There is no way to distinguish

the place where the radiance of evening

touches the face of God.

Just fingers of grace-soaked light

long, drawling and sure,

that pull at the last, dark places

and weed them out of the heated ground

to die quietly in the burning

breath of love, and then

to live again.

The light was thinner today, unplagued by summer arrogance.

The aging, iron-grey sky cooperates fully with the falling day,

pouring out one particle at a time onto the browning green.

I watched it pool in elegance, gathering

in the playful dance of moths and paupers.

Lower down, close to the roots of things,

my feet can touch the back of this place, falling simply

as eyes preparing for a blanched horizon are caressed

by the autumnal bounty of God’s spare time.

 

Glance, and I will escape you.

Look, and I will show you.

Behold, and I will move you.

Observe, and I will educate you.

See, and I will change you.

Changed, you will see me.

 

Friends and commentators from all over the theological spectrum have mentioned that I don’t seem to have given susbstitutionary atonement theory its due in my post from earlier this week, The Wrath of God and the Presbyterian Hymnal.

In that post, I leaned heavily on presenting substitutionary atonement as “cosmic child abuse” (an excellent turn of phrase I’m borrowing from Sarah Sanderson-Doughty).  I wrote:

…penal substitution sets up a scenario where Jesus saves humanity from the rage (not the wrath) of an out-of-control, abusive parent.  When all is said and done, the church gathers around a crucifix and hears, “This is your fault.  Look at what you made God do.  You are so bad and dirty that God had to torture and kill this beautiful, innocent person so that he wouldn’t do the same thing to you.  Therefore, you’d better shape up and be thankful or else God…

At a Highland Games sometime last summer I was piping for the Highland Dancing portion and wrote some reflections. This is the continuation of that story…

I jump ahead forty years in order to share one of many piping stories accumulated over those years. Since the age of fourteen I have played bagpipes as accompaniment for highland dancing. Typically, a piper or pipers are hired to perform this task, doing so throughout the day trading off dances for breaks from the delightful tedium. Yesterday was one such day.

One walks onto a damp field, humming with the possibilities of the day, newly arrived but yet in infancy. The sun, undecided as to its welcome, insists on playing peek-a-boo through gently swaying trees overhead. The heady, morning air gradually yields to the all too familiar squawks of bagpipers keen to tame the beast before their competition debut two hours hence. Ahead…

I am a Highland Bagpipe player or piper in street talk. It is an instrument with which I have had a love-hate relationship for almost forty years now. For the longest time I wondered what might have gone through my parents’ minds when, at eight years of age, I loudly proclaimed my overweening desire to begin lessons immediately. That is, until I mused lately on the fact that both of my sons are rock drummers. I’m sure that bears at least some resemblance.

Perhaps not.

The Great Highland Bagpipe (GHB) as it is called by the musicology muck-a-mucks is an instrument uniquely designed to be heard. A perfect wake-the-dead alarm, they have been used for centuries to alert clans of forthcoming gatherings, oncoming battles and soon coming dignitaries. A piper on a hill is not just a cliché or quaint tourist post card. It does in fact typify much of…

hear the crumpling rumbles, crown-starved lives, stumbling

through the hours, feigning breath for the stale air of hurry.

shops awhirl with tight shouldered pilgrims alert only to winking lights

and brandied windows that steal the real for the on sale deal, steals

for grubby graspers groping for this, grasping for that

filling carts with heartless bobbles of packaged numb –

soul, unknown to its owners, crouches still, hungry, waiting, gasping

thirsty for seasonal wading pool, the drink of tourists

blind to pilgrim feast just beyond the price tag contemplations of beggars.

empty promises, shiny and hollow, lure lusty eyes and hearts behooven

to unkempt desires of lesser men.

how insidious, how stealthy, this swollen debt of mall-booty

accumulating in attics, under porches, staircases, and blankets –

garage sale in the making.

still behind such trackless wastes, just out of sight

behind the aisle, under racks of unpeopled scarves, jackets and…

On August 28^th, 2008, I began a journey 20 years in the making – I started my Master’s degree. What am I studying? I’m glad you asked. I am taking a Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation and Leadership. It is an online degree through Spring Arbor University in Michigan. Responses I’ve received have ranged from mild curiosity to deep fascination to turned up noses! So, why that and why now? Again, thanks for asking.

A favorite Rife family rock band, U2, wrote a chart topping song in the 80’s called, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. Since Bono, their lead singer, was widely known to be a Christian, they received much bad press from the church for not speaking in more definitive terms about their experience of faith. However, it was something deeper that he was singing about. Like Bono of U2, ever since…

Around this time last year, I took time for spiritual refreshment in Ocean Shores. What follows are a few of my thoughts on that time away…

It is surprising just how many toxins build up in our spirits when we neglect regular periods for silence, solitude and spiritual refreshment. What an affront to our self-referentialism to discover that the world has gotten along famously without our invaluable contributions. Nevertheless, it remains an immensely challenging undertaking to willingly disengage for a few days in order to re-engage the deeper things – God and those archetypal realities of our meager existence.

My house stands in need of significant repair, my wife deserves my attention, my sons need a father and my employer needs me to make the trains run on time. To retreat from our responsibilities requires our brazen intention to be vulnerable before God with no guarantee of visible returns on…