
(this is a little Lenten series for those who are interested... #12)
This poetic Reflection is based around a Bruce Cockburn’s song called Pacing The Cage:
“I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage...”
To Cockburn I add Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Romans 12 v 2 in The Message:
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
To be stumbling after Jesus into an upside down alternative Kingdom is to be constantly reflecting and critiquing the constitution of the age and standing against conformity to it. Here’s to less pacing... and less cages!
Oh how busy the days are
Rushing from one event to another
Our diaries full of appointments
Coffee breaks full of people
Our evening full of distractions
Running, taking short cuts
And missing the whole road
The distractions never stop
No one ever stops
The constitution of the age reads;
“No time to find time
As time just flies on and on.”
How loud and bright the days are
The radio wakens us with ideas and suggestions
Its ideas of fun and happiness
In the recipe of words and melodies
And rhythm and rhyme
The television fills all the loose moments
With philosophies of love and meaning
Acted out in half hour condensed packets of life
The constitution of the age screams
In the message of the medium
At the private altars of our rooms
Where the false prophets speak
And we are unaware how much we are listening.
Money is the reason for the every breath we take
So that we can have what they say we need
For our lives to be fully human
We study to get a job
That will give will give us the money
To buy what will make us more human
More human than we are without the money to buy
We buy our dignity
We buy our identity
We buy our love and meaning
The constitution of the age says
“I shop so I am”
And I am more of am than they are
Because I can buy more.
I need to know an alternative
I need to stand in the face of the constitution
I need to rebel against the age
I need to dare to be different
Not conformed to the constitution of the age
Bringing me down to its level of immaturity and madness
But transformed by the renewing of our my mind
By God who leads me into life and life in all its fullness.