and grow and put forth leaves,
and blossom, and begin to set fruit;
only to come out one day and find them all blackened and shriveled with a blight.

Or maybe it is like a merchant who plotted a trading route;
And built a ship and set out;
And travelled for leagues and leagues,
Only to look through the glass and find his destination laid waste.
And planned a new route, a new destination,
And travelled to within sight of shore,
Only to be driven off by pirates.
But being unwearied and unbowed, he plotted yet another course
To a new destination, and sailed strange waters,
Only to be halted by impassible reefs and inhospitable masses of land.

So I sit with the fragments of the lives I have lived,
And wonder what to do, and where to go;
And I remember not long ago,
When these mismatched parts,
Somehow lined up and made a perfect and remarkable machine.

A plan of goodness;
A pathway to a new place;
The seeds of a new life.

And today
With my water running low
And my sails ragged
And my options limited;
I pray for inspiration to God;
Who knows how these broken, jumbled parts
Are remarkable, and
Can made to work together
Once again

-LE

Unclean

His name we deny
And cross it out of our books
It must not be mentioned
Not in public
Or in the counting-house
Or at conference
Or even between strangers

We are embarrassed to call upon His name
We do not stir ourselves to take hold of Him
Wisdom is cast aside
And folly is counted as righteousness

We abandon His houses
And they rot
They are burned and not rebuilt
Or are used to store dead things
Or as drinking halls
Used for revelry and debauchery

Our leaders no longer contemplate His words
But instead their own
Saying that there is no true spirit
Only contemplations

So our portion is taken away
As it should be taken from unfaithful servants
And we weaken and fade
What is your instruction
To the servants who remain?
What is your word?

God’s Sheep are Confused

God’s sheep are confused;
Stubbornly, we have wandered astray;
We wander in the wilderness;
And know not where we go.

Where is our Lord?
Where is His staff, that keeps harm at bay?
Where is His hand, that comforts us?

We follow His footsteps, and we find food.
We listen for His voice, and it leads us to fresh water.

But the food here is strange and sparse.
And the times of plenty have gone.
At night we lie down where we may,
We are grateful to be able to sleep,
And are grateful to be able to rise to follow the Lord again.

Will the hard times end?
Will we see the land joyful again?
Will we drink the wine of plenty,
And be anointed with blessings once more?

Help us to repent our stubbornness;
Help us to find wisdom, and remember your lessons;
Help us to follow you more closely;
And live within the warmth of your bosom.

God’s sheep are confused;
Stubbornly, we have wandered astray;
We wander in the wilderness;
And know not where we go.

On Palm Sunday

It’s the King!

The King is at the gates!

The King is just down the street!

The King claims He is One with God!

Blind people see!

Deaf people hear!

Run, Run and find him!

Praise him! Praise him!

Save! Jesus Save Us!

Save us from hunger!

Save us from oppression!

Save us from hardship!

Save us from pain!

Save us from difficulty!

Save Us!

Lead Us!

Be our King!

Topple the Government!

We will rise!

We will march!

We will fight!

Wait, he slips away…

He will not fight…

He will not confront…

He is… …he is arrested…

He goes meekly, like a lamb…

His disciples run like frightened children…

We are betrayed…

We remain oppressed…

We remain in hunger…

We remain in desperation…

But he said he was the One!

Jesus?

What to DO with Jesus?

The one who dashed our hopes?

The one who pretended to be the King?

The one who pretended to be GOD?

Crucify!

Crucify Him!

Crucify Him!

Crucify Him!

Seeing Truth in the Wasteland

In the waste-land near the train-station the wild grapes are gone past. Now the wild grasses display their fruit, and rose-hips shine bright red between the leaves of the sweetbriar.

Nearby there is a circuit box that handles power for the station and its night-time illumination. Looking at it, I see an electric eye, aimed at the heavens, rigged to tell the circuit box if it is day or night, if the lights at the station need to be turned on, or not.

The electric eye is covered with shiny glass, and beneath the glass its electronics are a reddish blue. -Which has attracted a beetle with bright red and black markings, who is doing its best to cover the eye with its body. So far, the electric eye is not fooled.

While I contemplate this, an adventursome chipmunk scampers over my foot and stops underneath me to give me a sniff. As I don't seem to be food, it scoots away, quick as thought, in search of larder for the winter. 'Try the grass seed', I think.

We on the earth are good at sensing the hours and seasons of the planet, and figuring out what is good food, and what is not.

But with the food of the spirit, we are often not so good. We lay up poison in our wine-cellars, we store away pebbles instead of wheat. We look at the sky, and we see the bug that is in the way, and remember little of the actuality in front of us, good or bad.

Test the spirit of the times. Taste what is in front of you, and if it is poison, spit it out. Test what you see, and clear your vision of that which blocks the truth. Test what you hear, and clear your ears of falsehood. Judge with right judgment, and keep your wits about you.

If you walk about with your eyes blocked, will you not stumble and hurt yourself? And if what you believe is lies, or your thinking is based on anger, will not your decisions lead to disaster and ruin?

If the bug, and the chipmunk are signs, perhaps they are hopeful ones. Perhaps they show that we can and will see the truth, and choose the true food, and see true light.

May it be so for us all.

LE

Wasteland Pictures

Not so long ago, I published a post entitled Wasteland. I thought it might be neat if you got to see what I saw, and so here are some pictures from the very wasteland I was writing about:

Some grapes growing next to a cable supporting an electrical line...

Some immature raspberries... Today I see that some of them are ripe and that they are plump and lovely BLACK raspberries, and that many have been eaten by the little critters who live here.

And a funny bug on milkweed blossoms:

May your day be equally full of beauty in unexpected places.


P.S. I have replaced the picture on this blog of 'St Kevin's Chapel' with a picture of a grasshopper, as perhaps more appropriate. The insect in question was only briefly held and released back where it was captured. No grasshoppers were eaten or harmed in any way in the production of this blog.

Wasteland

...
Railroads are by their nature surrounded by wasteland.

Their roadbeds are not usually considered pretty, their switching areas, rusting signals and overhead electric lines are eyesores, and the trains that travel them are loud, discoraging the close encroachment of the neat lawns and dwellings of residential suburbia.

And the odd angles that the rail-beds make with roads, property lines, and each other create wedges of land that are virtually impossible to put to any use, even if someone wanted to do so.

And so they are left fallow, ...and life finds them and springs up.

The odd-shaped wedge behind the train station where I wait in the morning teams with life and is laden with ripening wild fruit;

raspberries and blackberries and grapes and choke-cherries, rose-hips and milkweed, and wild herbs and seeds - eaten by silly baltimore orioles (singing 'oh-boyeee!') and robins and sparrows and mocking-birds and chipmunks. ...and these are likely just the bold ones, who dare show themselves while I am there.

The amount of life per square foot is amazing. And to create this beauty, we just had to give it space. We abandoned it. We ignored it. We left it alone.

This was a waste-land, useless.

Sometimes we feel that way about ourselves, about parts of our lives, about people and places. But perhaps they need just a little space, some light, and a bit of water. Just a wee opportunity for growth and creation; time and space for God to enter in, and fill the wasteland with life.

May God enter all the abandoned places in our lives, all our waste-lands, and make them bloom and be fruitful.

And may we be wise enough to allow space for life, to leave spaces for the wild magic of God to take place.

Love,
Locust Eater

Related:
Wasteland Pictures
Seeing Truth in the Wasteland
God’s Sheep are Confused