Idol

Cool post on idolatry.

O Radiant Dawn

For December 21 (Solstice)

“O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light and Sun of justice,
shine on those lost in darknes –
come to enlighten us.”

O Key of David

For December 20

“O Key of David and Sceptre of the House of Israel,
what you open none can shut –
come and lead us out of darkness.”

O Root of Jesse

For December 19

“O Root of Jesse, Standard of the nations and of kings;
whom the whole world implores –
come and deliver us.”

O Adonai

For December 18

“O Adonai, ruler of the house of Israel,
who appeared to Moses in the burning bush –
come and redeem us.”

O Wisdom

For December 17

“O Wisdom, uttered by the mouth of the Most High,
and reaching to the ends of the earth –
Come and teach us the way of prudence.”

Adios.

Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?

Tom Waits wrote this haunting song about a young African-American girl who was found dead not terribly far from the Waits household some time in the 1990s. The girl had gone missing, but for whatever reason – institutional racism is a good suspect – the media did not give her case much attention, and consequently, no search parties formed, no neighborhoods pulled together, and nobody found Georgia Lee until it was too late.

This song speaks very powerfully into my life. When I first heard it, the lyrics evoked memories from my childhood – memories that stick with me to this day – of my sister Sharee’s death. The sacred story in the family is that Sharee went to a party, something mysterious occurred, and the next day her naked body, mauled by dogs, was found on a lawn in a nearby town. The true story echoes this except in the following detail: the “mystery” surrounding that night involved Sharee overdosing and dying at the party. I have spoken with someone who was at that party the night Sharee died, and he told me that some bikers dumped the body on that lawn, because they didn’t know what else to do. Calling the police was not an option, given the nature of some things that were happening at that party.

To this day, my mother either doesn’t know these details, or she refuses to believe them. I’m not sure which, and I don’t intend to dredge the story up with her. The “mystery” of that party has been a bone of contention between her and my surviving sister, Desiree for years.

Desiree and Sharee were very close, not only because they were sisters, but also because they both lived through the trauma of living through the horror of their father’s schizophrenia and suicide, through the disorientation of my mother’s remarriage to my father, and through his suicide. Desiree – Desi, as we called her – began anesthetizing herself with drugs when her own father died, and drew more heavily on the pharmaceutical relief they provided more and more over the years, as she lived through further tragedies. The deaths I mentioned were the tip of the iceberg: Desi lost friends to overdose and suicide, she lost my aunt and my cousin, her long-time boyfriend Robert, and a little over a year ago, she lost Tom, whom she claimed was her soul mate. She leaned on drugs to dull the pain of those losses for almost forty years.

A few weeks ago, Desi’s pain came to an end. While making cookies for me with our mom, Desi fell on the floor and never got up again. We don’t know whether she had a heart attack, a stroke, or whether her body just finally screamed, “Enough!” The coroner’s report is forthcoming.

The comforting bit of news that comes with my sister’s death is that, for the last two weeks of her life, she had actually managed to get off the drugs, to get out of the basement to church meetings, to outpatient care, and to normal activities with new-found friends. She was baking cookies for me, for Christ’s sake! This is very comforting on the one hand, but on the other hand it really highlights the tragedy that was her life and the potential that was wasted with all those years of hiding from the pain.

When I first heard that Tom Waits song, I heard him singing about Sharee. Today I hear him singing, “Why wasn’t God there for Desiree?” In so many ways, Desi wasn’t that different from Georgia Lee. Even though she was 52 when she died, Desi was still a little girl – the same age she was when her dad killed himself, maybe the same age she was when they found Sharee – too young to be out on the street, running away from this world, not noticed until it was already too late.

Cold was the night, hard was the ground
They found her in a small grove of trees
Lonesome was the place where Georgia was found
She’s too young to be out
On the street.

Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?

Ida said she couldn’t keep Georgia
From dropping out of school
I was doing the best that I could
But she kept runnin away from this world
These children are so hard to raise good

Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?

Close your eyes and count to ten
I will got and hid but then
Be sure to find me. I want you to find me
And we’ll play all over
We will play all over again

There’s a toad in the witch grass
There’s a crow in the corn
Wild flowers on a cross by the road
And somewhere a baby is crying
For her mom
As the hills turn from green back
To gold

Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there for
Georgia Lee?

I miss you, Des.

Tikkun Olam

Heschel – or at least his ideas of guilt versus responsibility – have been on my mind lately.  It was serendipity that led me to this wee blog post this morning.

http://crossxroads.wordpress.com/2008/12/07/abraham-j-heschel/

Great Googly Moogly, I feel like dancin’!

I just finished up 2 of the 3 papers I needed to write over Thanksgiving break, and I’m outta my skull exhilarated to have them behind me.  Of course, they are utter shite, but they are done.  Actually, I’m not too upset about the Greek paper.  I may have pulled that one off.  The exegetical paper on Mark, though, yeah: shite.  I repeated myself over and over, again and again, ad nauseam, just beating a dead horse…you get the picture.  It’s too bad, because I did discover some interesting things about the text, especially when I compared it to Matthew.

One thing in Matthew that always bothered me was the whole thing about Jesus dissing his mother and his brothers.  “‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’  And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and mother.'”  Comparing that text to the parallel version in Mark (which was one of the sources for Matthew, anyway), I came to realize that Matthew left a rather critical chunk out of the narrative.

In Mark, the context for that statement was that Jesus’ family comes out to restrain Jesus (this is right after he authorizes the 12 apostles to preach and heal and to cast out unclean spirits), because they thought he “had lost his mind.”  When you consider that, sandwiched in between Jesus’ family’s action and Jesus’ statement about who his true family is, you’ve got the story about the scribes who accuse Jesus of deriving his power from Beelzebul.  Well, shit, dude: in THAT context it makes sense, but Matthew just left that whole bit off!

“Well, you could have left that whole story off, R,” I hear you cry.  True.  I could have.  But I am now done writing two out of three papers, I’m not yet ready to dive into number three, but my fingers have the inertia.  I’ve got to write *something.*

OK.  Enough procrastinating.  Back to work.

[Exit: stage left, doing a wee jig.]

A new old look at the Great Commission

Steve over at Khanya posted this excellent (and for me, timely) message from the Orthodox bishops regarding the importance of proclaiming the Good News over proselytizing.   The first speaks of liberation, the second of oppression.  Maybe I overstate that, but maybe not.  In any case, I’m glad to see the statement.