83 posts tagged “love”
I didn't find God in any particular way on the corner of Amistad... didn't even find Amistad if there is one in NYC. But I did find some great street art near the corner of 104th and Amsterdam: a broken t/v tray and an a single shoe.
Unwanted artifacts left before a wall of graffiti. What are their story? Wouldn't it be fascinating to know?
Or just plane mundane?
It reminds me of when I was at Magnolia Middle School, 6th or 7th grade, and the librarian put a bunch of different shoes in the library display window. We were invited to enter a short story in a contest (I won, one of the few things I ever won!) in which we were to imagine the life of one of the shoes. Being the good gay man that I am, I picked a rhinestone covered high heel that looked like it was meant for a 1920's flapper dress.
What would this shoe's story be for you? Where is it's mate?
Barbara Brown Taylor - I've been reading her new book An Altar in the World - writes about the spiritual practice of blessing. I tried to offer a blessing for the shoe - and whoever once owned it. Can we find Jesus in a little street art, or the presence of the Holy One in discarded items? Isn't God often most visible, if we get close enough to see, in the lives of those who have been "discarded" by society, by culture?
I took this photo in the Whole Foods in New Orleans, LA, while home in Mississippi - I thought it would make a pleasant fall, Halloween contribution to my Facebook page.
The diversity of the pumpkins is amazing to me - all sizes and shapes and colors. Earlier in my trip I was in a market in Madison, MS. Madison is a place where all the houses and businesses look alike (McDonald's, and Shell are onlyi distinguishable from their red brick and white columns by their logo signs). At that market, which also had a lovely array of pumpkins - some decorated with cute and toothy grins - I noticed that most of the employees were not white.
Most of the shoppers were white.
I noted that to someone shopping with me, someone who taught me about respecting the dignity of all people long before I knew that phrase from the baptismal rite. This someone, an intelligent, caring person said, "I've never noticed that before."
That's how broken we still are as a country, when even thoughtful, respectful human beings pass through everyday life with blinders on at the level of our separations: economic, physical, racial, educational, sexual, etc.
This is why any form of "separate and equal," or worse, intentionally unequal, such as the laws regarding same-sex unions, is such a social evil: we will all be broken by our systems of separation and hate.
I wish we could appreciate the diversity among humans that we enjoy among all the other species of the creation.
Photo and writing: (C) Michael P. Barham, November, 2009.
A couple of weeks ago, I broke down and purchased a lovely polynesian-style fish hook, hand made by a local Hawaiian artist. It's wonderful swirls match my tattoo, and the koa wood that is mixed with cow bone to make a stunning, creative design is endemic (I think) to Hawai`i, and has a beautiful grain. I bought it to wear on liturgical occasions... occasionally.... part of the emphasis on discipleship I learned as a Methodist, and the imperative of our closing ritual at one of the summer youth mission trips I went on several years - "Mt. T.O.P." - fishers of men.
Today I woke before dawn to join my uncle, Otha on a fishing expedition to a highly top secret pond in the area of Kemper County. It's the best fishing in the new world, and quite possibly all the continents and oceans. It was fun.
We told stories, and I got a chance to ask him his favorite memories of his father and mother.
I have to admit I was surprised at myself to discover that I was surprised at the feeling of killing. I've fished before, although years ago. I certainly have no compunction about eating meat, though I attempt to buy "happy meat" when possible (free-range, etc.). Yet, when unpacking the fish from the ice chest an hour after our trip, I noticed some of the fish were still twitching - 'looking at me!' I couldn't help but feel a connection to these lives. I thanked them, because they gave up their life for my sport and table.
How often do we stop to ponder the death that happens around us, deaths which sustain us, and provide life for us? I told the fish 'thank you,' and hoped my sense of obligation to life around me will increase as I ponder the delight of this journey with my uncle.
Fortunately my calling is to be a fisher of people, not.... fish.
photo copyright (C) Michael Barham, 2009.
Looking closely at the lovely orange-yellow growing on branches, I noticed this lichen webbing among the outstretched arms of the trees. I had only noticed this on the very top of Koko Crater, and then again last Friday when I reached rain-forrest height on the Kuli`ou`ou Ridge Trail.
The green is quite prolific at that height on the Ridge Trail, but the other colors are more hidden - tiny petals of pink, violet or purple, the orange of this lichen, the rust color of the lave-soil. The vibrancy of the greens makes the tiny hidden petals that much more beautiful to behold.
A close of this pin-thin lichen seemed perfect for adorning my profile pic the next couple of days.
I have always loved the quote from Shug to Miss. Celie in "The Color Purple." She says that she thinks it "really pisses God" when folks walk through a field of the color purple and don't even notice.
Perhaps it does. In today's scripture reading, we see that folks believed that if they touched even the hem of Christ's garment they would be healed. What if, even just the thin fiber of thread that frayed of Jesus' well worn traveling tunic were enough to emit the Divine's love and power? Could a tiny bit of lichen - like a tangled thread caught on a limb - couldn't an orange thread of lichen be enough to witness to the marvelous touch of the creator, when draped in the setting of cavern carved between two ridges stair-stepping to the angels' mezzanine?
Sounds like the title of a child's book? The Canoe and the Church? Some of the photos on my Facebook page have been of canoes and me canoeing.
These pictures were posted to show my pleasure in participating in a canoe team - in spite of the moments while practicing that I think to myself "Argh.... why am I doing this!!!!".
Of course, my time in and around canoes - limited though it has been - is not without reflection on the beauty of the metaphor of the Church as a ship or boat, and of Jesus' time on or near the water and our life on board.
There is something beautiful, I think I've already called it Benedictine, about the spirituality of paddling on a team. But now that The Episcopal Church is having it's grand synod in Anneheim, the General Convention is making me wonder if the metaphor of six people rowing in complete unison is perfect or flawed.
Yes, in a sense our unity, our oneness, our being one voice is beauty, and symbolizes the prayer of Christ, 'that we all may be one'.
However, what of the times when we paddle out of sync? Then we fail to be 'productive' - something over valued in my estimation. Maybe the church, like canoe teams, needs times when we can all jump out of the boat and forget about making it move faster and farther - just taking time to play around and cool off in the peaceful ocean's undulations. That reminds me of Catherine of Siena, who talks about the pacific abyss, the peaceful depths of God's love. Is it that we are on a linear trajectory as a church, a boat moving to a particular distant harbor? Or is it really that the boat is always where it needs to be when it is in the middle of God's sea, whether paddling or swimming?
Musings that come with denominational angst.
I've added a new photo as a my profile picture, a no-flash late night photo of a night blooming cereus - that wonderfully fabulous succulent-cactus that blooms only at night, on a cycle that someone told me is lunar-based. It's flower, fit for crowning Carmen Miranda, and large enough, is like a firework explosion.
Every day I pass by Punahou school - which takes on a bit more than a full block, failing to notice regularly the green cacti lining its wall. Yesterday, I saw a couple taking a photo during the day, but was on the way home from dinner and a movie with a friend when he pointed out the cereus, and its beautiful blooms - a block long spray of flowers fit for a royal parade.
Of course, everything creation sings God's praise, but this reminds me a little of the story of creation - the waiting, the ignoring, the ignorance of the fomentation occurring - until suddenly one finds the most extravagant message of love blooming our of the middle of the night, having been there all along, though we never allowed ourselves to imagine the outpouring of
such a gift, nor that it would be from a prickly cactus, or happen in the darker hours - but isn't that when the brightness of the light of Christ is most piercing, when it emerges in contrast to what we perceive as our darkest night?
Maybe we need to become like Nicodemus, and when our heart is troubling us at night, go and seek out the One who brings our heart to bloom.
I was recently at a canoe blessing, and felt a calm and beauty there - it was a wonderful day because I began and ended my social outings by standing in a circle of blessing. In the AM, at a canoe blessing, and in the PM, at the end of our Confirmation celebration banquet.
I took a short video of my coach and some other guys from the Hui rigging one of the Koa Canoes, named Enay for one of the Hui's "saints", a former coach. Rigging is the process of tying the yaka (yoke) to the ama (outrigger/floater) and to the hull of the canoe. In all, the yoke is tied in four places. It takes a couple of folks, at least, to do this, and up to four can be helpful (two on each side). You have to hold the line in place while it is being stretched taught, and then while it is being threaded through the wholes in ama or in the canoe made for the line to thread through.
Think of the details in the process, the symetry, the beauty and elegance of the threading the cord to yoke the ama to the canoe with the yaka ("yoke"). There is much spiritual in canoes, and many metaphors that I am sure will make sermon analogies. Today, I'm thinking about the beauty of the cords, and remember the hymn I sang so often as a child, youth and young adult - "Blest be the tie that binds/our hearts in Christian love..." The fellowship is like that to that above.
In these days of divisions, and persnickityness, I'm pleased to meditate on the strength of that which unites us, and tethers us one to another.
It's been some time since I forced myself to blog, so I figure now it is about time. I've had the idea of writing a brief explanation of photos I take and place on my facebook page as my "profile picture." I'll start with the current, and update you as I change. When possible, I'll try to go back through some of the photos I have taken.
They are, in many ways, a record of being "on pilgrimage", and a practice of "holy lingering" - moments of peeking in an empty tomb.
Well, I did not take this photo - someone took it at our regional Confirmation services at St. Peter's in Honolulu. I can't recall his name, but will try to add it here soon, because he took some wonderful photos.
This was an intimate moment - each moment between me and another person, when we are sharing Eucharist, is a moment of holy intimacy; a moment of tenderness. No borders, no distinctions or differences that animate a difference. Only a holy connection between two hands touching the same chalice, drinking from the same cup. "It has become for us the cup of salvation."
Something I wrote y'day:
Today in the Episcopal Church, we celebrate the lives of Charles and John Wesley:
Lord God, you inspired your servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and endowed them with eloquence in speech and song: Kindle in your Church, we entreat you, such fervor, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known Christ may turn to him and be saved; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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A few ramblings:
The Old Testament lesson appointed for the feast of John and Charles Wesley is Isaiah 49:5-6. I was struck in reflecting on these two ministers by the last phrase, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." How appropriate for those who felt that the world was their parish, and took to fields and pubs to proclaim the Good News of Christ. All who continue in the tradition of these two Gospel-proclaimers contribute to that light of Christ that continues to edge across the darkest corners of the globe. The songs continue to gladden hearts in their journey home to God. And the angst with which they (and John especially) seemed to wrestle in their soul is an example with hopefulness for those who see their spiritual lives much like Jacob in the desert, wrestling with God. Who other than Charles could have put to words better that moment of the spiritual longing-ecstasy of faith clenching sight, and dare to tell God:
In vain Thou strugglest to get free,
I never will unloose my hold;
art thou the Man that died for me?
The secret of Thy love unfold;
wrestling I will not let Thee go
till I Thy name, Thy nature know....
'Tis Love! 'tis Love! Thou diedst for me;
I hear Thy whisper in my heart:
the morning breaks, the shadows flee:
Pure UNIVERSAL LOVE Though art;
To me, to all, Thy bowels move;
Thy nature and They name is Love."
Who could meet the Wesleys and still not believe there is a God, and that God's name is Love!
If all Christians prayed like this, sang like this, proclaimed the gospel like this -- the world would be a different place; and I suspect the world is getting by as it does because there are at least a few people who are (and I'm blessed because I know some of them).
It make sense that the gospel appointed for these two ministers is from Luke (9:2-6), "They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere." The charge to keep, we now have!
May their souls, and the souls of all the departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
The issue of civil unions is considered before the Hawai`i senate this week. I am reminded of the image Jesus gave to us: new and old wine, and new and old wine skins.
Something is happening in society - a new consciousness (these moments of awakening are painful for some, exiting for others, and always potentially transformative if we do not recess into our past).
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people are not new to the world, even if growing awareness of their presence among hetero-society is. And we must, absolutely must, call upon our government to create the new civil wine skins that can contain the fermentation of news ways in which the legal and financial arrangements of heterosexual marriage can be extended to relationships that have, do and will continue to exist. We need the structures in which these relationships can ground themselves in finding a healthy moral framework, receive the same protections and support, and have the sam accountability as hetero relationships. This can help make a healthier society, and help support stronger families.
Marriage is like wine. In each generation, there are subtle (and sometimes dramatic) differences. Marriage is not today what it was twenty years ago, two hundred years ago. Even today, across cultures, there are minute and extreme differences. But hopefully, we are getting better. If we let LGBT relationships mature, and teach our society, we will find that the next movement will be forward towards a better society, a stronger society, a more just society.
Subtle, and at times dramatic, changes have been made in both civil and religious language to acknowledge those new understandings. The wineskins are built around existing and changing institutions to allow for their newness, without abolishing the good that comes from the old. Civil union is a new wine skin that can allow LGBT people to have relationships held within a framework that sets boundaries in legal, economic and civil terms, while also creating space for the tumult of fermentation. Of course, we need churches to provide the moral foundation and theological vigor, but that's another blog post.
Like wine interacting and effected by the tannins in the wood of oak casks (new or treated casks are required for each harvest!), these relationships need both the support and boundaries afforded by civil unions in order to become stronger, and tastier. We need statesmen/women who are willing to acknowledge that they represent not only barking voices, but the "best interests" of all the people they are elected to serve - to strive for a more perfect union, and more just society.
Creating a new civil wine skin, far from undermining society, will actually serve to strengthen it, while bridging the good of the old to the new that will come for the generations ahead. LGBT unions will continue to become not only more palatable, but overtly healthful for society, as they are provided opportunities for making their own unique contributions to the strengthening of society. And of course, this is happening, and will continue to happen, in-spite of the dying wind of the unjust. And like the old institutions of marriage, civil unions too will change, and adapt, and become part of the great wine-making history, love-making history of society as we advance in our understanding of our humanity held within the just, loving hands of the Creator.
The God I serve is a God who asks us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in the Divine Presence. The Jesus I love saw that things change - our understandings, our perceptions, our knowledge of God's love revealed to us. I'm thankful that my married LGBT friends can reveal this to me. I hope one day, when I'm in a relationship with the man I most love, that I too can "bear witness to the love of God in this world, so that all those to whom love is a stranger will find in [us] generous friends" (marriage rite, the United Methodist Church).
*The above video can be found on youtube, and at the following website:http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce
