the drum|rob fairbanks

Come by Here, Holy Spirit

I came across this lovely and challenging poem for Pentecost Sunday by Mark Berry (Here). 

Waiting, Waited,

Flame Breather, Life Teaser,
Sweet Essence, Hard Presence,
Pulsing Blood, Sweeping Flood
Storm Force, Water Source,
Deepest Kiss, Draining Bliss,
Motivator, Love Creator,
Hearts Gripped, Conventions Ripped,
Fire Poured, Winds Roar,

Whisper, Whisper,

Blown Upon, Blown Away,
Burning Up, Burning Out,

Baraka, Ruach, Shanti, Shalom,
Life Spirit, Holy Spirit, Spirit.

r

(The above picture is from Christine Sine's wonderful site. You should really check it out. It is trove of liturgical resources)

Some Non-Morbid Musings on Death

A couple of days ago I went through about an hour of weeping. A cry-fest, if you will. Now, those who know me are not startled a bit by that revelation. My tears reside just below the surface, not waiting, but anticipating the next chance they have to escape. It was said of St. Francis that he had the gift of tears. I guess that makes him and I some kind of kin.  

This, however, was not my normal get teary at a moment of joy or lament. It was a level up from that. It was more related to convulsing or even heaving. To make it even stranger, I was alone sitting in my living room, really not looking for a reason to cry.

Here's what happened. I'm schedule to perform a wedding next month in Denver (perform? What a weird way to describe officiating a wedding - ok, just noticed that officiating is just as weird) for a near daughter of mine, Jamie Helwick. Jamie is one of the dearest hearted people I’ve ever been privildged to know. While preparing for the ceremony…for my “performance” I was looking through prior ceremonies that I’ve led. These files are on my computer where I keep all of the info I have accumulated for weddings in a file entitled, Marry/Bury. Yep, Weddings AND Funerals. On a whimsical move I meandered to the Bury side of the file and began looking at memorials that I had officiated down through the years. I began to stroll through the dear friends and family of mine that of died. I started by reading the eulogy I wrote for Jeanie Cross. Then I moved on to Punky and Andy (one of the closest friends I’ve ever had and a son in the faith) and finally my Mom and Dad. By the time I read my mom's eulogy I was inconsolable. It was as if some fragile glass between me and a hidden storehouse of emotions had been shattered. It was not as if I hadn't reconciled the losses or conceded that I wouldn't see them all again. It really wasn't even sadness. I do deeply miss each one of them, but this was more like a resolve of gratitude from the joy and privilege of traveling with them.

In a way, life's journey and death are like a beautiful river. When observing a river, part of the loveliness is found in its turbulence, the sheer movement. It is mesmerizing, very similar, at least for me, to watching breakers collide with the beach at the ocean. There is something inside most people that feels like they can just sit and never weary of watching. It is almost like some ancient enchantment or spell cast on them. If a river becomes static it would cease being what it was supposed to be, in a sense, it would lose its innate beauty, it would lose its enchanting powers.

Photo by Craig Goodwin

If you were to visit my city in the spring, you would be able to observe the impressive Spokane River in its most breathtaking season. I have often commented that if the river rushed this forcefully year round, it would be a national treasure. People travel from all over to see it. The problem is, if you come in late summer you will not find anyone looking at it at all. Because it is mountain fed, it is reduced to a trickle. Its source has dried up. The turbulence, the white water over protruding boulders, the brilliance is gone. That is the way life and death is. If we try to capture it, we reduce it to something it was never supposed to be.

In reading a journal (The Antler's Journal) this last week I came across this elegant line by John Donne, the poet. He wrote that when a person dies, “…one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.” I'm not saying that the death of people I love has ever been easy. It may be one of life’s most severe challenges. But it does have a beauty and gratitude couched within the complexity and loss.

Below is a short poem (or something – I’m not sure if it would be considered poetry or not) that I wrote a few years ago regarding death.

Death: A Confused Friend

A confused friend you are...

 

You are cold and separate,

yet bold and inviting

 

I've never wanted you as a friend, we are an uneasy couple.

 

You come both with tears and reuniting,

You come creating distance and promise,

You come with both sting and freedom.

 

A confused friend you are.

r

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A Birth, a Death and a Resurrection

Good Deaths

Prayer: Before the Day is Out

A beautiful and moving prayer from Walter Brueggemann that I used in my sermon this morning.

Before the Day is Out 

Unwavering in your power,

Unflagging in your zeal,

Uncompromising in your position,

    It is good for us – just past Sabbath again,

                               just past Easter again –

    to awaken to your will of constancy for your world.

We pursue our projects,

    depart to our private dreams

    invest in our deepest hopes.

    They are fragile and flimsy at best,

    at worst they are devious and destructive.

    Either way, they pale before your constancy.

We gladly affirm – past our inclinations –

    that you will well-being among us,

    that you intend justice for the vulnerable,

    that you command mercy and compassion among us.

Turn us, before the day is out, from our will to yours,

Wean us, before we sleep, from our petty hopes,

Relocate us in your eternal resolve,

    that the earth may be fully your realm,

    that the world may wreak with your shalom,   

    that we ourselves may find our true freedom

        in your sovereign purpose.

Yours – not ours – is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory…

    And we are grateful. Amen

From Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

 

A Poem from a Friend

Here is a poem that was just published from my friend, Shann Ferch. His words are deeply reflective and redemptive. I love him and his art.

Here is the link where you can find it online: Here

My Dad, in America

Your hand on my jaw 
           but gently

and that picture of you 
punching through snow 
           to bring two deer, a gopher,

and a magpie 
to the old Highwalker woman

who spoke only Cheyenne 
           and traced our footprints

on leather she later chewed to soften. 
           We need to know in America there is still blood

for forgiveness. 
Dead things for the new day

Your Strange Super Power – October 30, 2012

                    A prayer written while flying yesterday... 

You are so gracious…though holy, you give and accept.

While you are regularly ignored, you stand with arms open, heart open

toward the ones who amble past without a nod of acknowledgement.

 

I, however, am always needy, damn needy.

Wanting credit when it is not even mine to allege.

Though my call and claim is that of a servant,

to give because I have been given to,

I still regularly and unabashedly enshrine myself toward the ending point of praise.

 

But you have that strange and inextinguishable super power to…

Live loving, even while slighted

To embrace, even when pushed away

To wholeness, in the midst of soul bedlam.

 

While I crave…you love

While I try to attempt to distance…you hold, like a Father.

While I stand in shards of brokenness…you…I stand with you.

Amen

Rest

A short prayer from my time at St. Gertude's

A view from the Monastery

-------------------

I am suspended…in time, monotone, non-affected, as some might call it.

Where I’d hoped and positioned for the Holy to enliven,

To present with a show and with tangibility, unmissable.

But, I am stuck here in my own self…alone.

 

It’s not THAT dreadful, being here, being me.

It’s better than a lot of places I could be.

 

But you...

somewhere you say that you are bigger than my heart.

You say that I am actually not unaccompanied or forsaken.

You say that you will be with me til the very end of end.

 

In this instant, in this small space, that is enough.

Your promise, lodged within my longing.

 

Rest.

 

Amen

 

The Chapel at St. Gertude's

 

More from Mary Oliver

Another lovely one from Mary Oliver - she is such a wonderful artist.

Logos (a poem of the bread and fish) 

Why wonder about the loaves and the fishes?

If you say the right words, the wine expands.

If you say them with love

and the felt ferocity of that love

and the felt necessity of that love,

the fish explode into many.

 

Imagine him, speaking,

and don't worry about what is reality,

or what is plain, or what is mysterious.

If you were there, it was all those things.

If you can imagine it, it is all those things.

Eat, drink, be happy.

Accept the miracle.

Accept, too, each spoken word

spoken with love.

Mary Oliver - from the book, Why I Wake Early

Thoughts on Growing Old/er

The tree with the old dog, Buckley

This morning (my birthday) I was reading some poetry to my wife outside under our lovely birch tree in our front yard.  Sitting under this tree has been the launching pad for some of our most stimulating conversations.  With a cup of coffee or glass of wine, an endless line of wonderful friends have sat with us under this colossal tree over the years.  It reminds me of what Eden must have been like.  

Anyway, I stumbled upon this next passage, which captured my thoughts about aging and stirred in me a bit of an existential moment.

From the Epilogue of Mary Oliver’s book entitled Thirst.

“…Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.”

Oliver has touched me with her skillful, almost magical use of words.  Note the phrase in italics - beautiful.  I am not sure whether the epilogue speaks to where I am or where I long to be, but I am moved nonetheless.

More From Oliver

The Uses of Sorrow - Mary Oliver

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

 

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

 

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift

How Do Beautful Words Affect Your Life?

Mary Oliver

I am embarking on a summer discipline of reading some poetry every morning in hopes of whetting my appetite for something other than “churchy, missional” stuff. I have never been good at reading anything other than non-fiction. So, in light of that of that goal I asked my good friend and author Shann Ferch to recommend his Michael Jordan of the poetry world.  He immediately suggested Mary Oliver. So far, he was spot on.  Here is just one of many amazing poems from her book Thirst.

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist

Mary Oliver

Something has happened

to the bread

and the wine.

 

They have been blessed.

What now?

The body leans forward

 

to receive the gift

from the priest's hand,

then the chalice.

 

They are something else now

from what they were

before this began.

 

I want

 to see Jesus,

maybe in the clouds

 

or on the shore,

just walking,

beautiful man

 

and clearly

someone else

besides.

 

On the hard days

I ask myself

if I ever will.

 

Also there are times

my body whispers to me

that I have.

 

The last line somehow served as a tool to exhale my soul a bit.  Beauty, skill and wonder are in each line. 

What role do beautiful words play in your life?