“Now, concerning love…”

You know what it takes, 

says Paul,

inimitable.

Love as you are able.

Love in all loveliness

your sisters and brothers,

faithful to the love

that created and called you.

 

Thus may our delight

depend on none but God;

who finds,

in Christ’s disciples,

faithful fugitives from fearful folly -

folly that places too much weight

on the passing things that substance wants:

grief and pain;

death and doubt.

All these will fade and vanish.

 

Our Victor spoils us with hope

that finds form in fantastic

future visions.

Real or imagined,

the joy that these foretell

has no substitute.

Second to none,

this longed for second coming

that finds us loving our living -

living in love.

 

JR. Lackie – Feb 2012 

 

 

advent again…

Nobody likes waiting
not now, not then, not ever -
but Advent is about anticipation.
Faith is full of future thoughts.
God is at work in the now,
but is also concerned with “when”
and we are left to live between the times.

Advent 3 09 – Thorburn, NS

“Adventagous”

The prophetic pronunciations

slip silently over our

sensibilities.

Ours is not Isaiah’s vigil -

our exile is not so brutal as it once was.

Oh, we are still exiled – bound and fettered -

but ours is self-inflicted.

We keep a willing distance from Divinity,

our choices, poor substitutions.

 

Yet listen to that advent call!

The promised resolution is revealed

and God waits for our resolve to crumble.

For we have failed in our promises;

we too have turned our backs -

lost sight of glorious grace that meets us still

in Jesus.

Jesus, whose birth sparked

riots of joy

among the down and out crowd.

Jesus, whose birth attendants

stood in steamy stables;

silent supplication.

Jesus answers ancient promises

and stirs our current questions

and today we mark the season (still)

of waiting – our liturgical reminder

that though the waiting is not over,

God is more persistent, by far,

than we.

The story told afresh

will give new hope,

new chances,

new opportunities

to serve and be served

an unusual ordering of things…

“When the son of man comes in his glory…”  Matthew’s Gospel promises a great reckoning at the end of things, but point to something more current – more “present”, if you will.  This simple equation – goats + sheep (divided by) a righteous judge, equals fair warning.  Not to treat one another with love for the sake of some glorious heavenly reward - no, this is about our attitude toward the divine.  When you love your fellow creatures, you love me, the King says – and when you ignore the hungry and naked, thinking they are somehow “sub-human”, you have turned your back on God.  Simple, really – the least desirable one among us is God-soaked. in their every atom.  See them, and you’ve seen me, says the King – and we can only shake our heads in wonder, at the miraculous simplicity of Incarnation.  We’ve made it harder (of course) than it ever needed to be.  The coming King – this King of Glory, bound and killed by human arrogance, Jesus, the Christ, insists on this simplicity:  ”I was hungry, and you gave me food.  I was thirsty, naked, sick and alone and you spoke up, stepped up, and filled my need – that is how the Kingdom works.

Because you knew Margaret Avinson

Our vocation brings with it
a tendency to implement
a way of seeing not approved
by all who gather ’round.
And though we see three glasses,
posed and balanced on that table,
I am drawn to look for evidence
within their consequential place.
Those glasses may or may not be
suggestive of the Trinity,
but now our conversation has
created space in which to place
ideas, fraught with consequence
of unintended grace.
Thus struck by fullness emptied
for the sake of our forgetfulness
one empty vessel holds the whole
extent of this poor poets
random, rambling
thought.
A Triune tribute, unintended,
washes over every act
of calling back to memory
that moment caught in time.
And from that recollection
fondly follows thoughts of majesty
that gather us in consequences
fraught with grace divine.

June 20, 2009 – Victoria University – Toronto

Rainy day thoughts on Paul

A week – a month to forget.

two days of sunshine and celebration

midst rain – grey, drizzly dampness

deeply felt.

The citizens, visibly affected,

don plastic coats and rubber boots,

pretending this is just

a dismal spring extended.

This malaise runs deeper

than an atmospheric anomaly.

Our very souls are soggy;

sapped of any spirit

by the effort of existing in the dark.

Perhaps Paul,

writing from an appropriately dry distance,

provides the heat required to dry our dismal days.

“Get along!  Practice perfection!

Live in LOVE for Loves own sake!”

Paul urges his unknown audience

to live in Spirit’s power

in spite of dull and daunting days.

So let’s live, damnit!

Live in love, and let the Spirit

move us in ways that transform and terrify.

Live to serve and honour God,

and never mind your power plays -

endless games of

‘who-did-what-to-whom’.

Worship, work

and wend your way

toward peace in the presence of Peace.

Let Paul rest his pen

and play the pleased patriarch

as slowly we savour the Saviour’s legacy.

June 16, 2011  -  J.R. Lackie

Reflecting on Isaiah 9: 2-7…

 

Once upon a time, the prophet says, there was contempt in and for the land and the people of the promise.  In the prophet’s time, darkness prevails – a darkness of the spirit – their hope nearly extinguished.  But the prophet has a good word from God; slowly but surely, light will come.

This word was a ray of hope to God’s people in Isaiah’s time.  The people groaned under heavy burdens – captive, exiled, and seemingly abandoned by God…but here there is hope, says the prophet; a marvellous, glittering light will be revealed in a child.

We may not be sure that Isaiah’s generation received that promised deliverance – there is much speculation either way.  We do know that these words of promise sustained many generations of God’s people.  These words brought much needed hope – each dismal situation was faced with the prayer for the promised child – and so it was that under Roman oppression, people’s thoughts turned yet again to these ancient words.  Thanks to a bedraggled baptizer, the people paused to consider the work of the teacher who followed him, applying the template of prophecy to yet another possibility…

Born into David’s family – in David’s city, so the story went – this fellow seemed to fit the bill.  His authority grew, his influence was unmistakable.  His message brought new light to dark times.

Some 20 centuries later, we have established Jesus as that promised child.  We read Isaiah chapter 9 as though it pointed directly to the one we call Christ – and that is appropriate, because we too are God’s people, desperate for hope, longing for God’s promised light.  We don’t recognize our oppression, as it comes in different forms now – at least in the ‘developed’ world.  Our oppression is Economic, Emotional, and Spiritual in nature.  WE are not beset by marauding armies (in the west, at any rate), rather we are held at bay by enemies of our own design; Corporate bullies, capitalist taskmasters and an ingrained consumer culture control our destiny and destroy our dreams of freedom and equity.  We are slaves to a system that has trained us to expect too much, and prefer style  to substance.  We yearn for relief.  we are desperate for hope, and in faith, we turn to a child of poverty, who would open to us the vast riches of God’s glorious grace.

The message of hope that the gospel records as Jesus earthly legacy is one that has endured, and grown and sustained countless children in many seasons of poverty; through many forms of oppression.  At Christmas especially, the church brings attention to that promised light, and offers light to the world, in story and song – in ritual and rejoicing – as an answer to the darkness that closes down hope and blots out peace.  Christ’s liberating light is our Christmas hope, and the foundation of our faith.

Let us rejoice that this light – found in this child – is ours to share.

Dec 7, 2011