let us pray.....

Father,

These are trying times. I am looking through the window of a bus, at a policeman holding a gun outward through an open window. Many things could go wrong with this scene. He may have forgotten to put the safety on; he may playfully finger the trigger of his gun while the squad car goes over a bump. A shot could be fired, an innocent killed. This is the state of our nation. There are many acts heading toward full combustion. For years and years we seem finely perched on the edge. Yet we desire to live away from the brink of disaster. We want to live in the safety of a country that works.

Many say and believe that we are an unwieldy contraption, a mistake of man. We believe that we are born of divine inspiration, a city of God. So, before we embark on one of those doomed exercises of the flesh, before we enthrone ourselves as better than other men, before we become full of disastrous self-right because we know a little of the truth without knowing how to use it-we come to you.

We ask that you enlighten us. That you teach us how to pray, and from that, relying on you, become worthy ambassadors of your will. It is your will that is good for all; it is your will that separates the darkness from the light.

We have no illusions about the task ahead but we know that we cannot afford to lose the tiny battles of the earth and lose the war over our own souls. The end, to you, could never justify the means. The means are smaller parts of the end that come together, finally, in the end. Only what is sown can be reaped, help us to sow the right seed.

In essence, lord, we are asking for forgiveness. A realignment of the past with present/eternal truth and future glory. Make us a people of a prayer before you make us a nation of action. Help us to dwell forever in the light.

Amen.

RFK on violence.

On the Mindless Menace of Violence
City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OhioApril 5, 1968
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.
This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.
I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.
We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.
Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.
We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.
Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

song of songs: the fray's "you found me"

“I found GodOn the corner of First and AmistadWhere the westWas all but wonAll aloneSmoking his last cigaretteI said, "Where you been?"He said, "Ask anything".Where were youwhen everything was falling apart?All my dayswere spent by the telephoneit never rangand all I needed was a callit never cameto the corner of First and Amistad”

It is said that God is big enough to absorb everything into Him-self. It is said that He can swallow our dark moments with His light. Why does He not swallow all our dark moments with light? This is the question anyone who is walking in present darkness, in stopping grief, in stumbling fear, in pain, hurt, ache, and despair has asked. It is the question the song asks: Where is God at our desperate moments?
The dark always seems to thrive beyond the light. It seems that when you are in the thick of it the light is off somewhere, probably flaming God’s cigarette. This is the brilliance of the song. It is honest enough to imagine that deity is not concerned with the problem at hand. That God is somewhere doing something for himself while we call and call and call in vain: “Eli, Eli lema sabathchani...”
The songwriter goes further in this to imagine a whole play, a short one, where face to face with the light you are allowed to ask your questions. In one real sense the whole song is the soliloquy that the other character, the one that is not God in the dock, is allowed to embark on. It is the interrogation of God. Before you go off on a rant about how one cannot question God remember “come let us reason together…” I doubt God is afraid of our misplaced rants. The ‘reasoning’ can only end one way.

The first question asked is the most vital to the human experience and the modern impression of God; “where you been?”

“Everyone ends up aloneLosing herThe only one who's ever knownWho I amWho I'm not, who I wanna beNo way to knowHow long she will be next to me”
The idea of God missing has been persistent for a while. Can’t you hear Nietzsche declaring “God is dead...for we have killed him”, Pacino, in character, calling him: “absentee landlord” or your own beating heart doubting the relevance of God in the high age of so-called enlightenment?
Perhaps that is too head. Let’s go heart. Does it not seem like you face the reality of your dim moments alone? Is it not in isolation that you grapple with the effects of life turning on you? Sure friends and family “defend the silver lining”. They do what they can. But they cannot share in physical pain, understand your most stifling fears or live with your deepest shame. They cannot live for you. “In the end everyone ends up alone.”

“Early morningThe city breaksI've been callin'For years and years and years and yearsAnd you never left me no messagesYa never send me no lettersYou got some kinda nerveTaking all I want”
And finally we get to the point of why we are angry at God. For those who have sought, even for a moment, to build a life around a belief in the right, in goodness, in love must have hit the heavy wall of reality a few times. Some right intentions have wrong consequences. Goodness does not win. Love can walk away.
It is not the event that bothers you as much as what it means. It indicts God as the watcher and not the doer. He gave no warning signals, he sent no sacred text messages, he let you delight in futility then he let you fall down.
I have asked so many times for the same thing: show me how to live, show me what to do, tell me the way to go. “Leave me a message, send me a letter” show me the way to live without the cross and its weight. “Is there any other way?”

“Lost and insecureYou found me, you found meLyin' on the floorWhere were you? Where were you?Lost and insecureYou found me, you found meLyin' on the floorSurrounded, surroundedWhy'd you have to wait?Where were you? Where were you?Just a little lateYou found me, you found meWhy'd you have to wait?To find me, to find me”

But it is the chorus that speaks to me. It is here that the song really takes off. These are the words that have not left my head for weeks. Before now it has been an interrogation of God. Here, finally we find an affirmation of His presence.

We have been warned before that “rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous”. Sometimes it is good, pleasant, cuddle-ready rain. Other times it is a raging storm that shakes every house on the street to its foundation. We know that faith must be tested, the world is full of cruelty, and our hearts carry limited glory. We know we should expect the worst but we hope for the best. And even when we hope we know by experience that pain is inevitable. We will face it and it may kill us.
Now, pain is not a badge of honour and the cross is a symbol of human weakness not strength. We fall down because we live in a falling and fallen world. We are lost because darkness has reached its summit. We are in the midnight of the creation experience. Man is at his/her ugliest hour.
We see evidence of this every day. The world is in an uproar. Poverty, disease, war are the prominent kings of our day. There is something amiss with the collective and individual human soul.
If you intend to be part of the solution you must feel the pain of the problem. If you want to be a light you must first be put into where the light is most needed: the dark. The proverbial seed first goes into the dark of the soil before it begins to grow out under the sunlight. It is said that Christ descended into hell.

All of this cannot answer the individual question of pain. I am not trying to. What I am saying and the thought I must end with is fairly simple: the pain has a reason. It builds us so we can build on. It is allowed so we may be prepared for the end of pain. It helps us toward that end. Our dissatisfaction with the darkness leads us toward the light. It is at this place, when we are finally fallen, broken and in need that He finds us. Pain, whatever its initial intentions, leaves us needing to be found.
If you will, go back to the first verse of the song with me. You must notice that the same place where the actor in our play called for God (“the corner of first and Amistad”) was the same place he found God. He had been found without even knowing it. The place where His tragedy had left Him was the same place God found Him. I believe it is the same for all of us. We are found at the point of our need.
Perhaps all we have to do is stand up and accept it. Perhaps the answer is to accept that you are no longer missing. Perhaps the trick is to start by singing a hymn. I suggest you sing one called “you found me”. It’s by a band called “the fray.” It is a song of songs.

the dog in the lion's den.

A bitch and her two pups made and lost their way into the desert not far from their home. A sudden sandstorm had erupted from nowhere and blown them off course till the mother did not know where to find, again, the secret path they had taken to leave home. It soon became terrifying. The boy-dog was the first to state their predicament. It was his personal custom to state the obvious. He said:
-we are lost.
His tail was wagging as he said this. The fear had not yet touched the tail/tale of the adventure in his head. The girl-dog was wiser. She had heard the stories of the lions in the desert. She stayed close to her mother not simply out of fear, because she was quite resolved, but to breathe in the familiar smell of home.
The sandstorm passed duly but now everything was sand. The mother-dog could no longer make her way toward freedom or toward the boundary of home.
She sighed, guessed the old distance and began to walk slowly toward a barely understood concept she had heard called “east”. Her children followed her in unquestioning trust.


(For the sake of keeping the story short and sweet we may travel through their time faster than they have, not suffering the sweat, sun, agony of what they endured for hours….we meet up with them as they encounter the peculiar situation that is at the centre of this whole narration…….)
It was not long, in our time, but hideously long for them, before they ran into trouble. The mother-dog could see that a pride of lions had begun to encircle them. She found a tactful way to pull her children close to her, to shield them from the knowledge of danger. We are told that it is not in the nature of such creatures to think this way, to ward off mental as well as physical danger. We are told that it is not the way of the dog to do this yet it is the way of this dog. For, in her heart, she hoped to give her pups a little peace before the impending dark plunged them into a violent death.

The pride was slow to attack. The prey had no way to escape. They had cut off, slowly, any route of useless attempts to do so. They did not want to run.
Soon they were visible to each other; the predator and the prey. Three lionesses came forward and looked down at three measly dogs. The meat for the evening.
The mother-dog stood in front of her scared brood. Her own hind legs shook terribly. She forced herself to look at the killers. She forced herself to bark against their roar. She made herself brave. And in that stance, she waited for the darkness to come.
But the darkness did not come. A hint of recognition won the day. For in the face of the lioness that stood at the head of the hunting pack she did not see slayer, killer or predator. She saw the face of an old friend.

Three dogs walk in the midst of desert-lions into a canyon of broken trees and forgotten wells. It is the only semi-shade in all the heat and the recognized face, now revealed as the queen of the pack, has declared it to be cool at night. It is already fading day.
The queen-lion and the mother-dog go to the head of a large boulder and talk under its unique shade. The boy-dog is intrigued by the size of the cubs and grabs his sister to go and explore these magnificent creatures of smaller stature. They all begin to play.
The mothers talk.
-I did not think you would survive running into the desert.
-I surprised myself.
-all these years and now you are a queen.
-by precedence not by achievement.
-Still...all this time...we are old, we have fresh-ones of our own.
-where is your male?
-which one? There are many. I have had many pups that have grown. My present male...he comes and goes. Your king?
- He comes here at night. He is probably hunting some female...not to eat as meat. I am not sad (laughs) male is male and female is female. It is the way of the species. It is the way of all nature.

-I always wondered why you left the commune.
-my heart wanted the wild, the open spaces, to be free of rules that contradict my nature. To be free.
-they say you murdered some chickens (glances uneasily at her children playing with the cubs).
-your pups are safe. I have ordered it so. I did eat those chickens. To eat meat is in my heart. I cannot fight it. It is my nature. But you are not meat. You are a friend. It seems the commune had some effect on me after all. I cannot eat a friend.
The mother-dog allows herself to relax under the powerful eyes of her friend. The sand is cooler here. She is weary from walking and talking and protecting. She falls asleep.
The boy-dog was playing with the girl-cub when he first heard that they would be eaten. He had beaten her to a third race around the canyon. She had a fond look on her face when she said:
-I will be sorry when we have to eat you, fast-one.
Her tone was cool. She had no frills about him being both friend and meat.

The boy-dog runs to his mother and begins to bark out this new revelation of their fate. He does not know that the queen-lion still remembers the bark-language apart from the common tongue of all creatures. His mother could not tell him to be quiet fast enough. He read it in his mother’s first look. He knew they were doomed.

-so this is the end for us?
-I am sorry.
-is there no other way?
-this is the only way, the way of nature. One day I will die and the vulture will be my predator. It is the way it is, the very real circle of life.

-it will be easier if you do not fight it. I will make the death fast for all of you.
- This was all a trap.
-I did not want to hunt you. This is better.
-for you!
-it was always going to end this way. Deceiving you was an act of mercy. My sisters-in-marriage can be vicious. I spared you their torture. Can’t you see? Once you fell into our path your lives were forfeit. This is the best way. It will be quick. I promise.

-what happened to you in the desert?
-I became who I truly am.
- A liar, a killer, an eater of friends!!
-a lion, a beast, a predator.
The queen says this with a roar and the canyon shakes. The other eaters tense, expecting the feast is almost at hand. But she goes silent again. The shadow of impending death leaves her eyes. For the moment…
The mother-dog knows it is only a temporary calm. For all her bold talk there is no hope left in her. She knows she will die here, with her children, her efforts at freedom ending in bloody failure.

-you were running away, weren’t you?
-Yes.
-why?
-to be free.
-where is freedom possible?
-I heard there is a place beyond the desert…a place….
-…flowing with milk and honey. I heard it too. Where the lion lies with the lamb and the heart is no longer hungry. It was the first rumour I heard of life beyond the commune. The rumour of my own heart was stronger.
-so you gave up?
- I settled for reality not some dream land. Do you know how many pilgrims to this utopia lie in my belly?
-I think you are one of those victims..
-silence! Once my husband comes we will feast.
-and this is your freedom; hunter for an absent male.
-no, this is my freedom; not trying to be more than I am. That will only kill you.
-it has killed me already.

The queen-lion thinks of these words long after her friend has gone silent. They twirl in her head like that first rush of courage that drove her into the desert. The early-morning joy, the first jolt, the risk before the let down. This was a letdown. She was free but empty. Freedom was nothing by itself. Once it saved you from the chains you were in: what next? Her next moment had never come.
Now she was stuck. She could not kill her friend. She knew it the moment she began the hunt. She had been altered by the mere possibility of leaving at peace with others. She was not a killer; she only pretended to be one, to fit in with her kind, to please her male, to hide herself. Every hunt had numbed her but none had cured her of the conscience of knowing there was something more. Something more.
The more was beyond her now but she made her final decision in worship of it. She arrived at that place of milk and honey without ever stepping on the land that held its promise.

The dog walked away, slowly, trying to hide the joy of escape. She was not going back to where she had come from. That would not be possible. She had travelled too far. Her pups stayed close to her side. Together they walked toward the promise of a new home.
The queen-lion watched the dogs fade with the day, out of sight. She knew what would happen next. Her orders had been firm and would be followed. The dogs were safe. She was not so sure of herself. She could already see, in her mind’s eye, the shadows gathering around her. The ancient code had to be appeased. New meat must be found. Someone else would die.
Still, as the shadows came, closer and closer, almost real, she had the vague rustling of that old joy. She felt like herself when she was young and fearless and ready to be different. She felt like she had defeated her own nature by betraying it. She felt like she was on her way home.

may your heart break....and mine too..

Common wisdom has it that heartbreak should be avoided at all cost. But common wisdom is not always right. In fact it, probably, rarely is. Such wisdom comes from the experience of common fears and thus normally lacks the ambition to grow out of that fear. For this fear, and its twisted logic, leads us to stifle imagination, cripple wonder and to live the safe-ordinary lives that can create nothing truly spectacular. In the hum drum life, where safety is king, any act or word that may have even the slightest element of apparent risk is crucified and every path to uncertain glory is the road that will not be taken.
We are taught early in life that safety is to avoid pain and enhance pleasure. If heartbreak is the worst kind of internal pain then any possible step to that house must not be given room to grow in our minds. This colours everything. Soon we have no real dreams or passion or want or desire. All we have must be processed through the great machine of self-preservation and serve the demi-god of the circumstances we can see, imagine or control with only our naked eye and the eyes of others that have done nothing with the gift of life.
Yet we cannot thrive in this life-house without the ingenuity of our sense of wonder, our need for real passion in our lives, our constant craving to act out the dreams long held in our storied hearts. For true material and spiritual advancement is anchored on our great search of the unknown, our questioning of the shadows and learning the uncomfortable answers of the light. We live lives that can only be challenged and enriched by taking risk.
Stop. Now imagine for a second that you have done all I recommend above. That you have let your heart set out on to uncertain seas and sea shores. And you have failed. Imagine that this has left your heart a little more broken than before or it has crushed you completely. What to do now?
Here, we reach the crux of the matter. For I do not only recommend that you risk all for the sake of truth but I also recommend that when your attempt at reaching for the stars fails and fades before your teary eyes that you let yourself fall. That you let your heart break.
Now, my aim is not to trivialize pain or to exaggerate the unpractical but I do believe that in pursuing the extra-ordinary life that heartbreak may be necessary and ‘practicality’ less so. Sadly our examples of success seem to push us toward the inner thinking box rather than spring us out of it. Our reaction is to copy and not to innovate or build upon. There is a genuine but misguided belief to save people without a saviour or a saving path, to protect them from the ills of this world while also shielding them from the possibility of things. Christianity, at its core, offers another path-the saved must understand the sacrifice of the saviour, acknowledge it in all its brutality and daily live in the serenity of the grace it offers. It says “carry your cross” “die daily” not as pseudo-masochistic undertakings but as reminders that true character is made in the furnace of ordeal. To avoid ordeal is to miss the opportunity to grow. Everything in life tells us that it is in difficult times that words like courage, leadership, perseverance, triumph have any meaning. We avoid such trying times to our own detriment.
Heartbreak? To be broken by an event shows you are invested enough in an outcome to be affected by it. It is not cowardly to fall apart because your dreams and hopes have been dashed. It is cowardly to not dare a dream. It is not weak to cry tears when you are hurt. It is weak to not admit hurt or to worship that hurt as an excuse for inertia. It is not foolish to be used or deceived for it is wise to learn to trust in people, principles, and possibilities. There is nothing wrong in being wrong for it leaves open the door to be made right.
For all failure can lead to eventual success and every letdown is innately beautiful because of the creation or re-creation that can come from chaos. The light that is always ready to conquer your dying day. The truth that is always willing to correct the lies you have bought and sold to your-self.
In the end the truth is what the soul desperately needs. It is worth the broken heart because it is the final, crucial healing for the heart. Truth sits above all realism, practicality, relativity. It cannot be subjective because by its very nature it is objective.
We hope on things everyday that will break our hearts, all limited, finite, and not able to satisfy. I do not recommend that anyone tries by effort to shut out these false whispers because they help us realize the great shout of God. For even the lie has the purpose of failing so the truth may stand. We may need to hit our head against the wall in the dark to remember to look for the light switch. I do not wish to puncture any balloons of hope too soon. I have often made the mistake of trying to burst my own too soon or help others to do the same to theirs. It does not work. Truth must come from the realization of the individual heart. You may plant the seed or water the growing plant but you never, ever give the increase. That bit God leaves for Himself.
The individual must grow through his or her own anguished night. The heart must break. A death to self must occur. For this breaking down is the first symbol of repentance and the cornerstone of faith. Weakness must accept strength; the fallen must be raised by the power of the sun. It is not a weak position to take to give in to God. We are already weak compared to the vastness of the eternal spirit. Our lives are brief, our skins are so easily broken and our power over the earth is limited. Admitting this lack and “lostness” is simply owning up to the truth about ourselves.
To find initial purpose and to thrive in being built by it is the strongest decision we can make. If a broken heart is the path to knowing that this is the truth then: May my heart break.…and yours too.

singing david gray to her.."please forgive me...."

Please forgive me
If I act alittle strange
For I know not what I do.
Feels like lightning running through my veins
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you

Help me out here
All my words are falling short
And theres so much I want to say
Want to tell you just how good it feels
When you look at me that way
When you look at me that way

Throw a stone and watch the ripples flow
Moving out across the bay
Like a stone I fall into your eyes
Deep into some mystery
Deep into that mystery

I got half a mind to scream out loud
I got half a mind to die
So I wont ever have to lose you girl
Wont ever have to say goodbye
I wont ever have to lie
Wont ever have to say goodbye

Yeah na na na na
Yeah na na na na

Please forgive me
If I act alittle strange
For I know not what I do
Its like my head is filled with lightning girl
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you
Everytime I look at you

babylon....

Friday night I'm going nowhere
All the lights are changing green to red
Turning over TV stations
Situations running through my head
Well looking back through time
You know it's clear that I've been blind
I've been a fool
To ever open up my heart
To all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridicule

Saturday I'm running wild
And all the lights are changing red to green
Moving through the crowd I'm pushing
Chemicals all rushing through my bloodstream
Only wish that you were here
You know I'm seeing it so clear
I've been afraid
To tell you how I really feel
Admit to some of those bad mistakes I've made

If you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now

Babylon, Babylon

Sunday all the lights of London
Shining , Sky is fading red to blue
I'm kicking through the Autumn leaves
And wondering where it is you might be going to
Turning back for home
You know I'm feeling so alone
I can't believe
Climbing on the stair
I turn around to see you smiling there
In front of me


If you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now

Babylon, Babylon, Babylon