It's Umu-Gani Time!
Matthew 24: 36-44
It's Umu-Gani Time!
Advent I
We have Noah’s Ark themed nurseries. I mean, not us personally, but rather us as a culture. Americans. Modern Americans have Noah’s Ark themed nurseries. That seems weird to me. Human beings are inherently sinful and left to their own devices became so irreparably rowdy that God had to drown them all. It can come at any time. You’re eating, or drinking, or getting married or whatever. And then, BAM – forty days and nights of rain. You’ll never see it coming. Oh well, sleep well, little one.
I mean, yeah, everybody loves the image of a boat full of animals floating pastorally around and having adventures. We have Boat-Full-Of-Animals theme parks, like the one in Kentucky that filed an insurance claim for rain damage that one time. Boats full of animals are cute. So why don’t we have Doctor Doolittle themed nurseries?
I selected my model for Noah’s Ark from one of the adorable Noah’s Arks that Medieval artists used to paint. It’s sort of like a fairy castle in a tub. It has come to rest atop the fabled Mount Ararat, and I guess they’re all in there waiting for the dove to not come back and tell them it’s safe to disembark. I love the image of a boat settled into the mountain peaks. It’s wistful and improbable. It’s mystic and enchanting.
The boat mountain castle zoo is so charming that I surrounded it with classically stylized Asian clouds to add to the enchantment. They add to the mystery. “… a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas.”
In Zen compositions, you do not see the whole scene in a glance. Zen art is like life in that respect. You don’t view everything at the same time. You can’t see the whole thing from where you’re standing. A big part of the beauty is what you don’t see. And so it occurred to me to have the scene be shrouded. To not show everything. In a word, to use Restraint. Restraint doesn’t come easy for me. I approached this assignment with a lot of prayer. I got through it with a lot of prayer.
It’s all Pastor Shelly’s fault, really. She sent me some cool stuff to think about for Advent, and it had themes like “silence” and “holy darkness” and “those of color”. All stuff that’s not typically in my Advent vocabulary. I had everything laid out in my mind in the context of the great Italian Renaissance masterworks – the best of western civilization. That’s my go to – my usual aesthetic groove. And, yet, it was all wrong for the assignment.
Instead, I tried to choose a model that wasn’t white. She is a young woman grinding grain into flour. From the Googled photo, I assumed that it wasn’t staged. It looked real. The photo looked candid, I mean. I’m pretty sure that this is how many people still make flour in the world.
The woman is The Future – the time of the coming of the Son of Man. We’re waiting for the past coming of the Son of Man. I mean, us here and now, in Advent. We’re waiting for his arrival that took place two-thousand years ago. Hopefully this effort isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. Waiting for something that has already happened – that happened a really long time ago - as if it hadn’t yet happened; as if we’re so jealous of those Old Testament Jews that had their faith tried and tested for thousands of years - waiting in quiet lamentation for a promised Redeemer. Like we’re reenacting those times.
Hopefully our waiting is Ritual in the sense that we are waiting for the coming fulfillment of God’s plan. That’s the future that the flour-grinding woman is there to represent. She is from the book of Revelation, which Jesus predicts in the Gospel – that half the people will be taken up into heaven so they don’t have to experience what God is going to do to the Earth. [*Oh, good, another Earth desolation story. I wonder; are there Apocryphal-themed nurseries somewhere?]
To get that sense of time, from the olden times to the future times, I’ve put footprints in the sand. They represent the entirety of human Civilization; footprints in the sand. That sounds very Zen, too, now that I think about it. How heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will never pass away.
Say, that reminds me, I put words into this drawing. I do that sometimes. The words are Kirundi. It’s kind of a long story. They were inspired by one of my Confirmands. She visited Burundi this past summer. She said that she had learned two languages in order to go; she learned Kirundi and Swahili. I impressed myself by saying two words of Swahili. She had learned two languages in a few months. Somehow, I picked up a couple of words in a half a century. Past, future, waiting, preparing.
I thought about how much we take for granted here in the Heartland. I wanted to turn the table on that a little. I thought about how easily some Americans are offended by seeing or hearing words from another language. As if our language wasn’t perfectly good enough for everyone on Earth. I wondered how people in the pews would feel seeing words on the bulletin cover that they didn’t understand. I wondered how people in the pews would feel seeing for the first time words on their church’s bulletin cover that were in their mother tongue.
Umu-gani. Igi-sokozanyo. These words are Kirundi.
The Gospel seemed to be about the Human Story, the past and the present, where we’ve been and where we’re going. The entirety of it all. And it struck me that in some ways, the past is just as shrouded and mysterious as the future. When I surfed for a translation of “story” in Kirundi, I found that you need a different word depending on what kind of story you’re talking about. Umu-gani refers to story in the sense of fable – at least that’s what the ONE on-line source I was able to find assured me. Fable, like an ancient story, passed down from generation to generation, about a boat full of animals. Igi-sokozanyo refers to story “in the sense of riddle”. The future, the wrapping up of God’s plan, the End Times, the coming of the Son of Man – all mysterious. We have clues, so it feels like it should be simple. But of course it isn’t. Just like a riddle.
I also put a candle in there because it’s the first week of Advent. And you have to see what you’re doing when you grind grain into flour.
It's Umu-Gani Time!
Advent I
We have Noah’s Ark themed nurseries. I mean, not us personally, but rather us as a culture. Americans. Modern Americans have Noah’s Ark themed nurseries. That seems weird to me. Human beings are inherently sinful and left to their own devices became so irreparably rowdy that God had to drown them all. It can come at any time. You’re eating, or drinking, or getting married or whatever. And then, BAM – forty days and nights of rain. You’ll never see it coming. Oh well, sleep well, little one.
I mean, yeah, everybody loves the image of a boat full of animals floating pastorally around and having adventures. We have Boat-Full-Of-Animals theme parks, like the one in Kentucky that filed an insurance claim for rain damage that one time. Boats full of animals are cute. So why don’t we have Doctor Doolittle themed nurseries?
I selected my model for Noah’s Ark from one of the adorable Noah’s Arks that Medieval artists used to paint. It’s sort of like a fairy castle in a tub. It has come to rest atop the fabled Mount Ararat, and I guess they’re all in there waiting for the dove to not come back and tell them it’s safe to disembark. I love the image of a boat settled into the mountain peaks. It’s wistful and improbable. It’s mystic and enchanting.
The boat mountain castle zoo is so charming that I surrounded it with classically stylized Asian clouds to add to the enchantment. They add to the mystery. “… a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas.”
In Zen compositions, you do not see the whole scene in a glance. Zen art is like life in that respect. You don’t view everything at the same time. You can’t see the whole thing from where you’re standing. A big part of the beauty is what you don’t see. And so it occurred to me to have the scene be shrouded. To not show everything. In a word, to use Restraint. Restraint doesn’t come easy for me. I approached this assignment with a lot of prayer. I got through it with a lot of prayer.
It’s all Pastor Shelly’s fault, really. She sent me some cool stuff to think about for Advent, and it had themes like “silence” and “holy darkness” and “those of color”. All stuff that’s not typically in my Advent vocabulary. I had everything laid out in my mind in the context of the great Italian Renaissance masterworks – the best of western civilization. That’s my go to – my usual aesthetic groove. And, yet, it was all wrong for the assignment.
Instead, I tried to choose a model that wasn’t white. She is a young woman grinding grain into flour. From the Googled photo, I assumed that it wasn’t staged. It looked real. The photo looked candid, I mean. I’m pretty sure that this is how many people still make flour in the world.
The woman is The Future – the time of the coming of the Son of Man. We’re waiting for the past coming of the Son of Man. I mean, us here and now, in Advent. We’re waiting for his arrival that took place two-thousand years ago. Hopefully this effort isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. Waiting for something that has already happened – that happened a really long time ago - as if it hadn’t yet happened; as if we’re so jealous of those Old Testament Jews that had their faith tried and tested for thousands of years - waiting in quiet lamentation for a promised Redeemer. Like we’re reenacting those times.
Hopefully our waiting is Ritual in the sense that we are waiting for the coming fulfillment of God’s plan. That’s the future that the flour-grinding woman is there to represent. She is from the book of Revelation, which Jesus predicts in the Gospel – that half the people will be taken up into heaven so they don’t have to experience what God is going to do to the Earth. [*Oh, good, another Earth desolation story. I wonder; are there Apocryphal-themed nurseries somewhere?]
To get that sense of time, from the olden times to the future times, I’ve put footprints in the sand. They represent the entirety of human Civilization; footprints in the sand. That sounds very Zen, too, now that I think about it. How heaven and earth will pass away, but God’s Word will never pass away.
Say, that reminds me, I put words into this drawing. I do that sometimes. The words are Kirundi. It’s kind of a long story. They were inspired by one of my Confirmands. She visited Burundi this past summer. She said that she had learned two languages in order to go; she learned Kirundi and Swahili. I impressed myself by saying two words of Swahili. She had learned two languages in a few months. Somehow, I picked up a couple of words in a half a century. Past, future, waiting, preparing.
I thought about how much we take for granted here in the Heartland. I wanted to turn the table on that a little. I thought about how easily some Americans are offended by seeing or hearing words from another language. As if our language wasn’t perfectly good enough for everyone on Earth. I wondered how people in the pews would feel seeing words on the bulletin cover that they didn’t understand. I wondered how people in the pews would feel seeing for the first time words on their church’s bulletin cover that were in their mother tongue.
Umu-gani. Igi-sokozanyo. These words are Kirundi.
The Gospel seemed to be about the Human Story, the past and the present, where we’ve been and where we’re going. The entirety of it all. And it struck me that in some ways, the past is just as shrouded and mysterious as the future. When I surfed for a translation of “story” in Kirundi, I found that you need a different word depending on what kind of story you’re talking about. Umu-gani refers to story in the sense of fable – at least that’s what the ONE on-line source I was able to find assured me. Fable, like an ancient story, passed down from generation to generation, about a boat full of animals. Igi-sokozanyo refers to story “in the sense of riddle”. The future, the wrapping up of God’s plan, the End Times, the coming of the Son of Man – all mysterious. We have clues, so it feels like it should be simple. But of course it isn’t. Just like a riddle.
I also put a candle in there because it’s the first week of Advent. And you have to see what you’re doing when you grind grain into flour.
Matthew 3: 1-12
Drama. And honey.
Advent II
There is a folk legend about Norman Rockwell.
When he was staring down the blank canvas, the intimidating whiteness of the vacant picture plane, the supreme and superlative nothingness, the Great Zen No Thing, at a total loss on where to begin, it is said that Norman Rockwell would paint a lamppost. It didn’t matter what he was supposed to be painting, he would begin with a lamppost. It could be a portrait. It could be indoors. It could be anything, but it began with a lamppost.
The lamppost would eventually be painted out.
It took years and years and years before I figured that one out. If you read the Magician’s Nephew, by Clive Staples Lewis, it explains the lamppost. In fact, I suspect that’s where Rockwell’s lamppost came from; from the Narnia Tales by Lewis. The lamppost is first seen in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. You will recall that Lucy, Susan, Edmund and Peter stumble upon it in the woods. It’s just out there in the middle of the wilderness. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was written first. The explanation was written later in a prequel. I’m not a spoiler kind of guy, so you’re just going to have to go back and reread those books to get the full picture.
This drawing is full of wilderness. I wanted it to be about peaceful holiday meditations. Holly and Ivy and Wassail and Jolly Good King Whatshisname. But John the Baptist had other plans.
The lamppost is in the wilderness of Narnia, out in the woods, where the wild things are. So I use it here in that metaphor, and because I needed two lights for the Second Sunday in Advent.
I’ve always seen John the Baptist as a crazy guy. If you think about it, the descriptions in the bible did not have him looking like a Pharisee, scribe, Sadducee, magistrate, official, officer, Caesar, Pharaoh, High Priest or tax collector. Matthew describes him as looking like a crazy guy. He was no Joel Olstein. The man ate locusts.
Wade in the Water
John was calling out in the words of the Prophet Isaiah; MAKE A ROAD, THE KING IS COMING.
Merriweather Lewis and William Clark teach us (from our old high school History memorizations) that a river is a road through the wilderness. John called the people to the banks and said, “Make a road”.
We all know the bible is full of poetry, and John may have been the most poetical of all the prophets. Jesus said that among the prophets, there was none greater than John. Maybe he was alluding to John’s brookside poetry slam sermons.
“a mile wide and an inch deep, too thick to drink, too wet to plow”
John talked in puzzles, riddles and paradoxes – all the things that great philosophy is built upon. He said build a river in your wildness, follow the stream. Your blood is a stream that flows to your heart. Build a road to your heart, Jesus is coming. Give The King of Kings an easy road into your heart.
John said a lot of poetically puzzling things. If a cactus falls in the wilderness and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If so, then who is there to hear the voice of the one crying out? Rivers bring life to a region. Was he talking about futility or fertility?
People wash in the river. The idea is to get your drinking water upstream and do your laundry downstream. Water brings life. The river makes you clean. It makes you fit to be in the King’s presence.
So then why does Jesus trouble the water?
We had a sermon about this not too long ago. When the water is stirred, the first one in the pool gets healed. When you wade in the water, you get healed. That’s called baptism. And that’s what John did. A Baptist; one who baptizes.
So the children came. We know the children came because it says so in the Old Spiritual – and if you can’t believe Old Spirituals, the country’s done for. The song says, “Wade in the water, Children.” The Children were there, and that doesn’t surprise me. If you spend any time with Youth, and especially the Youth of this Congregation, you know that young people are ready to spring to action. They are ready to answer the call. A pastor once told me that the disciples were likely teenagers. I’m no anthropologist, but it seems to me to check out.
I know that the Sons of Thunder would go fishing in the boat with Ol’ Thunder himself. Men didn’t live that long back in those days. So if James’s and John’s father was still alive, likely they were little more than boys. It makes sense that Jesus called on young people. If you’re raising an army, you draft young people. They’re ready to go.
Middle-aged dudes like me are WAY too comfortable to travel out to the wilderness. We have cares and commitments. We have careers and worries. We’re married, with children. We have no time to go traipsing off to a wilderness to hear a ranting poet in a camel coat. We have lawns to mow. By definition, we’re anti-wilderness.
So I put children in the water. Teens. Youth. The ones who are ready to go. I put them in the drawing because youth are not the Church of Tomorrow – Youth are the Church of TODAY!
Code Talkers
I put teen symbols along the bottom of the drawing. Youth talk in icons. Hieroglyphics. One of the images I was working from to draw my Youth Corps was stolen, a screenshot from Instagram. At the bottom were these little symbols that kids can tell you what they mean. Among those Like and Comment and Save to Favorites symbols are words in Burmese. More of John’s poetry. John said, “ကြိုတင်ပြင်ဆင်” and “၁၂ ။”. John’s message: prepare and repent.
Prepare and Repent
John said prepare. He said move forward. He said there is no time to lose. Get a move on. Get going. The future is now. GO!
John said repent. He said turn back. He said, as C.S. Lewis so eloquently puts it, that a bad sum cannot be corrected by going forward – you need to undo your mistake, “with backward mutters of dissevering power”.
Turn back to go forward. I told you John was a poet.
Critique
Pastor Shelly gets an A+ for Art Interpretation this week. She immediately sat down with the drawing and saw things in it that even I didn’t see. She started with the tree stump, which was such a relief because I wasn’t sure that the tree stump was reading as a tree stump. She saw it right away. She said, “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.”
That’s the scary part of the poetry. John talks about things getting chopped down and thrown in the fire. I said that unproductive people get thrown into the fire. She said she prefers to think that Evil gets thrown into the fire. That’s why she’s the Pastor and I’m the CPA.
Arlo Guthrie reminds us that you can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in. There’s a balance to the universe; a Yin to every Yang. If you read the Poet Isaiah, for every chopped-down tree there’s a shoot of Jesse coming out of it. That was the second thing she said. She said, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”
We have a little lemon tree in our kitchen. It died a few weeks ago. We brought it in from the patio to protect it from the winter months, and ALL of the leaves fell off. It looked so sad. Just a lot of sticks with a big juicy almost-ripe lemon on it.
I watered it. I’m not a giver-upper. I watered it and prayed. This is a true story. A few days later little leaf-buds appeared on the bare branches. I prayed and waited. The lemon tree now has a fresh batch of vital green leaves and the fruit is ripe. That’s the model I used to draw the shoot of Jesse.
No sooner had the shoot in my drawing gained leaves than it burst into flames, and though it burned, it was not consumed. The bush was burning, and out of the bush came the Voice of God.
As my Confirmation Forumers will tell you, God speaks through Prophets (not profits). Prophets are the Voice of God. And there emerged John from the Holy Smokes of the Burning Bush extolling the people to build a road. Call us to build a road for Jesus.
I realize now that John looks a lot like Stevie wonder. That was pointed out to me by more than one art critic in the church office. It’s not Stevie, though it’s close. That’s an excellent guess. My model for John the Baptizer is Jimmy Cliff. Those of you who follow me on The Gram (@z.w.e.r.k.s) already know why I chose Jimmy Cliff to play John the Baptist. The rest of you will just have to wait until next week.
I promise, all will be explained.
Drama. And honey.
Advent II
There is a folk legend about Norman Rockwell.
When he was staring down the blank canvas, the intimidating whiteness of the vacant picture plane, the supreme and superlative nothingness, the Great Zen No Thing, at a total loss on where to begin, it is said that Norman Rockwell would paint a lamppost. It didn’t matter what he was supposed to be painting, he would begin with a lamppost. It could be a portrait. It could be indoors. It could be anything, but it began with a lamppost.
The lamppost would eventually be painted out.
It took years and years and years before I figured that one out. If you read the Magician’s Nephew, by Clive Staples Lewis, it explains the lamppost. In fact, I suspect that’s where Rockwell’s lamppost came from; from the Narnia Tales by Lewis. The lamppost is first seen in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. You will recall that Lucy, Susan, Edmund and Peter stumble upon it in the woods. It’s just out there in the middle of the wilderness. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was written first. The explanation was written later in a prequel. I’m not a spoiler kind of guy, so you’re just going to have to go back and reread those books to get the full picture.
This drawing is full of wilderness. I wanted it to be about peaceful holiday meditations. Holly and Ivy and Wassail and Jolly Good King Whatshisname. But John the Baptist had other plans.
The lamppost is in the wilderness of Narnia, out in the woods, where the wild things are. So I use it here in that metaphor, and because I needed two lights for the Second Sunday in Advent.
I’ve always seen John the Baptist as a crazy guy. If you think about it, the descriptions in the bible did not have him looking like a Pharisee, scribe, Sadducee, magistrate, official, officer, Caesar, Pharaoh, High Priest or tax collector. Matthew describes him as looking like a crazy guy. He was no Joel Olstein. The man ate locusts.
Wade in the Water
John was calling out in the words of the Prophet Isaiah; MAKE A ROAD, THE KING IS COMING.
Merriweather Lewis and William Clark teach us (from our old high school History memorizations) that a river is a road through the wilderness. John called the people to the banks and said, “Make a road”.
We all know the bible is full of poetry, and John may have been the most poetical of all the prophets. Jesus said that among the prophets, there was none greater than John. Maybe he was alluding to John’s brookside poetry slam sermons.
“a mile wide and an inch deep, too thick to drink, too wet to plow”
John talked in puzzles, riddles and paradoxes – all the things that great philosophy is built upon. He said build a river in your wildness, follow the stream. Your blood is a stream that flows to your heart. Build a road to your heart, Jesus is coming. Give The King of Kings an easy road into your heart.
John said a lot of poetically puzzling things. If a cactus falls in the wilderness and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? If so, then who is there to hear the voice of the one crying out? Rivers bring life to a region. Was he talking about futility or fertility?
People wash in the river. The idea is to get your drinking water upstream and do your laundry downstream. Water brings life. The river makes you clean. It makes you fit to be in the King’s presence.
So then why does Jesus trouble the water?
We had a sermon about this not too long ago. When the water is stirred, the first one in the pool gets healed. When you wade in the water, you get healed. That’s called baptism. And that’s what John did. A Baptist; one who baptizes.
So the children came. We know the children came because it says so in the Old Spiritual – and if you can’t believe Old Spirituals, the country’s done for. The song says, “Wade in the water, Children.” The Children were there, and that doesn’t surprise me. If you spend any time with Youth, and especially the Youth of this Congregation, you know that young people are ready to spring to action. They are ready to answer the call. A pastor once told me that the disciples were likely teenagers. I’m no anthropologist, but it seems to me to check out.
I know that the Sons of Thunder would go fishing in the boat with Ol’ Thunder himself. Men didn’t live that long back in those days. So if James’s and John’s father was still alive, likely they were little more than boys. It makes sense that Jesus called on young people. If you’re raising an army, you draft young people. They’re ready to go.
Middle-aged dudes like me are WAY too comfortable to travel out to the wilderness. We have cares and commitments. We have careers and worries. We’re married, with children. We have no time to go traipsing off to a wilderness to hear a ranting poet in a camel coat. We have lawns to mow. By definition, we’re anti-wilderness.
So I put children in the water. Teens. Youth. The ones who are ready to go. I put them in the drawing because youth are not the Church of Tomorrow – Youth are the Church of TODAY!
Code Talkers
I put teen symbols along the bottom of the drawing. Youth talk in icons. Hieroglyphics. One of the images I was working from to draw my Youth Corps was stolen, a screenshot from Instagram. At the bottom were these little symbols that kids can tell you what they mean. Among those Like and Comment and Save to Favorites symbols are words in Burmese. More of John’s poetry. John said, “ကြိုတင်ပြင်ဆင်” and “၁၂ ။”. John’s message: prepare and repent.
Prepare and Repent
John said prepare. He said move forward. He said there is no time to lose. Get a move on. Get going. The future is now. GO!
John said repent. He said turn back. He said, as C.S. Lewis so eloquently puts it, that a bad sum cannot be corrected by going forward – you need to undo your mistake, “with backward mutters of dissevering power”.
Turn back to go forward. I told you John was a poet.
Critique
Pastor Shelly gets an A+ for Art Interpretation this week. She immediately sat down with the drawing and saw things in it that even I didn’t see. She started with the tree stump, which was such a relief because I wasn’t sure that the tree stump was reading as a tree stump. She saw it right away. She said, “And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees.”
That’s the scary part of the poetry. John talks about things getting chopped down and thrown in the fire. I said that unproductive people get thrown into the fire. She said she prefers to think that Evil gets thrown into the fire. That’s why she’s the Pastor and I’m the CPA.
Arlo Guthrie reminds us that you can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in. There’s a balance to the universe; a Yin to every Yang. If you read the Poet Isaiah, for every chopped-down tree there’s a shoot of Jesse coming out of it. That was the second thing she said. She said, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”
We have a little lemon tree in our kitchen. It died a few weeks ago. We brought it in from the patio to protect it from the winter months, and ALL of the leaves fell off. It looked so sad. Just a lot of sticks with a big juicy almost-ripe lemon on it.
I watered it. I’m not a giver-upper. I watered it and prayed. This is a true story. A few days later little leaf-buds appeared on the bare branches. I prayed and waited. The lemon tree now has a fresh batch of vital green leaves and the fruit is ripe. That’s the model I used to draw the shoot of Jesse.
No sooner had the shoot in my drawing gained leaves than it burst into flames, and though it burned, it was not consumed. The bush was burning, and out of the bush came the Voice of God.
As my Confirmation Forumers will tell you, God speaks through Prophets (not profits). Prophets are the Voice of God. And there emerged John from the Holy Smokes of the Burning Bush extolling the people to build a road. Call us to build a road for Jesus.
I realize now that John looks a lot like Stevie wonder. That was pointed out to me by more than one art critic in the church office. It’s not Stevie, though it’s close. That’s an excellent guess. My model for John the Baptizer is Jimmy Cliff. Those of you who follow me on The Gram (@z.w.e.r.k.s) already know why I chose Jimmy Cliff to play John the Baptist. The rest of you will just have to wait until next week.
I promise, all will be explained.
In a Nutshell
Advent III
It’s a drawing of contrasts. Light / dark, of course. Prison / praise. And action. Prison is waiting. Like the butler and the baker who waited in prison with Joseph. In the biblical prison, you’re waiting for one of two things – execution or exaltation. Futility and fertility. The hands reaching upward like grass, the oppositeness. The insignificance of reeds waving in the breeze. Hands waving in praise is literally what makes the Universe work.
They say that four walls do not a prison make.
John is in prison, but he’s not despondent. He’s still looking for the Messiah. Still building a road for the Promised One. He sends his followers out to search. The moment that I’ve depicted, I suppose, is actually the moment after his disciples get back to him with the Good News. Jesus gives them the Good News. He says don’t take it on my authority, tell them what YOU saw. You guys be witnesses. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, the lame walk. In a nutshell; the kingdom of God has come.
I’m picturing John’s jubilation.
He springs to his feet, his face beaming skyward. Hands raised in praise, the jubilant hands, reaching up to heaven. Reeds swaying in the breeze.
The depicted word is limbo. It’s Chinese. The shape of the word reminded me of the prison window with the light pouring through the bars. Light streams down onto three candles. Third Sunday in Advent.
The three little boat candles - like baby Moses waiting in the limbo of the bulrushes - are Diwali Candles.
Diwali is the Hindu festival of light. Days get shorter, people turn on the lights. It’s interesting to me how many cultures and religions have an annual festival of light. Most of them light candles. Most of them are like us.
In all of the dungeon movies you ever see, there are bones scattered about. I included bones. I was picturing John in the bowels of the earth - among the strata of eons passed. I really want him to be buried. Buried but not dead. Again, the paradox. I remember Paul and Silas singing hymns in prison, so I gave John a guitar that he might accompany them.
My John the Baptist is, of course, Jimmy Cliff, who sings my favorite perseverance over desperation song; Sitting Here in Limbo. Prison is limbo. You’re not really anywhere, neither dead or alive. Like a quantum cat.
John is most definitely alive. Because as Jimmy says, “I know that my faith will lead me on.” As long as you have faith, you have hope. As long as you hope you can survive.
The bones aren’t just any old bones. They are whale bones. I was thinking of Jonah buried in the belly of the whale. At the foot of the mountain beneath the bottom of the sea. Jonah at his most desperate moment, the precipice of his flight from God, the very furthest place that he could find to get away - he starts talking to God. He prayed a prayer of repentance, turning back to go forward, and got himself regurgitated for his efforts. Where there is faith, there is hope. Where there is hope there is life.
Perhaps you’ve had this conversation with a friend or a colleague lately: why is it that I’m wide awake at 2 o’clock in the morning? Tossing, turning, stressing, reliving your greatest mistakes. Wrestling, just like Jacob. In the dark in the tent in the wilderness alone, wrestling with an assailant, who we know, but still refuse to acknowledge his name.
God uses that holy darkness. I think that God wants us to use that holy darkness for God’s glory. You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in. Where there’s faith there’s hope, where there’s hope there is life, where there’s life there’s love, where there’s love there’s praise. Praise to God is what makes the Universe work.
Advent III
It’s a drawing of contrasts. Light / dark, of course. Prison / praise. And action. Prison is waiting. Like the butler and the baker who waited in prison with Joseph. In the biblical prison, you’re waiting for one of two things – execution or exaltation. Futility and fertility. The hands reaching upward like grass, the oppositeness. The insignificance of reeds waving in the breeze. Hands waving in praise is literally what makes the Universe work.
They say that four walls do not a prison make.
John is in prison, but he’s not despondent. He’s still looking for the Messiah. Still building a road for the Promised One. He sends his followers out to search. The moment that I’ve depicted, I suppose, is actually the moment after his disciples get back to him with the Good News. Jesus gives them the Good News. He says don’t take it on my authority, tell them what YOU saw. You guys be witnesses. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, the lame walk. In a nutshell; the kingdom of God has come.
I’m picturing John’s jubilation.
He springs to his feet, his face beaming skyward. Hands raised in praise, the jubilant hands, reaching up to heaven. Reeds swaying in the breeze.
The depicted word is limbo. It’s Chinese. The shape of the word reminded me of the prison window with the light pouring through the bars. Light streams down onto three candles. Third Sunday in Advent.
The three little boat candles - like baby Moses waiting in the limbo of the bulrushes - are Diwali Candles.
Diwali is the Hindu festival of light. Days get shorter, people turn on the lights. It’s interesting to me how many cultures and religions have an annual festival of light. Most of them light candles. Most of them are like us.
In all of the dungeon movies you ever see, there are bones scattered about. I included bones. I was picturing John in the bowels of the earth - among the strata of eons passed. I really want him to be buried. Buried but not dead. Again, the paradox. I remember Paul and Silas singing hymns in prison, so I gave John a guitar that he might accompany them.
My John the Baptist is, of course, Jimmy Cliff, who sings my favorite perseverance over desperation song; Sitting Here in Limbo. Prison is limbo. You’re not really anywhere, neither dead or alive. Like a quantum cat.
John is most definitely alive. Because as Jimmy says, “I know that my faith will lead me on.” As long as you have faith, you have hope. As long as you hope you can survive.
The bones aren’t just any old bones. They are whale bones. I was thinking of Jonah buried in the belly of the whale. At the foot of the mountain beneath the bottom of the sea. Jonah at his most desperate moment, the precipice of his flight from God, the very furthest place that he could find to get away - he starts talking to God. He prayed a prayer of repentance, turning back to go forward, and got himself regurgitated for his efforts. Where there is faith, there is hope. Where there is hope there is life.
Perhaps you’ve had this conversation with a friend or a colleague lately: why is it that I’m wide awake at 2 o’clock in the morning? Tossing, turning, stressing, reliving your greatest mistakes. Wrestling, just like Jacob. In the dark in the tent in the wilderness alone, wrestling with an assailant, who we know, but still refuse to acknowledge his name.
God uses that holy darkness. I think that God wants us to use that holy darkness for God’s glory. You can’t have a light without a dark to stick it in. Where there’s faith there’s hope, where there’s hope there is life, where there’s life there’s love, where there’s love there’s praise. Praise to God is what makes the Universe work.
Matthew 1: 18-25
Okinyan
Advent IV
“Aspira ad Astra. Be better than you have to be. Be unreasonably good.”
-Garrison Keillor
Okinyan is a Lakota word. It means “soar”.
That’s God’s plan. God wants us to soar.
Joseph is still working the human plan at this point in the story. He’s clinging to the Law of Moses. He’s holding his Torah and looking for loopholes. I can just divorce her discretely. That will save me a lot of grief.
He’s no doubt feeling like a stand-up guy.
Many of us dads hear this story and feel like we’re stand-up guys. We take the garbage out. We walk the dog. Some of us do dishes sometimes. We congratulate ourselves on being stand-up guys. Joseph found a discrete way out. Good for him.
That’s why God sent an angel. Joseph was content following the Law of Moses. Jesus reminds us that there is a higher authority than Moses. Mark 7: 9-13. NVM tradition. NVM human law. God says, “I have a bigger job for you. I need your best, and I need it now. It’s time to soar.”
I’m writing this as I walk the dog. We are looking at lights. Well, she is sniffing and I am looking at lights. It’s late, 10:00-ish, and not particularly cold. There is this one house that looks like the proverbial ubercommercialized Christmas tree lot in the Charlie Brown story. I was thinking that these people spend a lot of money to make this house look this bad. It is very store-bought and very disposable and very sterile. I was wondering, is this really how Jesus wants to celebrate his birthday? All of this? Is any of this the way that Jesus would like to celebrate his birthday?
I don’t mean just bad decorations and crass exploitations. I’m thinking about the guy on the train who wouldn’t move his Christmas parcels so that I could sit down. I was thinking about a new spelling for “secular Christmas” that I spotted on the Internet. There was this girl who wanted to play Christmas songs, but doesn’t want anyone to think she’s a Christian. She has literally taken the Christ out of “Crissmuss”.
Looking for a Joseph
Coach Burrage likes to remind me that Joseph is a good Jew. He and Mary observed all the of the high and important rites, rituals, and pilgrimages of the day. They showed up at synagogue as required. Joseph can trace his lineage back to the Great One. Joseph can tell you the names of every ancestor between him and King David.
I wanted a Jewish guy for my Joseph model. Marc Chagall to the rescue. They don’t get any more Jewish than a character in a Marc Chagall painting. I chose a rabbi to play Joseph.
Joseph is seen surrounded by lampstands from the Temple of Solomon. I needed four lights for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. I believe that the lampstands each had seven flames. I know that the Hannukah Menorah has eight. I needed four. Mark Chagall to the rescue again. I was searching lampstands online and found that he actually painted one with four candles. That bailed me out of my dilemma. I was so overjoyed at finding an “authentic” Jewish lampstand with four candles that I included four of them in my drawing.
Joseph is surrounded by lampstands, staring into the flames, reflecting on the law.
An Angel
There are many things we believe without seeing them. I don’t mean angels. We can see angels. Actually, they look a lot like us. Except of course, for the Radiance.
No, I mean the things we believe that without even reading them. I’m talking more about the things that we are sure of that aren’t even in the Bible. For example, The Three Wisemen. Nowhere does the Bible give us a count, but we always see three when we think of wise men.
For some reason, I had it in my head that the Archangel Michael came to Joseph. I have no idea where I got that from. The Bible just says an angel. “An angel of the Lord” appeared to him in the dream.
Eric said, “Michael or Gabriel.“ Same difference.
Actually, Mary got Gabriel. Mary got the archangel. For all we know, Joseph got Clarence.
I saw Michael. So I started searching online for images of Michael, and lo and behold, there he was in full battle array. Michael is a warrior angel. Armor, lots and lots of armor. In every image I found of him, Michael is dressed for battle. Medieval battle, European medieval battle. And it’s not the image I wanted for my Advent meditation.
By accident, I stumbled on the image of a hoop dancer. It was pretty cool. He looks like an eagle. I was thinking about okinyan; soar.
https://youtu.be/niRs_VIqzYU
The angel brought a message to Joseph. The message was, “Soar.” A few times in life, I’ve heard a voice say to me, “You’re better than this“.
Dad, you’re better than this.
It is always a good thing for me to hear. That’s what Joseph heard from the angel. He said, “You’re the dad, you’re better than this.”
I think that’s what it means to be a stand-up guy. It means, stand up for God’s Law over human tradition. Stand up for what’s right. Stand up soaring.
Stand up, it’s not glamorous. Stand up, your family and friends are going to make fun of you. Stand up, this is the last time you’re going to be highlighted in the Gospel. Stand up, that’s the way Jesus wants us to celebrate his birthday.
Okinyan
Advent IV
“Aspira ad Astra. Be better than you have to be. Be unreasonably good.”
-Garrison Keillor
Okinyan is a Lakota word. It means “soar”.
That’s God’s plan. God wants us to soar.
Joseph is still working the human plan at this point in the story. He’s clinging to the Law of Moses. He’s holding his Torah and looking for loopholes. I can just divorce her discretely. That will save me a lot of grief.
He’s no doubt feeling like a stand-up guy.
Many of us dads hear this story and feel like we’re stand-up guys. We take the garbage out. We walk the dog. Some of us do dishes sometimes. We congratulate ourselves on being stand-up guys. Joseph found a discrete way out. Good for him.
That’s why God sent an angel. Joseph was content following the Law of Moses. Jesus reminds us that there is a higher authority than Moses. Mark 7: 9-13. NVM tradition. NVM human law. God says, “I have a bigger job for you. I need your best, and I need it now. It’s time to soar.”
I’m writing this as I walk the dog. We are looking at lights. Well, she is sniffing and I am looking at lights. It’s late, 10:00-ish, and not particularly cold. There is this one house that looks like the proverbial ubercommercialized Christmas tree lot in the Charlie Brown story. I was thinking that these people spend a lot of money to make this house look this bad. It is very store-bought and very disposable and very sterile. I was wondering, is this really how Jesus wants to celebrate his birthday? All of this? Is any of this the way that Jesus would like to celebrate his birthday?
I don’t mean just bad decorations and crass exploitations. I’m thinking about the guy on the train who wouldn’t move his Christmas parcels so that I could sit down. I was thinking about a new spelling for “secular Christmas” that I spotted on the Internet. There was this girl who wanted to play Christmas songs, but doesn’t want anyone to think she’s a Christian. She has literally taken the Christ out of “Crissmuss”.
Looking for a Joseph
Coach Burrage likes to remind me that Joseph is a good Jew. He and Mary observed all the of the high and important rites, rituals, and pilgrimages of the day. They showed up at synagogue as required. Joseph can trace his lineage back to the Great One. Joseph can tell you the names of every ancestor between him and King David.
I wanted a Jewish guy for my Joseph model. Marc Chagall to the rescue. They don’t get any more Jewish than a character in a Marc Chagall painting. I chose a rabbi to play Joseph.
Joseph is seen surrounded by lampstands from the Temple of Solomon. I needed four lights for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. I believe that the lampstands each had seven flames. I know that the Hannukah Menorah has eight. I needed four. Mark Chagall to the rescue again. I was searching lampstands online and found that he actually painted one with four candles. That bailed me out of my dilemma. I was so overjoyed at finding an “authentic” Jewish lampstand with four candles that I included four of them in my drawing.
Joseph is surrounded by lampstands, staring into the flames, reflecting on the law.
An Angel
There are many things we believe without seeing them. I don’t mean angels. We can see angels. Actually, they look a lot like us. Except of course, for the Radiance.
No, I mean the things we believe that without even reading them. I’m talking more about the things that we are sure of that aren’t even in the Bible. For example, The Three Wisemen. Nowhere does the Bible give us a count, but we always see three when we think of wise men.
For some reason, I had it in my head that the Archangel Michael came to Joseph. I have no idea where I got that from. The Bible just says an angel. “An angel of the Lord” appeared to him in the dream.
Eric said, “Michael or Gabriel.“ Same difference.
Actually, Mary got Gabriel. Mary got the archangel. For all we know, Joseph got Clarence.
I saw Michael. So I started searching online for images of Michael, and lo and behold, there he was in full battle array. Michael is a warrior angel. Armor, lots and lots of armor. In every image I found of him, Michael is dressed for battle. Medieval battle, European medieval battle. And it’s not the image I wanted for my Advent meditation.
By accident, I stumbled on the image of a hoop dancer. It was pretty cool. He looks like an eagle. I was thinking about okinyan; soar.
https://youtu.be/niRs_VIqzYU
The angel brought a message to Joseph. The message was, “Soar.” A few times in life, I’ve heard a voice say to me, “You’re better than this“.
Dad, you’re better than this.
It is always a good thing for me to hear. That’s what Joseph heard from the angel. He said, “You’re the dad, you’re better than this.”
I think that’s what it means to be a stand-up guy. It means, stand up for God’s Law over human tradition. Stand up for what’s right. Stand up soaring.
Stand up, it’s not glamorous. Stand up, your family and friends are going to make fun of you. Stand up, this is the last time you’re going to be highlighted in the Gospel. Stand up, that’s the way Jesus wants us to celebrate his birthday.