Theology Tuesday

Vino veritas. It’s an old adage that means ‘in wine there is truth’, or at least in a few glasses of wine there is a kind of truth.  It may not be with a capital T, but certainly with wine you might be more inclined to get it off your chest, speak what is on your mind, and reveal what is in your heart at that moment.  Out of 150 psalms, there are about 50 known as lament psalms, sometimes called complaint psalms.  I think of them as the bitching and complaining psalms, and maybe we could also think of them as the wine psalms as they say things that we wouldn’t normally say or hear or think -at least not out loud or on social media (there are filters on pictures for a reason!). When you ask these 50 psalms how they are doing, they flout the too much information rule and let it all out: Oh I cry all day but God does not answer; The waters have come up to my neck I sink deep in the mire  I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched;  my eyes grow ...

But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. I see this prayer from Julian of Norwich several times a week during our quarantine days. It’s beautiful, poignant, and comforting. Not buying it? I don’t blame you.  I wake up every morning thinking I’ve had the worst dreams, but the news reminds me I am very much awake and very much concerned for us all. How exactly to pray a prayer like all things shall be well? That doesn’t sound like Norwich as much as an ostrich with a head buried deep in the sand.  Does it help to know that these words came to Julian on what she thought was her deathbed at only 30 years of age?  She had lived through several bouts of the black plague and watched her country be ravaged by the peasants’ revolt. Life in the 1300s was far from what we can recognize, even in these difficult days of Covid-19.  What makes this prayer valuable to me is that Julian felt she was quoting these words not cre...

I began Sunday’s sermon with an impromptu reading of Langtson Hughes’ poem Dreams.  I just heard news of footage released of Ahmaud Arbery’s murder while he was out for a run in Brunswick, Georgia. I wanted to say something that was both in sympathy and solidarity with my African American brothers and sisters while recognizing that as a white man who, when out for a run, does not think twice about being harmed, I don’t really understand the weight of fatigue from this kind of repeated injustice. Here’s his poem: Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go Life is a barren field Frozen with snow. It’s a good poem from an important poet, and I’m grateful that I was introduced to it many years ago. But it wasn’t the poem I wanted to share. I wanted to share another Hughes poem called Christ of Alabama.  Christ is a Nigger, Beaten and black-- O, bare your back. Mary is His Mother ...

Cinqo de Mayo and Taco Tuesday- a happy pairing providing a little reverie when reverie is in short supply.  But I can’t shake the feeling that our meming up of this day is like the Star and Stripes shorts and tank-tops I see on the 4th of July- fun but not quite the point. I’m going to pivot and lift up something else about the 5th of May- the birthday of Danish author and Christian intellectual Søren Kierkegaard.  He was born this day in 1813 and wrote in, no doubt helped contribute to, the Danish golden age.  He is regarded as the father of Existentialism (a disputed claim I think- shouldn’t that really go to Qoheleth, the voice we hear in Ecclesiastes?  But I digress).  Kierkegaard’s writing years were very brief, but his legacy has proven long.  Here are a few quotes: To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.  Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. The function of pray...