Tag Archives: hope

God Bless the Grass

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I’ve been singing two songs lately that use images of the earth to carry a message of hope in the face of despair.  The first song is “Now the Green Blade Rises,” a traditional Easter hymn.  The second song, “God Bless the Grass,” is by singer-songwriter and social justice activist Malvina Reynolds.  Both songs present the key message of Easter:  love overcomes violence, life overcomes death.

Listen to this version of “Now the Green Blade Rises” by the Smoke Fairies.  

Now the Green Blade Rises

Now the green blade rises from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many years has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

In the grave they laid Him, Love Whom we had slain,
Thinking that He’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

Up He sprang at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

When our hearts are saddened, grieving or in pain,
By Your touch You call us back to life again;
Fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springs up green.

(John M.C. Crum, 1928, 15th Century French Melody)

I also hear the message of life conquering death in this wonderful song by Malvina Reynolds.  You can hear her sing it here:  God Bless the Grass .

 God Bless the Grass

God bless the grass that grows thru the crack.
They roll the concrete over it to try and keep it back.
The concrete gets tired of what it has to do,
It breaks and it buckles and the grass grows thru,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the truth that fights toward the sun,
They roll the lies over it and think that it is done.
It moves through the ground and reaches for the air,
And after a while it is growing everywhere,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that grows through cement.
It’s green and it’s tender and it’s easily bent.
But after a while it lifts up its head,
For the grass is living and the stone is dead,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass that’s gentle and low,
Its roots they are deep and its will is to grow.
And God bless the truth, the friend of the poor,
And the wild grass growing at the poor man’s door,
And God bless the grass.

God bless the grass, which demonstrates the power of life to overcome death, and to bring about both personal and social transformation.  May we all have renewed confidence, courage, and hope during this Easter season.

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This post is re-posted from April, 2013.

Holy Saturday: Following Jesus

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On this Holy Saturday, the last day of Lent, we continue to reflect on the death of Jesus and on what it means to follow him, as we wait for the dawn of resurrection. What does it mean to follow Jesus in this time of ascending evil, destruction, scapegoating, and death?  First, what it does not mean:  Following Jesus does not mean submitting to oppression or choosing to suffer.  Jesus raised up women, children, outcasts, and others who were despised and oppressed, and showed that they were worthy children of God.  Surely we are called to do the same.

Nor did Jesus seek suffering for himself—nothing in the gospel accounts point to that.  Rather, he was true to his mission as he had declared it: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).  By his preaching, teaching, healing, community building, and actions that challenged the ruling Powers, he incurred their wrath.  As a result, they plotted against him and had him executed.  Jesus’ death was the result of the way he lived his life.

The story of Jesus and his “passion” was not something he had wanted for himself, nor was it the plan of an angry God.  Rather, in full integrity and freedom of choice, he refused to back down and betray himself, his mission, the people he loved, or his God.  Further, in the agony of Jesus, the suffering God endured the full impact of human sin and evil, and continues to suffer at our hands as God’s beloved children and creation itself are crucified today.

The question arises:  Why would we want to follow Jesus, who experienced such a horrendous death, or a God who undergoes suffering?  Why not instead focus on something positive, or find a faith that enables us to transcend the world’s suffering, or point to a God who looks on from a distance and sees only harmony?  Or, why not interpret the message of Christianity as being based on the God-ordained sacrifice of a beloved son who came to die to set things right?  Then all we have to do is say “yes” to this story, accept this (ahistorical) Jesus into our hearts, and worship him.  This at least allows us to accept the supposedly predetermined status quo.

But Jesus did not call on his friends to worship him, but to follow him:  to reject the cultural values of wealth and worldly power and to practice and promote the values of tolerance, justice, peace, and love.  This requires an “ethic of risk,” because it places us at odds with the dominant institutions of our day, just as it placed Jesus at odds with those of his day.  And we see clearly not only what human-constructed systems did to Jesus, but what they do to those “surplus populations” that threaten the order of global corporate-dominated capitalism today.

Still, even on Holy Saturday, as we remember the death of Jesus and so many unjust deaths throughout history until today, we anticipate and live into the reality of Easter.  The light of the Risen Christ is with us, making it possible to face the evil, pain, and darkness of our time and to celebrate compassion, beauty, and love.  His Living Spirit is with us, making it possible to set out on the path of following Jesus into the heart of the struggle for a better world.

Previous blog post:  Good Friday:  Contemplation and Resistance

This is the final post in Sharon’s series, A Lenten Call to Resist.

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Light in the Darkness of a Trump Presidency

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On Our Way to Standing Rock

On Our Way to Standing Rock

My birthday falls during the darkest time of the year.  Then, almost immediately, the Winter Solstice is here.  We celebrate the dawning of the light and the days start getting longer.  Then comes Christmas, and we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the coming of the light of Christ.

Being someone who seeks to follow that light, it’s unfathomable to me that over 80% of white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump for president. (See Christianity Today)  The values, practices, and policies that Donald Trump models and promotes are the antithesis of the teachings and example of Jesus.  It reminds me of a book called Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To.  I don’t apologize for Right Wing Christianity and I definitely don’t belong to that church.

For people who yearn for peace, justice, and the healing of creation, the election of Donald Trump has brought a new level of darkness.  But even the specter of Trump as president is not enough to completely blot out the light.

My friends and I arrived at Standing Rock on Election Day.  That night, we watched the election results on the TV in a hotel room at the nearby casino.  The reality of Trump’s election hit us hard, along with all the people in the camp.  But I was glad to be with like-minded people and engaged in positive action during that time.

I believe that perseverance in the work for justice, even and especially during the hard times, will help us move as a people in the direction of the light.  The struggle has been hard, but it looks like it’s about to get harder.  I am still glad to be surrounded by people who have been praying and working for justice for a long time, and by those who are new to the struggle.

As the darkness of fear descends upon people who are vulnerable, those of us who care will stand in solidarity with them, for if we stand by and allow our brothers and sisters to be sacrificed, we become part of the darkness.  As hate and discrimination become the norm, we will stand in resistance to cruel policies and act with compassion.  As lies pervade public discourse, we will seek truth and open ourselves to the guidance of Spirit.  As greed and selfishness become conventional wisdom and national policy, we will share with the poor and stand with the dispossessed.  As the darkness of despair settles in, threatening to paralyze us with apathy, we will rouse ourselves, become more fully human, and take actions that embody hope.

Like many others, I have seen and seek to follow the light in my daily life.  I know that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”  I still believe that we shall overcome someday.  Each day that we walk hand in hand we help make it so.

 

To find out more about a Jesus whose mission was to bring “good news to the poor and release to the captives,” and to “bring down the mighty from their thrones and to raise up the lowly,” see a previous Christmas blog:  The Revolutionary Stories of Baby Jesus.  Or take a look at Jesus, Resister, Part I or Jesus, Resister, Part II, or just about any of my other writings

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 Find previous blog postings about Christmas.

 Find previous blog postings about Standing Rock.  

 

Seasonal Antidotes to Consumer Culture

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In this week or so before Christmas, I’ve been very much involved with family and friends.  I’ve been to two pageants, the Nutcracker, family gatherings, a song circle, a Solstice potluck with friends, and birthday celebrations-with more to come.  I am re-posting this message, Seasonal Antidotes to Consumer Culture, from last December 21, relevant again this year on these days before Christmas:

IMG_4555 (1)

Reposted from December 21, 2013

Seasonal Antidotes to Consumer Culture

On Sunday the children of our church performed a Christmas pageant, complete with Mary, Joseph, angels, shepherds, wise ones, sheep, and a talking donkey.  The children sang Christmas carols and at times the congregation sang along.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, The Revolutionary Stories of Baby Jesus, the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth and infancy have political and even revolutionary significance.  They are stories about a man and his unwed pregnant fiancé, forced by the State to travel a long distance to register for the census in Bethlehem.  The couple spends the night in a stable because that is the only place offered to them, and the young woman gives birth there.    Lowly shepherds see visions of angels and celebrate the birth of the baby, whose only bed is a feeding trough.  Later, foreign astrologers or “wise ones” spot a significant star and follow it, in search of the Christ child.

Our pageant ends with all the children singing “Joy to the World.”  They don’t act out the painful parts of the story:  how the wise ones go to Jerusalem, talk to King Herod, raise his suspicions and outsmart him, while setting into motion a chain of events that leads to a massacre of innocent children (sound familiar?) and the flight of the holy family into Egypt, where, homeless, they struggle to survive as political refugees.

But these painful parts of the story are there, and the kids learn them soon enough.  And whether you understand the story as history or as legend, it is a reminder of the hope that “another world is possible,” the hope of “peace on earth, good will to all people.” It is also a reminder that the Ruling Powers of this world are directly at odds with the incarnation of peace, love, hope, and joy.  This is just as true now as it was in Jesus’ day.

Take, for instance, this Toys R Us ad, which deliberately attempts to lure children away from their natural love of creation and to seduce them into a corporate-constructed “world” of greed and consumption.  This ad and others that target our children seek to instill in them a sense of entitlement, self-centeredness, greed, and lust for things, values which bring not joy but spiritual harm.  In fact these negative values, which underlie our consumer-oriented culture, contribute to poverty, inequity, and ecological damage that threatens life and the future.

Christmas pageants and other non-materialistic holiday and seasonal celebrations provide an antidote to the seductions and demands of consumer culture.  They teach spiritual values such as humility, gratitude, generosity, community, peace, love, and joy.  They “incarnate” the reality of God with us.  They point to light in the midst of the darkness and to life in the midst of death.’

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Words of Sorrow, Words of Hope

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The darkest hour--just before dawn, on my deck this morning

The darkest hour–just before dawn, on my deck this morning

Leonard Cohen has a song called The Faith, which asks again and again, “O love aren’t you tired yet?”  One verse goes like this: “A cross on every hill, a star, a minaret, so many graves to fill. O love, aren’t you tired yet?”

Sometimes I feel tired–discouraged by the struggles and suffering of people I love, the unrelenting violence of world events.  Words from the news create a litany of woes:  Gaza, Ferguson, drones, climate change, ISIS, human trafficking, cutbacks, melting ice sheets, Fukushima, militarized police forces, Iraq, NSA, solitary confinement, Liberia, Ebola, drought, fracking… There seems to be no end to the disasters that are upon us.

Sometimes I need to take a break.  Sometimes it’s enough to make me weep.  But I’m in good company.  Even Jesus wept, as he considered the fate of Jerusalem.  He warned them that they faced disaster if they kept going the way they were headed.   The same is true for us today.

I do feel sorrow at times, but I still have hope.   That’s why I continue to speak out and take actions for peace, for justice, for the healing of the earth.

Hope is not passive.  Hope doesn’t mean feeling optimistic.  Hope means that we don’t give up, but keep working for the transformation of the world even if the odds seem to be overwhelmingly against us.   This requires spiritual depth, supportive community, and resistance to the institutional Powers that dominate the world.

Hope originates in prayer, meditation, self-knowledge, and spiritual surrender, but culminates in community.   It requires us to go deep within ourselves, to face our complicity with systems that produce death, to amend our ways, to join in solidarity with others, and to commit ourselves to creatively working for a transformed world, for what Jesus called “the kingdom of God.”

Yes, Jesus wept over Jerusalem, but he didn’t  just weep and go back home.  He wept and then headed into the city.  When he got there, he went directly into the Temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and drove them out.  This act of nonviolent resistance directly challenged the economic system upon which the religious establishment’s collaboration with Rome was built.  This was why Jesus was put to death—he was a threat to the stability of the Roman occupation in that place.

The challenges facing us today are so great that we will need to work together, along with people around the world, to create the momentum to bring about the systemic transformation that is required.  As Bill McKibben said, “If we can build a movement, then we have a chance.”

We may get tired and discouraged at times.  We may need to rest.  But love is still at work in the world, and there are many signs of hope:  Palestinians standing with signs of solidarity with the people of Ferguson, offering tips on how to deal with militarized police and pepper spray; International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union (ILWU) members cooperating with protestors in Oakland to prevent goods from an Israeli ship from being unloaded, as a protest against the Israeli assault against Gaza; colleges and churches organizing to divest from fossil fuels; nonviolent peacemakers facing judges and sentences; and so many other signs of hope, resistance, and transformation.  The movement for a peaceful, just, and environmentally sustainable world is growing.  It’s called “globalization from below.”

I am convinced that love will not rest, but will continue to work through us in this global movement for change.  As we cooperate with this life-giving force, we embody hope.  We bring hope into the sadness of our world.  We make the world a more hopeful place.

 

See and hear a video of Leonard Cohen’s The Faith.

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