A Simple Song, Lent and After

That's What Matters

by Rebecca St. James

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...Don't wish for a better day

Be glad and use the one you're in

Fear God and do exactly what He says

That's what matters

All else fades like the flowers

Well, he'd tried pleasure

There was nothing in that

He built houses, gardens, parks

What good did it do?

Just got him more depressed

Meaningless - Meaningless

He said "Everything's meaningless

But this is what I learned in all my years...

Many of us hear the word religion and all kinds of thoughts and reactions arise. We tend to make it complicated, intellectual, even. We like to think it isn't about politics, it's about god; it isn't about society, it's about spirituality, and so on. Well, it is about all these things, and some more. 

It's simple, really. Religion in another view is about lives, human lives living day to day. We all have thoughts, feelings and relationships. What and how we think about ourselves and the world which we are part of, vastly influences the style and quality of that human existence. So religion need not be icky or avoidable, because it's just about life. And all of us have some experience with that (Currently many are observing the Easter traditions: see Ash Wednesday: Lent in two minutes, a video.).

So a little help from others may just be what makes a community; for some, it sure makes an opening for a spiritual experience, like this song. Do we need to have an organ playing a dirge song to have a religious experience, do bells need to ring or incense waft upward? In my experience, I have discovered that most often I get out of something more or less what I put into it.

If a church, temple or community doesn't move me, then maybe I haven't given much of myself. Maybe my pre-existing notions circumvent me from connecting. Sure, I didn't get anything out of it; I'm just not. But what else did I expect? Nothing gets nothing.

Can our everyday coming and goings be a small part of the whole of life? If so, then this and many other songs may too. They touch us in some meaningful way. A simple song can create an awareness, an appreciation that we had not the sense of before. It's all religion, and like an artist, it's a part of my day. Everyday.

Now the Lenten period has concluded; Easter, the principle observance on the Christian calendar, has come and that leaves us at Pentecost, the Feast of the Weeks.
Pentecost is an ancient observance. At this time we reflect on the wonders of the Holy Spirit who descends upon the disciples, as we read in the Bible and the Faithful bringing his spirit upon them. Exodus 34:22 In Exodus, there is reference to this festival, though it has not yet taken on the character of the later era known by the early Christians.

Wild, Unbridled Hope

Treat Her Like a Lady

by Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose

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All my friends had to ask me
Somethin' they didn't understand
How I get all the women
In the palms of my hand, now

And I told them, to treat her like a lady
Um-hum all the best you can do
You got to treat her like a lady, she give into you
Ah-hum now who can see, you know what I mean?

I know you heard
That a woman
Will soon take advantage of you...

Let me tell you
My friend
There just ain't no substitute
You 'outta a treat her like a lady
Um-hum, all  the best you can do

You got to treat her like a lady
She give into you,
Now who can see?
You know what I mean

Oh, you've got to love her
Tease her
But most of all you've got to please her

You've got to hold her
Now and want her
And make her feel you'll always need her

You know a woman
Is sentimental
And so easy  to upset
So make her feel
That she's for real
And she give you happiness

Strange  as it seems
You know you can't do a woman mean
So my friends, now there you have it
I said it's the easy simple way
Now if you fail...
Don't blame her if she looks my way...

It's now the official first of summer and there is today, a bright, sunny day. The air seems permeated with a wild, unbridled hope. While it is still the early days of the summertime, we are reminded that all who follow, live under "the book."
The bible reminds us that "Today is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad." Psalm 118:24. And being that it is from the Psalms, we know that it is meant to be either chanted or sung.

Today is a day to be glad, even as we face disaster and tragedy. Today offers to us new hope. Pray for the well being of those who have risked life and limb, who risk everything that they somehow find the calm and peace in the chaos of their life at just this moment. As a woman said this morning, "Tomorrow the sun will rise again." Words are powerful; they can wound, but they can also heal.

The words of a young blogger inspire me to write today. While I cannot discern the way for her, hers is a young life, growing and blooming. I came across her blog today; her enthusiasm is palpable. She is fully engaged in her work with children who are, by many measures, hopeless. For her however, they are each rays of hope! 

Treat each other well, because as the lyrics say, "There just ain't no substitute."  Today is a day made for you and me, made for us all to feel joy, to hope for a change of circumstance by the miracle of inter-being.

Dust

"Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."

Dust In the Wind

by Kansas

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I close my eyes, only for a moment,

and the moment's gone

All my dreams, pass before my eyes,

a curiosity

Dust in the wind,

all they are is dust in the wind

Same old song, just a drop of water

in an endless sea

All we do, crumbles to the ground,

though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind,

All we are is dust in the wind

Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever

but the earth and sky

It slips away, all your money

won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind,

All we are is dust in the wind

Dust in the wind

All we are is dust in the wind

All we are is dust in the wind

Dust in the wind

Everything is dust in the wind

Everything is dust in the wind

This song always gets to me. It reminds me of the facts of my life, the base simplicity of it. We are, after all, dust. Fashioned from the elements of the mother earth, one with Her and our Creator. A creature among other creatures is our lot. We all, can and do, get caught up in distractions. Be it work, relationships, intellectual pursuits, political activity, or any other thing that removes our mind from  just this moment, who I am. Pray for me, brothers and sisters.

And our pride may swell; we forget that dust made us, and the earth that sustains us. The world gets a little hazy, technology makes it fuzzier. We imagine things to come, things to be, and things that just may not be true at all. We are afraid; we're angry. Our love is thwarted. We want to hurt, to injure, and then it happens: the call comes to tell us someone is suffering; they're dying, someone is dead. Our world re-focuses; it re-balances, like the earth spinning on its axis. In a second our perspective is turned, forced to turn to the most basic, the most immediate, just this moment. That is the moment we have, the moment we have been given.

 Lent, is a season guided by the sun and the moon, its date changing annually as a result, and we are ritually turned to these basic facts of life. Forty days of meditations, penance, revelations, a return to the most basic, to the center; it culminates in the Easter of the Lord. The resurrection and revelation by the Spirit. We celebrate its joyful arrival in a ritual of prayer and song.

The Lent as we know it has ancient roots stretching back to the Hebrews. The Torah tells us of a need and time for repentance. "Man begins from dust and ends in dust" Genesis 3:19; "the breath in our nostrils is as smoke... our body shall be turned to ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air... our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud... and shall be dispersed as a mist... for our time is a very shadow that passes away."  Wisdom 2:2-5, [Sirach]

What do we want our time on earth to be for? Will we come to the end of it and discover that we spent our time mostly breathing and eating? Surely the Lord of Hosts has made us for better, for the good? While we may hide from the facts of our life for a time, in the end we will be called; to what do we wish, to be attached to our name; our dust is in the wind.

Sincerity and Love

“We make ourselves real by telling the truth.” Thomas Merton

Duran Duran

Come Undone

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Mine, immaculate dream made breath and skin

I've been waiting for you

Signed, with a home tattoo,

Happy birthday to you was created for you...

Oh, it'll take a little time,

Might take a little crime

To come undone now

We'll try to stay blind

To the hope and fear outside

Hey child, stay wilder than the wind

And blow me into cry

refrain:

Who do you need, who do you love

When you come undone?

Who do you need, who do you love

When you come undone?

Words, playing me deja vu

Like a radio tune I swear I've heard before

Chill, is it something real

Or the magic I'm feeding off your fingers?

Lost, in a snow filled sky,

we'll make it alright

To come undone now

refrain:

(can not forgive from falling apart)

Who do you need, who do you love

When you come undone?

(can not forgive from falling apart)

Who do you need, who do you love?

(can not forgive from falling apart)

Who do you love

When you come undone?

(can not forgive from falling apart) 

We all very much need to know the truth as a function of living in the real world. Cold makes snow; water makes rain, and wind makes tornadoes. These simple truths we know as facts.
But when dealing with the myriad other aspects of a human life, we can very often forget how very badly we need to tell the truth. It is not possible for a person to be in harmony with a truth that he does not yet possess.
So it seems that we must be true inside, with our self, before we can know a truth that is outside us. We make ourselves true when we manifest what we see.

Sincerity is still something to admire, be it in ignorance, humor, understanding or joy. Yet many times, upon meeting with truth, we refuse it, crucifying that which is before our own eyes. Transformed into a grotesque caricature of its former self, sincere truth, now stripped of harmony, wreaks vengeance. It seems the need for truth is inescapable. I deeply need to know wherein to place my confidence, my joy.
The whole package of truth consists in the trite phrase of “talk the talk, walk the walk.” There is a sort of homage to the world which we pay by truth.
Without this, there is left the specter of mental instability or chaos in the form of illness. The classic feature of psychosis is the inability to distinguish reality from fantastic pretense.

Despite this potentiality, men seem often consumed in idle gossip, scurrilous malignment and scandalous calumnies. There is, in their actions contempt, a lack of respect for reality. Some say the base of this issue rests in the will.
We refuse many times to conform with what we know true. We refuse it, fight it; our will plunges into false values, false views. The restless wagging of our tongues is evidence of this state.
Does a spring send out both sweet water to drink, and poison from the exact same source? Can unquiet evil be tamed, filled full, with its own poison?

We are still, despite it all, free in our will to value what we know to be true, or not. And to speak the truth in sincerity is more than frankness. It is a manifestation of a spirit to be simple, to be real, to observe an obligation to the truth about one self.
When we rake the truth, it is our soul we make foul. Heaped with dirt until we recognize it no more. So without a personal commitment to honest self-justice, lying and double dealing become unavoidable. Fear is possibly the greatest obstacle to candor. Others have no authority to demand that I be other than I rightly am.
And when they arrested and beat me, they could not take me down. It was a test of love. When fully myself, my life becomes its own fulfillment and completion.
So in the end, while a surge of pride may devour and destroy, sincerity remains a question of love. In love a person may see the true, and offer love for beauty in its own soul.
'Truth makes us real', as Merton said.

Carrying the Load

The Band

The Weight 

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I pulled into Nazareth, was feelin' about half past dead;
I just need some place where I can lay my head.
"Hey, mister, can you tell me where a man might find a bed?"
He just grinned and shook my hand, "No!", was all he said.

Take a load off Annie, take a load for free;
Take a load off Annie, And (and) (and) you can put the load right on me.

I picked up my bag, I went lookin' for a place to hide;
When I saw Carmen and the Devil walkin' side by side.
I said, "Hey, Carmen, come on, let's go downtown."
She said, "I gotta go, but m'friend can stick around."

Go down, Miss Moses, there's nothin' you can say
It's just ol' Luke, and Luke's waitin' on the Judgement Day.
"Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?"
He said, "Do me a favor, son, woncha stay an' keep Anna Lee company?"

Crazy Chester followed me, and he caught me in the fog.
He said, "I will fix your rack, if you'll take Jack, my dog."
I said, "Wait a minute, Chester, you know I'm a peaceful man."
He said, "That's okay, boy, won't you feed him when you can."

Catch a cannon ball now, t'take me down the line
My bag is sinkin' low and I do believe it's time.
To get back to Miss Fanny, you know she's the only one.
Who sent me here with her regards for everyone.


A woman had a dream that she was carrying a tote bag around. She set it down and not long after, she picked it up again. It was so heavy! She wondered why this was so, but she assumed it was hers, so she carried it--and she didn't look into the bag.

Later she returned home, set the bag down again and looked into it. It was filled with books, heavy books. She didn't recognize them. They didn't belong to her. And they didn't leave her bag. She asked some friends of hers to help carry the load; the bag was heavy. And they obliged.

Many times we find ourselves carrying loads. Sometimes they are ours and sometimes not. Some loads are meant to be shared; for if they are not, they become a burden, often too heavy to carry. Asking our friend or another person to share the load, to carry it a distance, to take their portion, is part of the human experience and part of what makes life livable. We are not meant to carry the loads of others, and our own without ceasing.

The Light, the Spirit

The light come down upon me. 
Some times in life we are surprised by the most magnificent gifts of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is mysterious in gift giving. Once some years ago, I went to learn how to cook. Not long after arriving in that place for the first time, I saw someone who made me intensely curious. I could hardly keep from staring. Earnestly I wished to speak, to know their name. They smiled. A small bit of conversation followed.

This person left and I did not know their name, yet more than any other, I wished to see them again!
That some how we found ourselves placed together in the same kitchen, proves to be a wonder, even now.
Because sometimes cooking together is very messy, and sometimes things burn; other times the food is tasty and we are so glad. There are days that the sight of the kitchen is terrifying! Without courage to experiment, at times we turn away; it just seems so hot in there. Boiling water, burnt fingers, we imagine our self unappreciated.

But what was happening here? Mostly good. It came to me over time, that this person simply is a gift. An amazing gift to me by the Holy Spirit. How else could it be?  How could I refuse such a gift. While not perfect, we are very lovable. This proves a great help to me. It's my hope I am mostly a help in return, if a clumsy one. And like all gifts, those freely given and freely received, may be freely withdrawn. It's the 'free will' thing. The Spirit does not force anything; it can be surrendered.

This gift given me, cannot be shamed. Some may not understand; some may be jealous, but owing to the Original Giver, we cannot be shamed. Truly we are innocents.
The light of the Spirit is all knowing and I have, often in extreme anxiety, followed its lead, honoring  and respecting what I cannot always know or understand.
But one thing I have always discerned is the gift of love, sometimes soft, sometimes tough. I could not have had instances of more beauty and wonder in my life without such great gifts as these. The Bible tells a bit about the gifts of the Spirit, about the light to the world. Keep your courage, engage patience when in darkness, follow the light in your life, as did the disciple John.

"All Good Gifts"

by Godspell

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"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him
nothing came to be.
What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
A man named John was sent from God."
--the disciple, John1:1-6