i can’t help thinking

I can’t help thinking if this could be a metaphor for the present day church?

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…and then, as a result … I was challenged.

” .. then do something about it “

and I replied,

“I am, … you saw the cartoon, you read it, you’re thinking about it right now… that is wonderful.
I can’t change one person’s mind about anything… but I can attempt in some small way to get them to think… that’s what I do, it’s what I’m doing right now… it’s what I always try to do and that’s all I believe can be done… and maybe your reading and thinking about it right now, even if you disagree with me, even hate me (and I’m sure you don’t ‘hate’ me), will cause you to think about your own thinking and decide for yourself, not for me, or my way of thinking. … and maybe that thinking will result in action, your action, action that you chose, for yourself, by real faith…”

should there be no alarm?

should there be no shout?

should there be no alarm?

has darkness become light

and light become harm?

 

when the bearers of the light

see nothing

and the messengers have forgotten

even the very message they send

when darkness is the light within

and without there is dark indeed

 

and in the market place

they call for a song

and the minstrels sing

what their ears want to hear

the market place of the gathering

of those who call themselves holy

and leaders of the blind

 

who themselves see no evil afoot

who see no need to stamp it out

who see no cause for alarm

who see no need to raise the shout

 

but they remain not silent

there is indeed a cry

 

in the sanctuary

the cry of a baby

demanding milk

crying for comfort

 

and the cry for comfort

is not for those in anguish

or for those lost

nor for those in need

or for the desperate and the dispossessed

nor for those with nothing

but the cry is from those who are in abundance

who possess all things

and who need no thing

except comfort itself

and who comfort themselves

in need alone

 

the market speaks

and the prophets listen

those called to give

consume

and the name inscribed on their forehead reads

“consumer”

and on their hands it is written

“more”

 

… and of their leader whose feet were dusty

and whose head owned no pillow

who had no place to rest his weary body

and no blanket but the stars

 

of this leader we still hear much

but not all

not even most

not even half

 

and the words we hear

are many words

not hallowed words

but hollowed words

words filled with emptiness

overrunning with empty promises

pretty words

hollow words

vain sonnets

odes to the consumer

love songs to the love sick

for those sick in love

in love with sick

odes to themselves

by the people

of the people

for the people

 

and the market cries out

and the prophets fear

and they fill the air with empty words

that itching ears love to hear

 

sick words

sick love

love sick

 

and this word is exalted

even above the name of the Lord God himself

 

 

it’s not whether we believe in the easter bunny or not, it’s whether the easter bunny believes in us

We are strongly encouraged not to allow anyone to judge or even put pressure on us regarding issues and choices such as food or drink, nor regarding any festivals, seasons, holidays, new moons or even the observance of religious rituals or even holy sabbaths.

All of these things are merely a temporary type, a incomplete and suggestive pointer, a mere shadow of things to come.

The fundamental reality, the underlying foundational substance of all these things is not in us nor in the systems and processes we create for ourselves to establish anything.  It is all beyond us.  It is all wrapped up and sealed in Christ.

No amount of huffing and puffing on our part, however sincere, will suffice.

It’s not even whether we believe in the easter bunny or not.

It’s whether the easter bunny believes in us.

democracy – a synopsis

a burning issue?

Many can quite easily agree that when God met with Moses in the desert it was a huge occasion.  A pivotal point had been reached and in hind sight one can see that the plan required a very strategic turn at a very strategic time and a very strategic person was needed and engaged to run with it.

The ensuing events as recorded revealed a very detailed process and procedure which was handed down and followed for generations.

I can’t help thinking that if I were to hand down such a strategic communication to a very educated person (like Moses was) and ensure that the whole thing not be placed at risk of being misunderstood I would have been very much more specific and detailed right from the very beginning.

Yet God grabs Moses’ attention by burning a fire in a desert bush?

Why all the vague symbolism?

Why run the risk of using such a sensual attention grabbing device?

After this Moses spends great amounts of time alone up a mountain gathering data and eventually comes down and delivers a plan of exacting detail and inflexible adherence.

Quite a significant shift from the original symbolic encounter he first had when he saw the burning bush in the desert and heard the call of God to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Was that the plan all along?

Or maybe Moses just got a bit carried away and all the detail we inherited was something from his fertile imagination and his own psycho-pathology?

Who was the God of the burning bush?

a process of thought

Simply a process of thought – do symbols carry any symbolism in and of themselves?

And do signs cease to be when the destination is reached?

And what kind of folly breaks out when a sign becomes a destination?

“Sign’s and wonders”

Signs are symbols, pointers, directives towards and of another thing, of something else… they are not the thing itself…

Wonders are things that provoke inquisitive exploration .. they bring a sense of wonder, intrigue.

If something is ‘wonderful’ it doesn’t necessarily mean it is good, but that it makes one wonder, be amazed, challenged.

Wonders introduce mystery and mystery again makes us wonder

To seek wonder for the sake of its presence … is this not merely fanciful folly?

And is not the mystery and the momentum of the wonder then robbed of its inherent power?

The wonders of signs

The significance of wonder

the birth of a thought

a thought on birthdays

… and the days of thought it births

~~~

… we remember that point

in the circle of time and space that we first appeared
and it serves to take us back each year
… to remind us that we are here
not by our own doing
(as far as we can tell anyway)
but by some purpose that is beyond us for now
… but not beyond us for ever

… if we would only still the noise
as the cycles spin by
… and give space to the center
around which the cycle spins

and then…

we would then stop spinning
and rest with the spinner

~~~
I trust we will have an inspired cycle this next time around

musician or jukebox?

A musician and a jukebox have many similarities but they are very different as well.

Both stand before people and can fill the environment with information in a way that has a most profound effect on those who hear.

Both get fed money in order to perform.  One could say that both are paid for their services.

Both have a mechanism of sorts that enables the flow of music to come out.

But jukeboxes are not musicians because musicians are human beings with infinite qualities, uniqueness and personality.

Jukeboxes on the other hand are not musicians.  They are machines.  Impersonal, clinical, emotionless mechanisms which respond to the demands at a pay-point as a coin is inserted into the appropriate slot and the specifically chosen music (if it is programmed into the system) is automatically reproduced exactly like the original.

A clinical transaction dominates this mechanism.

“No pay, No play” is the national anthem as well as the hymn of worship.

There is no emotion, love nor passion in any of this.  There are no feelings, no joy, expectation, passion and no remorse.  This is all a legally sanctioned set of transactions which if violated will incur legal penalties articulately specified and clinically enforced.

A jukebox is a pay-on-demand mechanism which serves those who insert coinage in so that it plays their specified tune on demand.  But one could say that it mainly serves the owner and master of the jukebox who takes all the profits.  The owner and master from time to time opens up the guts of the jukebox and removes the bounty, leaving the jukebox empty and once again ready to be refilled for more profit to be extracted at a later time.

There are no jukeboxes that are musicians.

They cannot be musicians because they are not humans.  After all they are machines.

However, there are many musicians who are jukeboxes.

Be Bop, Charlie Parker and ‘street talk’

              

It is alleged that according to an interview the legendary Charlie Parker gave sometime in the 1950s, that one night in 1939 he was playing “Cherokee” in a jam session with guitarist William ‘Biddy’ Fleet when he hit upon a method for developing his solos that enabled him to play what he had been hearing in his head for some time, by connecting harmony using the diminished relationship of dominants.  Parker at this time also realized that the twelve tones of the chromatic scale can lead melodically to any key, breaking some of the confines of simpler jazz soloing.

As a result Charlie Parker’s innovative approaches to melody, rhythm, and harmony exercised enormous influence on his contemporaries.  At first many didn’t like it, or him much at all.  They even tried to ridicule him, his way of playing as well as all who embraced and continued with this new, crazy idea.

These days the ‘mixit’/text/short message system (possibly as a natural follow-on from street music forms like Rap) is presenting a similar challenge to language as we know it?  Meanings of words and expressions, idioms and the like, and in many instances meaning itself is being challenged and the so-called ‘purists’ are not at all really happy.

Many are scrambling to maintain the ‘purity’ of a language which is changing all the time anyway.

Is it possible that language, (English especially as the dominant force in global communication these days) is experiencing a “Be Bop” period? Like Be Bop, is mixit/text(sms) ‘language’ breaking some of the confines of simpler communication linguistic forms and patterns?

Is there a lesson for us in this? … and might this be applicable to other forms of cultural communication?  Politics?  Religion?  Economics?  Community?

a cold shadow

it drifts overhead

a shadow creeps across the ground

a chill shudder

a shiver sets in

a black shape passes ahead

passing, stopping, moving on

gone

like a glitch in the matrix

a shift in time

a time in shift

a time in shock

will they notice?

those who see will watch and wait

most will not

see