Slogans to Opine in 2009

Time to Get Fine in 2009

 

Don’t Whine in ‘09

 

The Work is All Divine in 2009

 

New Wine in ‘09

 

No More Whisky and Wine in 2009

 

Recover your Mind in 2009

 

Victory is Mine in 2009

 

All the Way Fine in 2009

 

Super Fine in ‘09

 

It’s All Divine in 2009

We’ll be Fine in ‘09

It’s All Mine in 2009

A little less “behind” in 2009

 

 

And a poem…

We gonna get fine in the 09

by using our time

to stay away from swine

not drinking too much wine  

trying to hard not to recline

smelling trees made of pine

during our exercise time

it’s how to be fine in 2009!

 

Mo’ Fyne in ’09  - Mo’Fyne in ‘09

 

This has been An F³ Production (F-Cubed = From Facebook Friends)

"A Subversive Sing A-Long"

From the organization SOJOURNERS:

In the spirit of a joyful, Christ-centered Christmas, we've even written a carol for a subversive sing-along. Who said doing justice had to be boring or serious?! So, clear your throat and join us in a rousing chorus of: “Have Yourself a Peace and Justice Christmas” (to the tune of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”).

Have Yourself a Peace and Justice Christmas

Have yourself a peace and justice Christmas, 
Set your heart a-right.
Flee the malls and focus on Christ’s guiding light.

Have yourself a peace and justice Christmas, 
Give your time a way. 
Share God’s love, And serve “the least of these” today.

Here we are, as we pray for peace,
We’ll live simply and give more.
We care for those far and near to us,
Which brings cheer to us, once more.

God brings down
The haughty from high places,
And lifts up the low.
God cares for the hungry and the humble, so –
Forget the stress and let the peace and justice flow!

the 44th President

let's stay current

Hayes Hall Tower Clock and Westminster Chime (Bell Inscriptions)

Set in operation in July of 1928 - 

Largest Bell:

"All truth is one. 

In this light may science and religion labor here together for the steady evolution of mankind from darkness to light; from prejudice to tolerance; from narrowness to broadmindedness." 

Fourth Bell

"I am the voice of life; I call you: Come and learn."

written by Judge Cuthbert W. Pound, Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals

The Great Thanksgiving for Hope, Possibility and Hospitality

This is the prayer of consecration and thanksgiving we offered today at Kairos:

Heavenly Father, you created and gave your children the gift of this earth. You filled it with a rainbow of people to love, respect and live in community with each other. You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the Supreme Example of Holy Unity.

 

Gracious God, we come today to say Thank you!  Thank you for loving us enough to send us your darling Son, Jesus to be our Christ.  Thank you for being so merciful that your blessings to us are more than we deserve. Thank you for allowing us to live to see the answer to centuries old prayers. Thank you this day for a new day in the history of the world, for our new President-Elect and World Leader, Barack Hussein Obama. We acknowledge his election as a Kairos moment.  We accept his election as clear evidence of your moving in human history and we give you glory. 

 

Therefore, we join our voices with that great a cloud of witnesses who surround us, those who now are looking to us over the canopy of the heavens, those who died in the faith, not having received the promise but having seen it afar off.  We join our voices with our forebears who have already joined the eternal chorus of angels, archangels and all the company of heaven and in victory we laud and magnify Your Holy name evermore praising you and singing,

 

Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Hosts.

Heaven and earth are full of Thee.

Heaven and earth are praising Thee.

O Lord, Most High.  AMEN.

 

Yes Lord, You are Holy and Righteous and Powerful and altogether Lovely.  There is none like you.  When the blood of heifers and doves would no longer suffice of the sins of Your people, You sent Your Son from His throne in Glory to condescend to live among us, a people who had wandered far from you.  Jesus lived and showed us the way of love and the path of peace.  Jesus died and opened for us the way of salvation and victory.  Jesus rose and demonstrated the way to overcome.  You sent your Spirit and empowered us to continue the ministry of Jesus, our Christ.

 

And so Lord, we gather at your table in celebration. You declare us equal at this Table. At this table of equality there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, black nor white, rich nor poor, male nor female.  At this table, we are one.  By Your great power Lord God, our hope that the equality we experience at this table is now being realized in the earth. 

 

In celebration of the establishment Your Kingdom of Equality our Lord Jesus, in the same night that he was betrayed, took Bread; and, when he had given thanks, he brake it; and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat; this is my Body which is given for you: Do this in remembrance of me. Likewise after supper he took the Cup; and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all, of this; for this is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins: Do this, as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of me.

 

Lord, you are wholly and entirely Other.  Show us increasingly how to open our hearts, our lives to You.  And, day by day, help us to open our hearts to one (an)other.  Thank you for teaching us how to love and to accept those different from ourselves.  You, O God, are the Supreme example of divine hospitality.  You, Great Host of this Holy Table, have welcomed us to the heavenly banquet and sent your Son who died to ensure that all, ALL have a place at Your Table.  Hallelujah!  As we feast today at Your table, fill us with your Holy Spirit: that our feet will be constantly guided by Hope, that our eyes will be ever open to see and to seize Possibilities, that divine Hospitality will create open spaces in our hearts for the other. 

 

Pour out Your Spirit , O God, upon the offerings set before You on this table and upon those who stand around this holy table offering themselves to you as living sacrifices.  We pray that you will make us holy and acceptable that, through us, the establishment of your Kingdom will continue and the entire creation be made better.  This is our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord.  AMEN.  

Why I became emotional at the polls

I was anxious when I arrived at the public library in Green Hills to vote early.  Because I am in school in Atlanta during the week, I was unable to vote when early voting began as I had wanted.  Not knowing how long the line would be, I walked briskly so as to pass the few folk who arrived when I did.  While standing in line I thought about my recent move and wondered if I would have to turn that library out because of some questions about my current address.  There was only one other darker hued person in line, a young woman who was voting for the first time.  When the poll workers became aware of this, an elderly white gentleman sounded the alarm and everyone began to applaud and cheer. 

The line was not long but the waiting was getting to me.  I needed to cast that vote.  There was a sample ballot hanging on the wall (which I reviewed) but only one contest had my attention. 

Finally, I was directed to the desk to verify my information (no problems!) and I stood waiting to get to the voting machine.  Thoughts of hanging chads and the Florida Secretary of State and sleepless news watching four years earlier crept into my mind.  I wondered what we might have to endure this go round. 

When I stood at the voting machine I became impatient with the very kind gentleman who prepared it for my vote.  I could not wait to see the name and how it would look on the ballot.  What I did not expect was my emotional response to seeing it there.  I stood there just looking at it and did not immediately move to touch the screen by his name.  I wanted to savor the moment.  I wanted to etch that image into my brain.  When I touched the screen and saw the check appear by his name my mind was flooded with so many thoughts and visions:

It could be that the first president's name that my younger nephews would pronounce could be the name of an African American.  Just like they would not find cell phones and the internet to be foreign or new ideas to be learned and incorporated into their thinking, they may not, like I, have to accustom themselves to the notion of black man in the White House.  This man might be the first president they really knew.

It could be that a strong, intelligent, confident, articulate black woman will stand at the door of the White House to epitomize hospitality by deepening the world's understanding of the truest meaning of the word.

It could be that Americans might once again be a part of the world community.

It could be that the American demons of racism and hegemony will be further exposed and bound.

It could be that a disaffected people will become engaged.

I thought about Malia and Sasha growing into womanhood in the White House and the level of sophistication to which other little black girls will aspire because of them.

I thought about my brother and his wife, my sister and her husband – black strong, proud, anointed Christian POWER COUPLES on the move to make the world a better place even more inspired by Barack and Michele.

The feeling was elation.  The voting machine was the point of contact for my faith. 

What came to your mind when you voted?  What possibilities have been opened in your mind?

Creation and Revelation

We have seen the collapse of the investment banking industry as we know it and have watched as lawmakers have debated and postured and ultimately passed a $700 Billion bail out.  Tom Wolfe wrote in the New York Times last week about a group of folk he called “the Masters of the Universe” (from the cartoon based on Mattel’s toys “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe).  This is the name he gave to investment bankers who began in the 1980’s to make millions upon millions of dollars at investment banks.  Three of those banks are now closed and one has been subsumed into another bank.  I have not read the book, “Bonfire of the Vanities” in which Wolfe uses this name, but it suggests the amount of power and, perhaps, when you consider the title of the book, a kind of hubris and greed that toppled the very industry that made these folk their fortunes while raping innocent people. 

We have heard candidates and politicians opine about the condition of Main Street over and against Wall Street.  Yet, I wonder where the concern for Main Street was a few years back when some of us, and friends of ours, were being duped into mortgages that appealed to the best and the worst in us at the same time.  I do not suppose anyone would seek to dispute the ethics of greed and “vaulting ambition” as root causes of this tragedy.  What ethic must replace these so as to avoid such devastation in the future, particularly the devastation of families and individuals who fell for the mortgage tricks and whose retirement investments have radically lost value?

So, here we are, watching the papers with a curious mixture of excitement and dread.  And yet, the challenges we face day to day are not chronicled in the papers that we read.  The challenges we face are nearer, more pressing, immediate.  Whatever the impact this banking collapse and resulting bailout will have on our lives is still in our future.  But many of us are facing challenges in our present: financial difficulty, failing relationships, health concerns, loneliness, grief, sorrow, frustration emanating from our lives not being what we hoped and what we had envisioned, disappointments, dashed hopes and deferred dreams.  We are not sitting around waiting to see how the collapse of the banking industry will affect us, our dance card is full already as we struggle right now to dance to the rhythm of our own lives. 

Emergent, immediate and pressing needs are the stuff that holds our attention. Too often, these pressing needs obscure our sight of the beauty around us in which God has placed the answers we have been looking for.  Too often, we are so consumed with what is wrong in our lives, what is wrong around us that we cannot see the sheer magnificence of what is around us: creation.

If we open our hearts, we can receive the sacrament of God each and every day through creation.  A sacrament is the self-giving of God.  And the first sacrament of God really is creation.  Creation is the expression, the revelation of the majesty and the glory of God.  Creation is God’s goodness erupted into this universe.  And God is the Master of it. God has given us Himself in this marvelous creation of which we are a part.  God’s Spirit is active in creation.  The Holy Spirit is not the property of houses of worship.  God’s spirit is in the wind.  God’s spirit is in the water.  God’s spirit is in the mountains.  God’s Spirit is in a warm smile, a passionate embrace.  God’s spirit is in us and in the love we have for one another.  Facets of the mystery of God are revealed to us in God’s creation.  Those who are connected to God’s creation, and not at war with it, get intimations, hints, clues and outright direct messages from God about life and how to live it. 

Consider the Moken people, who call themselves sea gypsies of the Andaman Sea.  The Moken live in the exact area where the tsunami hit Thailand in 2004 and yet there are no known causualties among the Moken.  “It's their intimacy with the sea that saved the Moken. They’re born on the sea, live on the sea, die on the sea. They know its moods and motions better than any marine biologist… It wasn't only the sea that was acting strangely. It was the animals, too. On the mainland, elephants started stampeding toward higher ground. Off Thailand’s coast, divers noticed dozens of dolphins swimming for deeper water. And on these islands, the cicadas, which are usually so loud, suddenly went silent” (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/18/60minutes/main681558.shtml).

Somehow, we must learn to quiet ourselves to hear what silences speak to us.  Insights from God’s creation do not come to us in frenetic activity but in the calmness of our rest in Him, leaning on Him, our being with Him, our loving Him, our trusting Him, our relying on Him.  These revelations come in our nearness to God, our communion with God and God’s creation.  In our communion with God come the revelations vital to our lives. 

            Moving through the day with frowning fixed gaze and grip on your lip is not the life God has planned for us.  Our countenance, our face should reflect the peace God has poured into us as we have practiced the discipline of resting in Him.  Frowning fixed gazes do not allow for beholding the beauty of nature.  When we do not make rose smelling and tree hugging and star gazing a part of our day we have missed revelations of Godself to us.  Creation is an act of God’s giving of Godself to us.  It is sacramental.  We must neither ignore nor abuse creation.  Nor should we suppose ourselves to live on some high spiritual plane.  This world, this marvelous creation is not to be escaped, even though there are parts of it that are broken.  God made it.  This world is to be redeemed and we must participate in its redemption.  Participate by beholding the beauty of the earth as it reveals God’s glory to us. 

What are your thoughts about signs in nature?

What revelations have you received through creation?

How might being deeply attuned to creation help us to unlearn greed and hubris? 

What lessons can be learned in nature about how to establish and maintain healthy relationships? 

What signs might we have missed that could have led us to higher ground when financial calamity struck?

I’d love to hear from you!

"I don't know why they march"

"History Remix" revisited:

There is a display case in one of the galleries that contains a photograph and open magazine in which the photograph was printed.  It gave me pause.

Mrs. Blackman and Baby in Her Cabin, Trickman Fork, Alabama 1965  by photographer Bruce Davidson.  He joined forces with two other journalists and created a nine page feature titled “The Meaning of the Selma March” for the Saturday Evening Post (May 22, 1965).

The photo is of the “colored” mother of nine standing in a doorway of her home holding her baby.  The photographer is inside the room and photographs her looking back inside toward him.  He is able to capture a room with a fireplace with a cork board above holding two identical images of santa clause.  The walls are papered with newsprint and magazine pages.  There are at least two beds in this untidy room.  It is a poignant picture of poverty made more so by the caption.  Davidson asked Mrs. Blackman if she new why the marchers had come.  Her response was simply, “No sir, I don’t know why they march”

And yet, the marchers came and marched.  Their coming was a certain disruption to the communities through which they passed.  Those who remained after the marchers left surely bore the brunt of the hostilities of those who were happy with life as it had been.  Though change was not immediately apparent, life would never be the same because of those marchers and other protesters and silent pray-ers and strategic organizers and invisible supporters and unnamed martyrs. 

I wonder how they thought about marching for those who didn’t know why they marched. 

How are you marching for those who don’t know why you march?

How are  you loving for those who don’t know why you love?

Did not Jesus die for those who did not know why He died?

Rabbi Abraham Heschel said that when he participated in the Selma march that he was aware that he was praying with his feet.  I have been meditating on these images and meditating on how these folk loved with their feet as they marched. 

How do you love today?

How can / do / could / should we love together today?

I’d love to hear from you.

Belin

Strength to Love

Forgot the text when I posted the pics.  Forget the title when I posted the text.  But its all here now.  More later.  

Grace and Peace

I write from the High Museum of Art in Atlanta while I am experiencing the exhibit: History Remixed.  I write in the liminal space between “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement 1956-1968” and “After 1968: Contemporary Artists and the Civil Rights Legacy.”   I am intentionally stopping here to write before I proceed to the next part of the exhibit so as to record my right now feelings, thoughts and impressions.  The experience is profound.  Any criticisms I had of the exhibit have succumbed to the images themselves.  

 

Steve Shapiro, photographer employed by Life Magazine, was flown by the magazine to Memphis after the assassination of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  He was the first photo journalist to gain access to the room in which Dr. King stayed at the Loraine Hotel.  The picture captures remnants of an eaten meal, a small opened milk carton, empty glasses, styrofoam cups – all on the hotel desk and attached suitcase stand.  On the suitcase stand is a crumpled shirt and an open suitcase what looks like “Magic Shave,” a paper called “Soul Force,” some file folders, a book with only the author’s name visible, “Martin Luther King, Jr.,” and another book titled, Strength to Love.  (author)  

When I entered into this exhibit, I became emotional.  My eyes filled up because the sheer power of the images presented to me was overwhelming.  I sought a way to characterize my experience, my feelings, my thoughts.  Then I came to the photograph by Shapiro.  It is helping me voice my emotions. 

 

What is so engrossingly powerful about the people in these photographs is their seemingly otherworldly strength to love.  Is this not, in essence, the only thing that could enable mere mortals to endure, even to triumph over the horrors of our history?  Under threat of humiliation, physical harm and death, these men and women, most of whom were very, very young, marched, protested and bore witness to the dignity of a people of color.

 

These “colored” folk who engaged the struggle were not just black.  There were brothers and sisters of all hues who engaged the struggle for civil rights in this country.  Certainly, the oppression of one group of people had great impact on all people.  Together, people of different, colors, communities, particularities of experience came together and found the strength to love. 

 

I believe we have strength to love.  Still, strength to love is what we need... 

We need strength to love those who are different from us

We need strength to love ourselves into the ability to confront our complicity with systems of oppression and exclusion and hatred at work in this country and in the world

We need strength to love the poor out of poverty

We need strength to love ourselves even after we have taken an honest look at ourselves

We need strength to love our way out of selfishness and self-centeredness

We need strength to love our country enough to criti que it and challenge is to be better

We need strength to love other human beings enough to sacrifice some of what we have that others who have nothing may have something

We need strength to love children who are aging out of foster care and entering the streets

We need strength to love violence out of the hearts of the violent

We need strength to love authority out of the hands of the unjust

We need strength to love the mentally ill

We need strength to love the mentally ill

We need strength to love the mentally ill

 

Love is not some emotional or ethereal abstraction.  Love is a verb, an action word. 

Love is struggle

Love is power

Love is courage

Love is sacrifice

Love is risk

Love is …

 

Finish these statements for me:

We need strength to love….

Love is…

 

I love you

Belin

Strength to Love