Yellow pad lined
in pale, horizontal
blue,
empty with the tint of
air, awaits a
word or
two, perhaps three.
Pen, filled with
inky black, like dried
blood,
hovers in rose-blush hope
to midwife a
word or
two, perhaps three.
Word, awaiting a
birth, the color of
light,
Flows from the heart; a
word or
two, perhaps three,
fit for a yellow pad.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Replay of “InsideOut” and Music
In case you missed the live performance, there’s a replay available of L.L. Barkat’s poetry reading with Brooke Campbell’s singing at an International Arts Movement program last night in New York City.The replay can be found here. L.L. is reading selections from her InsideOut: Poems, which was featured here in our poetry and wine giveaway earlier this month.
The replay offers you a chance to listen to the real deal. And you still have this weekend to order InsideOut at the January special price of $6.03.
Joy at Memoria Arts talks about her response to last night's webcast: A time for...
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Does It Have to Be Amish Romance?
So what is Christian fiction? There's a debate, usually (but not always) civil, that's pointing the way to larger questions.
I have a post over at Christian Manifesto that talks about it. And thanks for taking a look.
I have a post over at Christian Manifesto that talks about it. And thanks for taking a look.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Scout and Jem, That Night
That eve of the dead, the
white wind keened a
moaning song of
release, of words not
spoken before, of
guilty yet not.
Innocent was
not possible, not
then, not then.
A white demon, carried
on the white wind, the
white wind of white
shadows,
descended upon two
children, two young, who
did not know, who
did not understand
the meaning, but
simply were.
A white demon not
of their making but
part of their sin,
originally,
descended to seek its
retribution, its vengeance, the
annihilation of what was to come,
a demon stopped only by
the mute angel
named Boo.
For the Random Act of Poetry at the High Calling Blogs, we were asked to choose a character from a book – any kind of book – and write a poem to, from or just about that character. For details on the character(s) I selected, visit here.
white wind keened a
moaning song of
release, of words not
spoken before, of
guilty yet not.
Innocent was
not possible, not
then, not then.
A white demon, carried
on the white wind, the
white wind of white
shadows,
descended upon two
children, two young, who
did not know, who
did not understand
the meaning, but
simply were.
A white demon not
of their making but
part of their sin,
originally,
descended to seek its
retribution, its vengeance, the
annihilation of what was to come,
a demon stopped only by
the mute angel
named Boo.
For the Random Act of Poetry at the High Calling Blogs, we were asked to choose a character from a book – any kind of book – and write a poem to, from or just about that character. For details on the character(s) I selected, visit here.
The 16th Day of Community: David Rupert
When I happened across David Rupert’s blog Red Letter Believers some months ago, I felt like I had discovered a kindred spirit. I still do.
If I remember correctly, I was looking at the Inside Work blog managed by Jim Hancock, and read a post by Bradley Moore, the Shrinking Camel himself. I clicked over to Bradley’s blog, and liked it so much that I added it to my RSS reader. And one day, a guy with an avatar showing duct tape over his mouth commented on one of Bradley’s posts; I followed the link and discovered Red Letter Believers. (He’s since changed his avatar.)
David works in corporate communications as a writer/editor for the U.S. Postal Service. I’ve spent 90 percent of my career in corporate communications, and a big chunk of that as a writer/editor. We read and follow a lot of the same blogs – and we didn’t plan it that way. We arrived at these same places independently of one another. On his blog, he writes a lot about work, and faith, and work and faith. Here’s what he says his blog is about:
“Red Letter Believers go far beyond politics or religion or entertainment or the things of earth. We are here to encourage each other to live the words of Christ -- the same words that many Bibles put 'in red.' We seek to live out our faith, impacting our homes, our communities, our jobs and our nation.”
He’s written about the difference between being spiritual and being religious; about responding to disaster; Mark McGuire and cheating; Christian party poopers; and what your boss really wants for Christmas, among dozens of other subjects. What they have in common is this: simple, clean language; clarity; depth; and the perspective of faith. Always the perspective of faith.
As I said, I have the blog on my RSS reader, but Red Letter Believers is one of the few blogs I actually check daily. Do the same and be richly rewarded.
(Last month, a number of us participating in the “Twelve Days of Community” - see the button at the top right - sponsored by The High Calling Blogs. The purpose was to highlight the blog or web site of someone other than ourselves during the season of Advent and Christmas. I liked the idea so much that I’m going to continue to do that -- highlight a blog or web site of a person whose thoughts and writing have had an impact on me and others.)
If I remember correctly, I was looking at the Inside Work blog managed by Jim Hancock, and read a post by Bradley Moore, the Shrinking Camel himself. I clicked over to Bradley’s blog, and liked it so much that I added it to my RSS reader. And one day, a guy with an avatar showing duct tape over his mouth commented on one of Bradley’s posts; I followed the link and discovered Red Letter Believers. (He’s since changed his avatar.)
David works in corporate communications as a writer/editor for the U.S. Postal Service. I’ve spent 90 percent of my career in corporate communications, and a big chunk of that as a writer/editor. We read and follow a lot of the same blogs – and we didn’t plan it that way. We arrived at these same places independently of one another. On his blog, he writes a lot about work, and faith, and work and faith. Here’s what he says his blog is about:
“Red Letter Believers go far beyond politics or religion or entertainment or the things of earth. We are here to encourage each other to live the words of Christ -- the same words that many Bibles put 'in red.' We seek to live out our faith, impacting our homes, our communities, our jobs and our nation.”
He’s written about the difference between being spiritual and being religious; about responding to disaster; Mark McGuire and cheating; Christian party poopers; and what your boss really wants for Christmas, among dozens of other subjects. What they have in common is this: simple, clean language; clarity; depth; and the perspective of faith. Always the perspective of faith.
As I said, I have the blog on my RSS reader, but Red Letter Believers is one of the few blogs I actually check daily. Do the same and be richly rewarded.
(Last month, a number of us participating in the “Twelve Days of Community” - see the button at the top right - sponsored by The High Calling Blogs. The purpose was to highlight the blog or web site of someone other than ourselves during the season of Advent and Christmas. I liked the idea so much that I’m going to continue to do that -- highlight a blog or web site of a person whose thoughts and writing have had an impact on me and others.)
Monday, January 25, 2010
All We Are Saying, Is Give Peace a Chance
I am one of three boys, but I occupied the most versatile of birth order positions. For the first 10 years of my life, I was the youngest, my older brother being eight years older than I was. Then my older brother left home, and I was the oldest for the next 11 years until I graduated from college. When my mother was 38 and my father 45, they had my younger brother. Yes, that’s right, there’s 18 years between my older and younger brothers.
Our births spanned three decades -- the 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s. Musically, it meant that one of us was an Elvis Presley fan, one of us was a Beatles fan, and one of us was an Eagles fan. (I would like to proudly point out, however, that when my older brother was getting ready to leave for a high school dance called the Cornucopia Hop, he was embarrassed because he didn’t know the latest dance, the Twist. So I, all of 9 years old, taught him both the Twist and the Peppermint Twist. I was precocious, at least when it came to dancing.)
My father called us the three generations. I don’t recall how he described my two brothers, but I was the family’s “peace generation.” No, I didn’t do the long-haired hippie thing, but there was some truth to my father’s labeling. You couldn’t come of age in the 1960s without being affected in some way by the cultural and social upheavals of the decade – the civil rights movement, Vietnam, riots at universities, the assassinations of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the evaporation of trust in authority of all kinds, the “free love” movement, widespread use of drugs, and R- and X-rated movies. For older people, it appeared that society had become unhinged. And, it a sense, it had.
The concept of the “peace generation” eventually died, with T.S. Eliot’s proverbial whimper, morphing into the “Me Generation” when the news media and punditry class got bored and looked for something else to write and talk about.
What wasn’t often remarked upon at the time, however, was how close the “peace generation” actually was to violence. It was almost too easy for “make love, not war” protests against the war in Vietnam to turn into violent confrontations and episodes of property destruction, especially on college campuses – Berkeley, Kent State, Columbia, seemingly lots of other places, although that could have been the result of media amplification. (My own college campus existed in a time warp – the closest we ever came to violence was the annual panty raid before the football game with the arch-rival university. A time warp wasn’t a bad place to be back then.)
But a phrase sticks in my mind, likely forever: “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” Millions sang that phrase at protest rallies all over the United States at the time.
Peace wasn’t a bad idea; much of what went on sprang from some of the best, most idealistic impulses of the human heart. But that was exactly the problem, and the possible explanation for the violence. The human heart harbors both good and bad impulses, and often intertwined, so that a burning desire for peace can turn into the burning of automobiles, administration buildings and military draft induction centers.
Such contradictions are part of the human condition, because they are part of the human heart. Mine included.
This post is part of the one-word blog carnival held twice a month and sponsored by Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley. To see more posts on "peace," visit Bridget's web site.
Our births spanned three decades -- the 1940s, the 1950s and the 1960s. Musically, it meant that one of us was an Elvis Presley fan, one of us was a Beatles fan, and one of us was an Eagles fan. (I would like to proudly point out, however, that when my older brother was getting ready to leave for a high school dance called the Cornucopia Hop, he was embarrassed because he didn’t know the latest dance, the Twist. So I, all of 9 years old, taught him both the Twist and the Peppermint Twist. I was precocious, at least when it came to dancing.)
My father called us the three generations. I don’t recall how he described my two brothers, but I was the family’s “peace generation.” No, I didn’t do the long-haired hippie thing, but there was some truth to my father’s labeling. You couldn’t come of age in the 1960s without being affected in some way by the cultural and social upheavals of the decade – the civil rights movement, Vietnam, riots at universities, the assassinations of John F. and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the evaporation of trust in authority of all kinds, the “free love” movement, widespread use of drugs, and R- and X-rated movies. For older people, it appeared that society had become unhinged. And, it a sense, it had.
The concept of the “peace generation” eventually died, with T.S. Eliot’s proverbial whimper, morphing into the “Me Generation” when the news media and punditry class got bored and looked for something else to write and talk about.
What wasn’t often remarked upon at the time, however, was how close the “peace generation” actually was to violence. It was almost too easy for “make love, not war” protests against the war in Vietnam to turn into violent confrontations and episodes of property destruction, especially on college campuses – Berkeley, Kent State, Columbia, seemingly lots of other places, although that could have been the result of media amplification. (My own college campus existed in a time warp – the closest we ever came to violence was the annual panty raid before the football game with the arch-rival university. A time warp wasn’t a bad place to be back then.)
But a phrase sticks in my mind, likely forever: “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.” Millions sang that phrase at protest rallies all over the United States at the time.
Peace wasn’t a bad idea; much of what went on sprang from some of the best, most idealistic impulses of the human heart. But that was exactly the problem, and the possible explanation for the violence. The human heart harbors both good and bad impulses, and often intertwined, so that a burning desire for peace can turn into the burning of automobiles, administration buildings and military draft induction centers.
Such contradictions are part of the human condition, because they are part of the human heart. Mine included.
This post is part of the one-word blog carnival held twice a month and sponsored by Peter Pollock and Bridget Chumbley. To see more posts on "peace," visit Bridget's web site.
“Silence:” Is Anybody There?
You pray. You pray a lot. You pray for a long time. The need is great. You pray some more. People are being tortured and dying horrible deaths. You pray more, and harder. And then you get…Nothing. Silence.
That "nothing" is the heart of Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence, the story of two Portuguese priests in Japan in the 1600s during a time of great Christian persecution. Published in 1969, the novel is based on a true story. One of the priests, Father Sebastian Rodrigues, is imprisoned and gets to listen to the moans and cries of native Japanese Christians being tortured. The other priest, Father Christovao Ferreira, has already apostatized and abandoned his faith, convinced that Christianity does not apply to Japan.
Endo, himself a Catholic, explores this silence of God. How can God be silent, as in “do nothing,” as his people are persecuted, tortured and killed? How can God allow such awful suffering and remain silent, even as His people earnestly and sincerely seek His face and His answers?
Agnostics and atheists often ask the same question. If there is a God, then how could He allow such injustice, destruction, depravity and suffering? How could he allow an impoverished country like Haiti be destroyed, with 150,000 dead and untold misery? How?
I’d like to let agnostics and atheists in on a secret. Christians struggle with the same question. It is as hard for us to comprehend this as it is for others who reject any notion of God. The difference is, we struggle and pray through the question, and we keep struggling and praying even when the answer appears to be silence.
Pat Robertson’s statement notwithstanding, I don’t believe that earthquakes, hurricanes and other natural disasters are by definition God’s judgment being meted out. But I do know that when these events happen, God expects his people to respond.
And when they do, there is no silence.
Previous posts on Shusaku Endo’s Silence:
Shusaku Endo’s “Silence”
“Silence:” How Do You Betray Your Faith?
“Silence:” Is Christianity True or “Cultural?”
Silence is the first book to be discussed this year by the Reader’s Guild of the International Arts Movement. For the month of February, the book is The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection by Robert Farrar Capon.
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