We Should See Other Blogs

Inappropriate muttering for an inappropriate time,
mustering up the nerve to speak,
tweak the sentences and break
silence.

Words to be thrown off, water
to be sloughed off, mud
to be raked, soil
sown

midwinter; the ceaseless spade’s
shallow blade sheathed in frost’s
curious crackling lost languages.

How then to stem the glacial tide.
How to glide into the ocean, abridged.
How to bid camouflaged goodbyes,
covered in eyes.

• Why are so many things made of hard plastic that breaks when you drop it? #
• Outsourcing manufacturing capability has always bothered me. It seems that without industry, all we produce is a bunch of transient nothing. #
• Dear sanctimonious, hypocritical office worker: Plank, eye, all that, first. #
• If Christian music is (and it *is*) making you choose between good art and Christian content, I think you should choose art. Always. #
• So, right now, we’re wiping up the competition with our new special cutter at the undisclosed huge contract testing location. #
• Oh, and FYI, for those of you at small group who think we reached a consensus, I still think there’s a difference, and that one is better! #
• If you have a problem with me, you come to *me*. Then we can have a dialogue and figure things out. Otherwise we’re just tattling. #
• Guess who just poured coffee into his compute and then tweeted about it before cleaning it up? #

• It’s nice to finally have an overhead light in this workstation. Ambient light doesn’t often cut it! #
• Dikembe Mutombo… we will miss you! #
• I think I’m going to have coffee for lunch, if only for all the nutrients said beverage provides. #
• Free pizza is the best kind of pizza! (Boston Expensive Pizza ftw!) #
• Having Rebekah gone is less than enthralling at the moment. #
• If there’s one thing in the world that burns my toast, it’s when salesmen show up unannounced. You have a phone; use it! #

• So, Gwibber just keeps getting better and better, though the spell-check is, as always, goofy. #
• … and troll’s hearts. #
• Unpacking regrinds has to be the most boring work invented by man, ever. Except maybe for licking stamps for a living. #
• There’s so much to do before going to Cuba. So much. #
• Isn’t it strange how few of the things you liked when you were young are still good on further reflection. Looking at you, Zoolander. #

When the storms gather around,
like enemies on all sides.
In the shadow of a doubt,
when you’re gone from my sight.

Lord, can you hear my cry?
Am I wasting my time?
Your still, small voice replies,
“Child, you are still mine.”

And I am, I am, I am safe in your hands.
I am, I am, I am safe in your plan.

You have seen the worst in me,
all the other loves that I chase.
Like a prisoner set free
running back to fasten his chains.

Like a moth to a flame
I am burned time after time,
but you love me just the same,
you say, “Child, you are still mine.”

And I am, I am, I am safe in your hands.
I am, I am, I am safe in your plan.

I come running back to you time after time
to the shadow of your wings,
and you say, “Child, you are mine.”

When it lands, they will say,
all roads lead to Jerusalem,
from earth’s twelve corners,
from all points in between.

Sardus

In your body you bore the weight,
in the flesh that wept, in the
cells that would not disassemble.

If then we might inhabit
the place you just were,
your dust our halo.

Topaz

At the corner of wall. Where
angles meet, where sunlight
ventures only rarely,
we are fragile.

A small seed,
the blood of saints,
the wanderers, the weak,
at the corner of the throne:
that all manner can gather
in its billowing shadow.

Jasper

Love? A strange kingdom,
indeed.

Beryl

All will be revealed, or at least,
much will be revealed,
and we’ll spend our lives
uncovering and uncovering,
each more fabulous than
the last.

All will be made whole, or at least,
much will need healing:
come now, come to the temple
that is no temple and
let the river of life flow
into your mouth.

Chrysolite

The words that are the face that are the God
of your fathers, and of your mothers,
glare, waiting, from behind your teeth.

The coal difficult to swallow;
the embers tricky on the tongue.

Chalcedony

It began with movement in the deep,
the first tentative steps onto land,
the first flint;

you breathed holy into an ape’s lungs,
you ripped him a new companion,
you carved him a paradise;

there in your eternal Spring he wondered
what might Autumn be,
and took a bite.

Jacinth

Six days and on the seventh They rested:
Look, so many billions and here we are!
The veil is about to be woven, yes?
This pitiful beautiful thing will need saving.
Pierce it, let them see in.
Rip it seam from seam.
But not a bone broken!
We’ll miss you, for a while.

Emerald

That morning star thrust through to earth,
into the imperfect thickets of earth,
to roam about the earth,
to accuse those of the earth,
while a change is wrought on earth,
while heaven is leaking through to earth,
a time, a time, and half a time on earth,
and He’ll be done firing up hell.

Amethyst

Flitting from thing to thing you
will be a renaissance all your own
will be scraping off the remains
examining things and coming to
conclusions.

A perfect lense. Will you admit then
in your perfect tense that it wasn’t
a lie after all.

Sapphire

Blessed is the chaos; there
order graduates to order, where
strings never swing twice the same
way.

But, then, we have eternity to watch
them.

Chrysoprase

To God be the glory,
to the risen son,
to the lamb, to the
alpha and the omega,
to the who has made,
to the who is making,
to the all things new,
the saviour, the redeemer,
the lord in disguise,
the one who is and is to come,
the beautiful, the resplendent,
the awesome, the magnificent!

To God be the glory,
to the one and only,
to the breath of my lungs,
to the blood of my heart,
the force that binds my atoms,
the one who knows every quark,
who measures the quanta,
who speaks in dimensions,
who breathes new worlds,
who creates from nothing,
who measures the universe,
who is beyond, yet inside,
yet beyond what I can think!

To God be the glory,
who has given characters
and words and thoughts and
language and expression and
all things good and holy to the world
and to these fingers pouring out small praises;
to God be the glory, the conqueror, the risen son, the
lamb, and the lion.

Sardonyx

In the Kingdom, let there be
dogs.

Last Sunday’s sermon was right on the money (I hate to say that, because it was one of those video sermons, and the preacher looked like he had been bathing in coconut oil before he started), but it strikes me as only partial.

Substitutionary atonement is great; it’s a core doctrine, one of the great threads of Christian thought. But it’s not enough, is it? It doesn’t seem to go far enough.

I think that’s because it only speaks to what Jesus did in a legal sense. I think that it speaks to balances and weights and accounts, and that’s fine, but it’s only a part of the puzzle.

That’s part of the problem with Christianity as we know and practice it today. We get a lot of things right, but we don’t follow through. It can’t be just that Jesus died and we believe and have his righteousness transferred to us and then we can go to heaven.

I think there’s more to it than that. Doesn’t Jesus’ death speak to present reality as well as future? Doesn’t it speak to how we live now, how connected we are to God now, as opposed to us living in that middle time between the cross and eternal bliss.

Scripture speaks of Christ not only dying to redeem souls — it doesn’t speak in the language of “souls” at all, does it? — but also of redeeming everything. People are part of that equation, and a big part, but Adam’s and our sin doesn’t just affect our souls. It affects everything.

When Adam fell, everything changed. We live in a broken world, a world that is winding down and falling apart. It’s a world where the best works of humanity decay and fall apart, something that strikes most of us as completely backwards.

Jesus death is the start of fixing all that. On the cross he fixed the divide between perfect God and imperfect humanity, but also between perfect reality and imperfect reality.

Between heaven and earth, if you will.

In other words, I think it’s entirely appropriate to think of Jesus’ death in terms of saving people, but also of saving the world, of seeing his Kingdom come, not just in our hearts but in our reality, in our physical world.

So the question becomes… what are we doing? Are we working with God to fix this reality? Are our acts of love helping to bring in the kingdom? Are we in line with God’s plan?

It’s not enough to stand around waiting to get lifted into the sky in some absurd escapist rapture. Anyone can do that. We need to celebrate Jesus’ death in remembering what he did for us, in celebrating his agony, but also continuing to remember what that means going forward.