SOUL SURMISE

Lyric For The Day 30.5.12 from Spiritual America by Duke Special

“All the good we could have done

Could have done for everyone

Is this the land of the setting sun

Have we forgotten who we were

And why we came here anyway

So pick up the reins and kick the spur

 

Shackled and shamed and stripped of its voice

Left in a corner to suffer the noise

Made by corporate thugs and their fat City boy

Being sick on their wealth like they hadn’t a choice”

-          From Spiritual America by Duke Special

 

I reckon that this is Duke Special’s most powerful moment, from perhaps his most satisfying work to date Under The Dark Cloth. Writing with one of  England’s finest living songwriters Boo Hewerdine has done his Dukeness no harm and this project of writing to photographs in a gallery with an orchestra as baking brings out the art if Duke perfectly. Spiritual America is a political spiritual piece of beautiful Semtex. The lyrics probe deep into the heart of the American soul and paint an accurate but bleak picture of the state of a nation founded on so much better ideals and dreams that most people’s reality of it today, inside or outside the country. For Duke it is a spiritual issue and he is right. The Pilgrim Fathers came with a spiritual dream and in the drama created by the strings on this recording we might be in the last days of the spiritual nightmare that was gotten to somehow! Greed, bankers, selfishness, gracelessness... Duke squeezes them all in. A sad and powerful piece!

 

PENTECOST POEM - THE MIGHTY SPECTACULAR WOW

Come, come away

Onto sacred ground

Where in the silence

Without a sound

We taste this life

In the next life’s fashion

Increasing our vision

And holy passion

Souls in awe and wonder

The eternal now

We behold the power and glory

The Mighty Spectacular Wow!

 

Come, come away

To the upper room

With mouths wide open

And hearts consumed

Where we celebrate

With hands upraised

Heirs of the Father

Of the one we praise

Souls in awe and wonder

The eternal now

We behold the power and glory

Of The Mighty Spectacular Wow

YOU ARE NOT SAFE, YOU ARE GOOD

YOU ARE NOT SAFE, YOU ARE GOOD

 Almighty God

As Beaver said to Lucy about Aslan in CS Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

You are not safe

You are good

Forgive us when we make you safe

When we confine you to our definitions

When our faith is just cotton wool to protect us from life

Instead of the strength to remove it and live in the real world

When discipleship is being in the safe places of the Church

Instead of being shining lights in the dirtiest of holes

When holiness is just respectable behaviour

Instead of the dynamic revolution of your spirit in our deepest character

Forgive us when we give you predictability

When we make safety a spiritual virtue

Help us to remember Moses returning to the place where he had yielded to temptation

Help us to remember Abraham who left his security with no planned future

Help us to remember David who fought a giant without armour or weapon

Help us to remember Gideon who sent most of his soldiers home

Help us to remember Jesus who set his face towards the agony and torture of the cross

 

You are not safe

You are good.

AN EYE ON FOREVER

When our live are hit by  tragedy                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             And we cannot find reason or meaning,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    When we are caught in the seeming meaninglessness of time,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Lord, give us an eye on forever.

When we build our ambitions on wealth
And we work for a bigger house and the status it brings,
With the comfort and security of what money can buy,
Lord, give us an eye on forever

When we are drawn like moths to the bright lights
And sell our souls for fifteen minutes of fame,
That will be forgotten fifteen minutes later,
Lord, give us an eye on forever.

When we awaken tomorrow morning
And have to make choices of what to do with our time,
And our money and our gifts and our energies,
Lord, give us an eye on forever.

AMEN

 

Girl On The Edge Of The Photograph (For Lindsay Anderson-Emerson)

(We lost our dear friend Lindsay five years ago today. I have a photo of her and I in deep conversation with our favourite Table Mountain behind us. I keep it in my Bible. On Friday night she pushed it out onto the table and I thought, "she's still Lindsay!" Here's one of the poems I wrote at the time of her untimely passing. Lindsay was just 23.)

Girl on the edge of the photograph
Who always seemed so distracted
The gift of your mischievousness
Was what left you so unaffected.

Girl on the edge of the photograph
Who could have been centre screen
The beauty about her beauty
Was she knew what beauty means.

Girl on the edge of the photograph
A heart with peripheral vision
The strength of your contrariness
Touched the corners of this world’s derision.

Girl on the edge of the photograph
Who you could so easily miss
But not by those who watched you bow
To give their soul a kiss.

EMPTY NOW THE TOMB

 

EMPTY NOW THE TOMB

Empty now the tomb.
Empty the sting of death.
Empty the devil's evil stare.
Empty his sickly sweet venomous breath.
Empty the serpent's lying whisper.
Empty hell's expectant womb.
Empty the grave where your love ones lie.
Empty now the tomb.

Empty now the tomb

Empty the guilt of sin

Empty the lingering shame

Empty the webs we’re caught up in

Empty now the vice grip of addiction

Empty the habits well groomed

Empty whatever’s been stopping you

Empty now the tomb.

JUDAS, JUDAS

Judas, Judas

What were you thinking

You had another agenda

You had a better plan

Brute force to power to reign in might

To make all the Gentiles pay

And the Pharisee betrayers and deniers as well

Yes, all you were doing

Was pushing the envelope

Nudging the inevitable

Speeding up the Messiah’s path to that sacred throne of David.

So Judas

What were you thinking

Were you frustrated at Jesus approach

Did you run of patience with loving your enemy

Had you gotten fed up with humility and donkeys

Did you feel led on or even betrayed.

 

Judas, Judas

I hear you cry from outside my door

A society kissing God goodbye

As we write our agendas of more and more

Of building bigger barns to horde treasure on earth

At any cost whatever to whoever

They all have the same opportunity as us do they not?

A people kissing God goodbye

As they fight for a land for themselves

That they don’t want to share with others

Because others are different

And others might impinge on our traditions and our comfort

A culture kissing God goodbye

As they free themselves from any superstitions

Or old fashioned ideas of morals or values

Or boundaries by which to live by

Because we as humans have a better, smarter more evolved agenda

That will keep us all free to fight for our human right.

 

Judas, Judas

I hear you cry from inside myself

When I get frustrated

That my prayers don’t get answered now

That my friends don’t find Jesus now

That  nobody seems to notice my contribution

Or nobody asks me to make one

Or people criticise the contributions I make

That the minister doesn’t share my vision

That the leaders don’t rush it along

That the worship leaders don’t play my songs

That the services are too old fashioned

Or too contemporary

That Lord you don’t seem to be living out my agenda.

 

Lord, Lord

Forgive us when we betray you

When we step out of intimate fellowship

Into the dark and the shadows

When we think we need to make it happen

On our terms and in our time

Forgive us when we seem to know better than you

And when we need to jump start you into action

With our betraying kiss.

 

Lord, Lord

Help us to see the Judas in us all

Help us to find our ways through the shadows and darkness

Do something that the light of your glory might shine upon us

And that we could find our way back onto your agenda once again.

DISCOMFORTABLE FRIDAY - an Easter Poem

(Calling Holy Week Friday "Good" comes with some distance of hindsight. As I take my congregation through that day, this evening, I want to give a different feel. This is what I cam up with.)

Discomfortable Friday

Discordant, distorted

Everything is broken and sore

 

Miserable Friday

Misplaced, miscarried

Everything in mourning and sorrow

 

Heinous Friday

Hellish and helpless

Everything hopeless and forlorn

 

Callous Friday

Confused and contorted

Everything abandoned and blown.

 

Demonic Friday

Deathly and dismal

Everything in shadows and dark.

THE BEATITUDE POEMS

(here are three poems that made up the middle section of our Fitzroy morning service... we were looking at the Beatitudes so we started by reading them from TNIV and ended by reading them in the Message. In between we had Lucinda Williams song Blessed, my poem Blessed Are The Arrogant and two poems written especially by Fitzers Chris Hunter and Scott Jamison)

CROWNED by Chris Hunter

God's are the barren
For theirs is virgin land
 
Crowned are the broken
For they will be mended
 
Blessed are the malleable
For they will fashion a new kingdom
 
God's are those who delay
For in fasting they will feast
 
Crowned are the light bearers
They will see truth
 
Undamned are the soulclean
For they have room for God
 
Blessed are they who sabbath
For they will reside in God
 
God's are the ruptured right
For theirs is a place for everyone

BLESSED ARE THE ARROGANT by Steve Stockman

On these charred streets of Belfast

There are scars on minds and hearts

The only thing we together

Is to rip one another apart

It’s hard to find the chinks of light

In this God forsaken place

If he doesn’t bring his judgement down

It’s an even more amazing grace.

         

And cursed are the peacemakers

For they might compromise

Cursed are those who mourn

For they might apologise

Cursed are the poor in spirit

For they might confess and regret

And cursed are the merciful

For they might forgive and forget

And cursed are the meek

For they won’t ride their high horse

But blessed are the arrogant

For they will maintain this curse.

 

On these broken hearts of Belfast

There are spoken open lies

No matter what your fancy dress

The truth can’t be disguised

We belligerently spit in the face of God

This miraculous peace time space

If God don’t bring his judgement down

It’s an even more amazing grace.

LISTEN by Scott Jamison

This is how it’s going to be

Broken hearts will be held together

Grief will be out of a job for good

Pride will know the cold side of the door

What is right will be devoured

Bread will be broken with mercy

Purity will be the porchlight

And peace will be its moth and those

Who have known the back of hands

Will know every lifeline of my palm

This was how I had always planned.

 

 

BELFAST POEMS 3 - Celebrate Or Mourn

Belfast, I’m descending

Coming home to you

Travelling through the darkness

And mesmerised by the view

Underneath your fairy lights

The look so sweet

There’s hatred in your children’s hearts

And violence on your streets

My fears and tears are cascading

On this city that I love

Welcoming others and killing ourselves

What were we thinking of

Some things you did have hurt me

But I guess I’ve hurt you too

Sentences passed on what we presume

No  jury to say what was true

And if I was born down your road

Under a flag of a different kind

Then that would have painted my bigotry

To a different colour of blind

And no one is blinder

Than those who don’t look beyond

The world confined to their prejudice

That’s what war is built upon

Now yesterday has been buried

And today is for being born

Tomorrow it still has life and breath

Celebrate or mourn.