Author: Scott (aka Table97)

Grace leads and I stumble along...

I Saw a Song*

Princeton Community Garden Mercer Street Princeton, WV
Princeton Community Garden
Mercer Street
Princeton, WV

Trash cleared
Earth smoothed
Holes dug
Timbers places
Soil moved
Plants rooted
Gravel spread

As the rain fell

An artist, a laborer,
A musician, a mother,
the unemployed, a preacher,
and those with skills beyond us all

Together we toiled to bring light to the darkness
and I saw a song.

 

*Thanks to Lori McKinney for inviting us to be a part of this Community Garden project and for the title of this piece.

Hidden Treasure

ScannerAt the counter I watch,
I watch as hands move items across strange red eyes that see only white and black.

To whom do these hands belong?
Who cherishes their touch and longs for their presence?
What do these hands cherish and loath?
What treasure lies within the one who works that moment to serve me?

Eyes that could see more meet across this altar of commerce.
Words fly by another from each field of dreams:
“How are you today?”
“Fine. And you?”
Are they words that seek depth – words that plow the soil between two treasures buried in self?

I think not. I know not.

Of course there are times my words become great instruments of digging.
They plow through the air to till the soul of another.
My words – known and named by me as “Truth” – are used to bury deeper
a treasure.
a treasure that could be mine
that could be the worlds
that is the Kingdom of God in another.

Those rare and holy moments where Another
breathes and moves through me
to allow the stranger to become the friend
to allow those who know a Truth different than mine
to be truly heard and deeply loved
seem, oh, so few.
yet they cover me with a joy I could not know
if I grasp the pitiful field that I call me.

Hidden treasure is not cheap.
It costs me, me.

Inspired by Matthew 13:44-46

Yeah…an “enemy!”

Matthew 13 – Thoughts and Reflections for the Lectionary Reading for Sunday, July 20, 2014

“An enemy, my eye!” the Rev. (now Bishop) Will Willimon said in his sermon on this passage during a worship service at the NC Annual Conference.

I remembered being struck with the audacity of his statement. Surely, he has read the passage and knows that Jesus says “an enemy has done this!” But then he went on to explain that the joke could be missed by us.

Enemies hurl insults at one another in an effort to start a fight.

Enemies attack with swords and guns and fists.

Enemies burn down perfectly good fields.

Enemies don’t mix weeds in with good seed. No one needs an enemy to do that. Simply look in the mirror. I don’t consider myself my own worst enemy and yet, and yet, I must admit that there is some evil in me. But did an enemy put that there? Honestly, no. I put it there myself…thought I had it hidden…but it seems to grow at the same rate as everything else in my life.

I don’t need no stinking enemies to choke out the good in me. I’m good enough at it myself.

But the preacher went one to say something about the offer to pull up the weeds. He said “Let them grow…I like to watch things grow. And when it’s over I will take care of the weeds.

Sometimes I would see this “taking care of the weeds as some final revenge on the evil that is in me and the evil that is in our world.

But then I really heard what the preacher said. The one who liked to watch things grow…the one who would tolerate wheat and weed together…this is the one who was going to care for the weeds at the end.

The jokes on me. I want the grace to grow but I want my enemies to suffer and die – especially those that are within me. But this farmer, this Kingdom builder, seems to have a different agenda.

Just let it grow. I will take care of it.

I think I’ve met this farmer. Every once in a while he tells me to take up a loaf of bread and say, “This is my body broken for you.” He has called me to a table and asked me to lift up a cup and say, “This is my blood, shed for you.”

This farmer gives everything for everything that grows in his field. A body on a cross. Blood dripping on the loved ones gathered below as well as the soldiers keeping guard.

God, this farmer loves mysteries.

And I am thankful. For in some way, we are all a mystery and this world…well, it’s either a mystery or a damned mystery. Take your pick.

Yet somehow, I think this farmer loves it.

A Prayer for Pentecost

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful
And kindle in them the fire of your love.
Send forth your Spirit
And you will renew the face of the earth. Amen.

Certainly not original…just on my mind and in my heart this week.

Living Stone – The Incarnation

1 Peter 2:4-9

You sat there throughout eternity –
You never “were not”;
You always “have been”;
You forever “will be”.
And to eyes shaped by the ever changing seasons of Creation and living
You seemed to me to be that which always held fast,
stayed firm,
never moved.
This image of You gave me something solid upon which to place
my fleeting thoughts and ever changing life.

chiselAnd the earth moved.
Or the heavens shook the earth.
(I cannot know which…)
And the Eternal chose to inhabit a shell destined for decay.
You – You walked upon the earth –
a living stone among dying people.

And the earth shook.
Or the heavens moved.
(I can know this – the Stone Lived.)

I cannot know how or why but I can know this:
The immortal took on life
To give to the dying ones like me
Hope of life that does not end – the life of living stone.

My prayer is this:
Let me be changing, beating, breaking, grieving, moving, laughing, Living.
Let me have the hope of the unmoved, unchanged, eternal, forever, Stone.